In the middle decades of the twentieth century, Americans celebrated a series of strange tools as the likely harbingers of an agricultural revolution. These included x-ray devices, a toxic chemical compound called colchicine, and various radiation-generating technologies of the atomic age such as artificial radioisotopes and nuclear reactors. According to scientific and popular reports, scientists would use these mutagenic agents to generate heritable variation “at will,” which would in turn allow breeders to genetically engineer agricultural organisms “to order.” Plant breeders would no longe ... More

In the middle decades of the twentieth century, Americans celebrated a series of strange tools as the likely harbingers of an agricultural revolution. These included x-ray devices, a toxic chemical compound called colchicine, and various radiation-generating technologies of the atomic age such as artificial radioisotopes and nuclear reactors. According to scientific and popular reports, scientists would use these mutagenic agents to generate heritable variation “at will,” which would in turn allow breeders to genetically engineer agricultural organisms “to order.” Plant breeders would no longer have to conduct exhaustive searches for natural variations. Nor would they need to bother with the vagaries of hybridization and selection. They would instead alter genes and chromosomes directly, transforming fruits, grains, vegetables, and flowers with unprecedented efficiency. This book charts the history of these agricultural biotechnologies, from the longstanding hopes and expectations that fostered their pursuit, to the biological research in heredity and evolution that contributed to their innovation, to their use over several decades as tools of mutation breeding. The book argues that it is impossible to understand the development of genetic technologies apart from the broader history of American technological innovation. All were deeply entangled with other areas of innovation, both in their material production and in the outcomes anticipated from them. In capturing this entanglement, the book reveals that many Americans envisioned and enacted the process of innovating living organisms, in this case new breeds of agricultural crops and garden flowers, little differently from that of innovating any other industrial product.