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History of Organic Farming in America
By Anneliese Abbott
Organic History
Blog


If You Think It's Bad Now...A Historical Perspective on Eco-Anxiety
Inevitable future catastrophe - or lesson of hope from the past? Environmentalism today is very pessimistic. There’s a constant sense of...

Anneliese Abbott
Jun 193 min read
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Naturally Deadly: The Scientific Attack on Natural Foods
Raw peach pits and moldy peanuts contain toxic chemicals. But does that mean pesticides are safe? By the 1970s, Americans were bombarded...

Anneliese Abbott
Jun 53 min read
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Is Everything Organic? Different Definitions of "Organic"
One definition of "organic" is "a carbon-containing molecule." But is that the only definition? As I mentioned in my post “How Health...

Anneliese Abbott
May 293 min read
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When Did "Health Food" Become a Bad Word?
In the 1970s, organic food was attacked by nutritionists as a dangerous "food fad" Throughout history, most people have wanted to be...

Anneliese Abbott
May 223 min read
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The Garden: New Book about the Counterculture and Organic Farming
Finally, a book that covers the connection between the counterculture and organic farming! What’s the connection between organic farming...

Anneliese Abbott
May 152 min read
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Where Did Helen and Scott Nearing Learn About Organic Gardening?
The Nearings made compost using an all-plant-based version of the Indore Method. Countless members of the counterculture first saw...

Anneliese Abbott
May 83 min read
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Dinner with Helen and Scott Nearing: Growing Vegetables Year-Round in Vermont
Helen and Scott Nearing grew all the vegetables they ate at their Vermont and Maine homesteads--all year round. When Helen and Scott...

Anneliese Abbott
May 13 min read
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Earning a Livelihood: Helen and Scott Nearing's Maple Sugar Business
Helen and Scott Nearing traded labor with their neighbors to build a sugar house on their Vermont homestead and made a living selling...

Anneliese Abbott
Apr 243 min read
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Weapons and Fertilizer: The Haber-Bosch Process of Nitrogen Fixation
The Haber-Bosch process of fixing nitrogen produces a lot of fertilizer--but its first application was for weapons. Cut open one of the...

Anneliese Abbott
Apr 33 min read
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The Nitrogen Paradox: Is Feeding the World the Real Issue?
Biological nitrogen fixation fed the world until the end of the nineteenth century. What changed? Is it possible to feed the world’s...

Anneliese Abbott
Mar 273 min read
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Is Kottman Hall a Fallout Shelter? Cold War Institutional Architecture
When I was a student at The Ohio State University, I always wondered why Kottman Hall had so few windows. The legacies of the Cold War...

Anneliese Abbott
Mar 133 min read
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"If an A-Bomb Fell Near Your Farm": Atomic Fears in the Early Cold War
As the Korean Conflict heated up in 1950, farmers were warned about what might happen in a nuclear war. “The crippled plane with its...

Anneliese Abbott
Mar 63 min read
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Nuclear Tourism: How I Got Interested in Cold War History
On the surface, this just looks like a ranch-style house. But what's underground could destroy civilization. September 29, 2011—Rapid...

Anneliese Abbott
Feb 273 min read
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Organic Ohio Veggies: Organic Farming in 1950s Ohio
Louis Bromfield advertised his Malabar Farm produce as pesticide-free in the 1950s. Thank you to the Ohio Ecological Food and Farming...

Anneliese Abbott
Feb 203 min read
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Organic Magazine: How J.I. Rodale Popularized Organic Farming
While there's debate over who first coined the term "organic farming," J.I. Rodale was the one who popularized it. The debate over who...

Anneliese Abbott
Feb 133 min read
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Who Came Up with "Organic"? Origins of the Term "Organic Farming"
This School of Living announcement from 1939 used the phrase "organic gardening" a year before Lord Northbourne. One of my favorite...

Anneliese Abbott
Feb 63 min read
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"Normal Agriculture" in New Jersey: Stahrland Farm
Alden and Ruth Stahr of New Jersey promoted organic farming in their 1950s newsletter, Normal Agriculture . Thank you again to NOFA-NJ...

Anneliese Abbott
Jan 303 min read
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The Big Ditch: Another Soil Erosion Landmark in Silver City, New Mexico
After the devastating flood of 1902, Silver City's Big Ditch joined the list of soil erosion horror stories. “Today the Big Ditch is a...

Anneliese Abbott
Jan 233 min read
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Soil Erosion Disaster: The Dust Bowl
The Dust Bowl was one of the worst ecological disasters in recorded history--and the impetus for soil conservation I actually agree with...

Anneliese Abbott
Jan 163 min read
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Soil Erosion Landmark: Providence Canyon, Georgia
Providence Canyon, Georgia, was the soil erosion horror story of the 1930s. Now it's a state park. Natural erosion by wind and water...

Anneliese Abbott
Jan 93 min read
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