Environmental Science as Industrial Research

A session for HSS 2007

Format: 4 Papers and a commentator

Organized by Roger Turner, University of Pennsylvania

Sponsored by the Earth and Environment Forum

While classic works on industrial research have shown how laboratory sciences like chemistry and physics were enrolled in industrial projects, the environmental sciences have also played a crucial role in commercial development. This session challenges the stereotypical opposition between environmental science and industry by revealing the complex ways that various industries acted as patrons, advocates, creators, and users of environmental science. The papers focus on the American context from the mid-19th to the mid 20th century, studying forestry, geology, meteorology, and the agricultural sciences. Our commentator adds an expertise in fisheries and oceanography to the terrestrial and atmospheric sciences covered in the papers. The papers show that government scientific bureaus retained a key role in organizing American environmental science, even as their activities changed in response to industrial needs. Other scientists found new career opportunities outside of government and the academy as companies sought to use scientific knowledge to find raw materials, manage spaces in order to control productivity, and maintain reliable transportation systems. Many environmental scientists also found industrial support important for creating and maintaining the structures their knowledge depended upon, such as surveillance networks or field research sites. The session broadens our understanding of the role of science in economic development, while also showing how the environmental sciences and a range of industrial activities were co-constructed.