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SUMMARY:'Photography versus the pest': Shell chemicals\, mass media and pe
 sticides in post-war Britain - Max Long (History\, University of Cambridge
 )
DTSTART:20230313T130000Z
DTEND:20230313T140000Z
UID:TALK195343@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Silvia M. Marchiori
DESCRIPTION:This paper explores the intersections between industrial agric
 ulture\, mass media\, and extraction by examining colour photographs and f
 ilms produced by the oil and chemicals corporation Royal Dutch Shell in po
 st-Second World War Britain. In the 1940s\, new potent organochloride pest
 icides entered the agricultural market\, promising to revolutionise produc
 tivity. Many of these were made from byproducts of oil refining\, and were
  manufactured by oil companies like Shell. To market these new products\, 
 Shell spared no expense in the production of glossy photographs and vivid 
 films intended to help farmers to 'visualise' the pests that threatened th
 eir crops. These images often drew on the expertise of natural history pho
 tographers and filmmakers\, who had finessed techniques of visualising ins
 ects and other pests over the preceding decades. This paper offers a detai
 led examination of Shell's marketing in the 1950s and early 1960s and its 
 use of scientific images.
LOCATION:Seminar Room 1\, Department of History and Philosophy of Science
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