NSF Award
9616937
The goal of this project is to produce a book-length examination of the early agricultural context of genetic research in the United States, and of the significance of that context for the development of genetics as a discipline. The aim is to produce both a study of U.S. genetics in its first thirty years and a case study of the relationship between institutional context and intellectual content. More specifically, the study will document the prevalence of Mendelian genetics in agricultural institutions, explain that involvement in terms of U.S. agricultural policy and characteristics of those institutions, and examine the implications for genetics research of the practical and theoretical emphases of agriculture. The central purpose of the study is to demonstrate that U.S. genetics, in its early decades was an agricultural discipline, and that during this period its successes and failures were consequences of agricultural policy and science that also went on to shape policy and science. When completed, this study will be the first disciplinary history of genetics focusing exclusively on the early decades within the United States.
