| This dissertation examines the Bureau of Entomology within the U.S. Department of Agriculture under the leadership of L. O. Howard. The aim is to provide a fuller view of the government enterprise of entomology, as a case study of federal bureau science. The central argument is that the Bureau of Entomology flourished through a particular combination of science and bureaucratic management: appeals to the authority of science helped build the Bureau, and the Bureau served as a key institution for structuring the new discipline of economic entomology.; Fieldwork constituted the central activity in stations across America. While scientists at the field stations followed the rules and codes of conduct set by the Washington bureaucracy, their research programs were shaped by the public demand for preventing insect damage to crops and humans as well as livestock. In order to establish their own scientific authority and autonomy, field entomologists utilized various boundary-making strategies to distinguish themselves from neighboring interests, including nonscientists with empirical experience, "scientific farmers," and even fellow scientists having different scientific backgrounds and approaches.; The consequences of the Bureau's scientific activities were substantial. With the wide range of its insect control program, the Bureau was able to advance a broad mandate of economic entomology. Claiming that only trained entomologists were qualified to study insect biology, the Bureau field scientists developed theories and techniques of insect control, adapting them to accommodate different situations and places. As a result, they promoted broad approaches to economic entomology that included biological, chemical, and cultural control methods as well as quarantine. Developed as a part of the broad field of economic entomology, medical entomology, an important part of the Bureau's mission, remained autonomous from medicine.; This examination of the Bureau of Entomology during an era of massive development of sciences and bureaus demonstrates all the complexity of the growth of science in the government: as an example of bureau-level science, as a network of workers in relation to their various publics, as a science that sought to combat the "insect menace," and as an emerging discipline that was centered primarily in the government. |
