Syntheticising Scandinavia: The Introduction of Synthetic Pesticides to Scandinavian Gardens, 1945-1952

2020

Abstract This study examines the introduction of prescriptive pesticide technologies into Scandinavian family gardens. It analyses pesticide propaganda and plant protection experts’ advice and instructions on the use of pesticides directed at amateur, home gardeners in Norway, Sweden and Denmark in the years between 1945 and 1952, the period when the new generation of synthetic pesticides was introduced in Scandinavia, and eagerly advocated by the leading experts of plant protection science. The sources investigated are gardening magazines and their special issues on garden instruction and the use of chemicals through the seasons, edited, published and distributed to a wide readership by na…