Tad Brown is a Research Associate in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge and a 2024-2025 Consortium Research Fellow.
My ongoing book project on the history of peanuts (Arachis hypogaea) seeks to address the relationship between botanical collections and industrial commodities during the twentieth century, or how seeds from around the world resulted in the commercial crop varieties cultivated for processed foods. Building on work in the history of science and technology that investigates how plant materials moved through colonial networks, I have been unearthing the backstory of specific peanut varieties. Crop scientists in the United States and abroad bred these peanuts to yield greater fractions of oil. Fat from Seeds aims to better understand the role of chemistry and food science in altering the make-up of peanut kernels to suit the demands of food processors.
In Kansas City, rather far away from any peanut-growing region, I was shocked to find that the Linda Hall Library had a bound copy of Peanut Journal and Nut World. I had to ask somebody to please explain why a library in the Midwest would also possess a comprehensive series of the International Arachis Newsletter prepared by the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics based in India? What I learned is that the Linda Hall Library was founded to collect this sort of material on science and technology. It even had the inaugural edition of Peanut Science, the journal of the American Peanut Research and Education Association. (Unfortunately, an illustrated 1912 lecture on “The Peanut” by the USDA Bureau of Plant Industry did not have accompanying lantern slides, but one can dream.) The real find for my project was a 1976 book on genetics and breeding of Arachis. The author clarified details about hybridization and polyploidy that had long boggled my peanut brain. And to think, I may have never known about this place without the Consortium.
Next, I went to the Hagley Museum and Library in Delaware, which contains the Litchfield Collection on the History of Fatty Materials. There is much of interest in these folders. For instance, the Planters Edible Oil Company, a spinoff of the peanut company, published booklet after booklet of recipes that call for peanut oil. The owners of Planters were Italian immigrants, and entire sections of these booklets feature Italian foods—from Salsa Alla Napoletana to Eggplant Roma. Another archival gem was filed with the Ernest Dichter papers. In the early 1960s, his Institute for Motivational Research conducted all-women studies with readers of the New York Times about grocery product advertising, including the “merits of dry roasted nuts.” Other than being less greasy, no one really knew how to interpret those words on the label. Respondents figured that the peanuts must be healthier, though still fattening, and good with a cocktail. The Hagley Library itself is located on the original grounds of DuPont, and that chemical company’s extensive records fill the archives. My exploratory visit has inspired me to submit a larger grant to return and research the business of seed disinfectants.
I ended my travels nearby in Philadelphia. The Academy of Natural Sciences, affiliated with Drexel University, had several editions of Select Extra-Tropical Plants by Ferdinand von Mueller, the influential German-Australian botanist. In the reading room I was able to examine changes for his entry on peanuts from 1876 to 1891. No big surprises there. I was, however, surprised to see a handwritten note by the author on the inner cover of the first edition. A reference librarian explained that such dedications were common practice with library books at the time. History gets dated, even hard to handle, but never old.
My fellowship with the Consortium has led to a new perspective on collections that back the history of science, technology, and medicine. Libraries devoted to a particular catalogue are indispensable for the continuance of knowledge and, perhaps equally importantly, as a space with big old trees where people can gather to discuss ideas. By facilitating research trips and hosting online talks, the Consortium embodies this very ethos.