Latex and Blood: Science, Markets, and American Empire

The Lawrence Badash Distinguished Lecture
Sponsored by the Lawrence Badash Speakers’ Fund and hosted by the UCSB Center for Science in Society

During the 20th century, the United States developed a unique kind of empire, one bound together less by military conquest and direct political administration than by the expansion of markets, corporate influence, and cultural exchange. The political and economic ties between the United States and the Republic of Liberia, cemented in the 1920s when the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company successfully established a major rubber plantation in the country, exemplify this new imperial relationship. Yet, the transformation of Liberia into America’s rubber empire depended on new tools of seeing and new forms of scientific and medical expertise. Through a focus on the Harvard African Expedition to Liberia in 1926, the motion picture record it gathered, and the place of rubber as a precious commodity in the global economy, Prof. Mitman’s talk will investigate the relationships between science, business, and the state in the economic transformation of nature and a nation.

Gregg Mitman is William Coleman Professor of the History of Science and professor of medical history and science and technology studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he also serves as Interim Director of the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies. His most recent books include Reel Nature: America’s Romance with Wildlife on Film, 2d ed. (2009) and Breathing Space: How Allergies Shape Our Lives and Landscapes (2007).

This event is free and open to the public. The UCSB History Associates and the Department of History will co-host a reception following Prof. Mitman’s lecture.

jwil 08.ii.2010