Blasting the Farm: Chemical High Explosives and the Rise of Industrial Agriculture, 1867-1930

Author

Patrick Benjamin Swart, The University Of MontanaFollow

Year of Award

2019

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Type

Master of Arts (MA)

Degree Name

History

Department or School/College

History

Committee Chair

Kyle G. Volk

Commitee Members

Kyle G. Volk, Jeff Wiltse, Leif Fredrickson

Keywords

chemical high explosives, industrial agriculture, ecological change, industrial capitalism, chemical farmining, reclamation

Publisher

University of Montana

Subject Categories

Agricultural Economics | Agricultural Education | History of Science, Technology, and Medicine | Intellectual History | Social History | United States History

Recommended Citation

This thesis explores the golden age of chemical high explosives in American agriculture. It argues that the interactions of ordinary farmers, chemical manufacturers, and the agricultural state reinvented chemical high explosives as implements that farmers would use to restructure and manage agricultural ecosystems. By the second decade of the twentieth century dynamite had become a normal feature of the farm. While ordinary farmers used dynamite in everyday tasks to intensify crop production, chemical manufacturers and the agricultural state further promoted dynamite farming while simultaneously bolstering secondary industries such as irrigation and other land reclamation projects associated with extensive agricultural developments. As chemical high explosives helped Americans expand agriculture into new regions, new environmental barriers to crop production emerged. These barriers necessitated further inputs of capital and energy in agricultural production, which catalyzed the movement towards intensive agriculture that is intimately linked to modern industrial agricultural practices. As mechanical implements and a new form of energy, chemical high explosives helped catalyze the development of industrial agriculture in this period of American history.