{"id":79661,"date":"2014-11-17T16:06:15","date_gmt":"2014-11-17T21:06:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=79661"},"modified":"2014-11-17T16:19:09","modified_gmt":"2014-11-17T21:19:09","slug":"a-brief-history-of-insect-control","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/17\/a-brief-history-of-insect-control\/","title":{"rendered":"A Brief History of Insect Control"},"content":{"rendered":"

Long before environmentalism, Charles Valentine Riley had a problem with pesticide.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Spraying the capitol with pesticide, 1886.<\/p><\/div>\n

In science, good ideas often trump great ones. Take, for instance, Charles Valentine Riley, the most prescient scientist of whom you\u2019ve never heard. The man had a great idea. Then came Leland Howard, his prickly and calculating successor. He had the good one.<\/p>\n

These men were late nineteenth-century entomologists, a humble vocation by the standards of the day. But the U.S. Department of Agriculture\u2014new then, having been formed in 1862\u2014asked them to accomplish something not so humble: they were to learn everything there was to know about agricultural pests, and then to destroy them. The intended beneficiaries of this project were panicked farmers whose fields were being decimated by insect invasions. Riley and Howard were charged with exterminating the very creatures they studied. If the irony registered, they never said so.<\/p>\n

Riley was the older of the two gentlemen. He\u2019d assumed leadership of the U.S. Entomological Commission in 1876 after spearheading the country\u2019s first Grasshopper Commission. His big idea\u2014the great one\u2014was to merge the observational folk-wisdom of everyday farmers with the financial largesse of the federal government to help insects kill insects. Biological control, we now call it. If the concept of exterminating insects with insects seemed moony, American farmers were game. They\u2019d seen it happen on the ground and they were desperate. Between 1860 and 1900\u2014a time when agriculture began to pursue high-yielding monoculture in earnest\u2014armies of chinch bugs, locusts, San Jose scales, boll weevils, Colorado potato beetles, and Hessian flies capitalized on the smorgasbord, moving steadily eastward and shredding the foodscape with biblical power. One Illinois farmer reported that there were so many locusts in his fields that \u201cthe ground seemed to be moving.\u201d Pick up an agricultural report from the period\u2014you know, just pick one up!\u2014and you\u2019ll find that an apocalyptic strain of agrarian rhetoric echoed across America\u2019s amber waves of grain.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve read nearly every word Riley wrote, at least every available report and letter, and my overwhelming impression is that the guy was one charming cat. He rode his bike all over D.C. for exercise. He had six kids and doted on them. Like many entomologists, he was a brilliant illustrator of insects. When he taught entomology classes at the University of Missouri in the 1870s, he was so thrilled to be talking shop that he would draw insects on the board with both hands at once. He grew his hair into a cascade of curls and his students adored him. I have no hard proof, but there was something about Riley\u2019s zest for life in general\u2014and for insect life in particular\u2014that dissuaded him from the easy answer to the insect problem, the one that the power brokers of the day wanted: chemicals. <\/p>\n

\"riley1876\"<\/a>

Riley, 1876.<\/p><\/div>\n

Riley was instinctively wary of these new concoctions\u2014amateurish compounds of arsenic and lead and kerosene\u2014being sprayed and dusted over arable land and healthy soil. He had never, he wrote, \u201chad much faith in the application to the plant or the insect of any chemical mixture.\u201d It was the insects\u2019 natural enemies, by contrast, \u201cthat carry on their good work most effectually.\u201d (In this respect Riley stood on the shoulders of his mentor, Benjamin Walsh, an outspoken entomologist who deemed chemical washes \u201chellbroths\u201d and spent columns of ink lambasting them in The American Entomologist<\/em>.) Riley wasn\u2019t categorically opposed to the available sprays of the day\u2014Paris Green and London Purple, to name the most popular\u2014but he decided that it was in everyone\u2019s best interest to keep calm, do some fieldwork, and see if nature might do the job first. Charles Darwin, for one, sent him a little fan note.<\/p>\n

Riley knew his way around a farm. He cut his teeth in the wheat fields of the Midwest, where he worked himself to the point of exhaustion helping farmers manage a microscopic root insect called phylloxera. His proposed solution was to introduce mites that \u201cprey extensively on this root-inhabiting type.\u201d The results were decent, but no knockout. Riley drew upon this research to help French vintners, whose vineyards were being devastated by phylloxera; he suggested that they graft a native grape onto a phylloxera-resistant American vine. This advice saved France\u2019s wine industry. In 1884 Riley had a French Grand Gold Medal pinned to his lapel.<\/p>\n

\"worm_1\"<\/a>

An illustration by Riley from the 1885 United States Entomological Commission Report on the Cotton Worm.<\/p><\/div>\n

Then he hit pay dirt at home. In 1886 an Australian insect called the cottony-cushion scale\u2014an adult female looks like a tiny puff of cotton\u2014came over on some acacia tree saplings and sent the nation\u2019s orange industry into a tailspin, invading California\u2019s citrus groves. Riley, who was by this time head of the Department of Agriculture\u2019s entomology division, sent an insect collector to find the scale\u2019s natural predators. By January 1889, the collector had an answer: Vedalia beetles. California entomologists bred and released 10,555 of them into California\u2019s orange groves. Within months the cottony-cushion scale had effectively vanished and the industry recovered.<\/p>\n

It was the world\u2019s first commercial-scale triumph of biological control. The New York Times<\/em> called Riley\u2019s plan \u201ca complete success,\u201d and Riley, beside himself, began centering the Division of Entomology\u2019s research agenda on the promise of biological control. But those plans came to a tragic halt on September 14, 1895. Riding his bike to the Smithsonian to look at butterflies, Riley hit a paving stone, pitched over the handlebars, and died from a head injury. (Oddly enough, years earlier his mentor, Walsh, had been run over by a train.)<\/p>\n

\"vedaliabeetle\"<\/a>

Riley\u2019s sketches of the Vedalia beetle.<\/p><\/div>\n

Leland Howard, Riley\u2019s longtime second-in-command\u2014openly disgruntled for having been treated \u201clike a clerk\u201d\u2014took charge of the Division of Entomology. His training took place in a Cornell laboratory rather than a Missouri wheat field, and he quickly developed different ideas about effective insect control. This was the Progressive Era, and Howard, a good progressive, believed that problems should be identified, experts amassed, and the most potent solutions applied. For a federal entomologist accountable to the general public, this meant one thing: chemicals.<\/p>\n

\"beetle\"<\/a>

Riley\u2019s drawings of the Colorado Potato Beetle.<\/p><\/div>\n

To be fair, Howard gave biological control a shot. Soon after assuming Riley\u2019s position, he targeted the gypsy moth, whose larvae had come to Massachusetts by way of a French suitcase back in the 1860s. By the 1890s, they were denuding trees throughout New England. Howard traveled to Europe and researched the moth\u2019s natural enemies. He returned with several possible predators, released them, and prayed for success\u2014but to no avail. He never found his Vedalia beetle. The gypsy moth continued to decimate the region\u2019s towering hardwoods, leaving Howard, as one critic put it, with \u201cegg on his face.\u201d<\/p>\n

So Howard, suddenly attuned to the political benefits of expediency, did something remarkably savvy. He promoted insecticides by highlighting a far more pervasive danger: mosquitoes, which had, after the 1900 discovery that they were linked to malaria, become the preeminent pest in America. Concern for the nation\u2019s agricultural prosperity yielded easily to public health anxieties, and Howard was well aware of the transition\u2014he bombastically announced the onset of a \u201cmosquito plague\u201d and quickly wrote Mosquitoes: How They Live; How They Carry Disease; How They Are Classified; How They May Be Destroyed<\/em>. In that volume, he made an airtight case: the only way to kill the Anopheles<\/em> mosquito, and thereby to protect and serve the citizenry, was to blanket the nation with a combustible hydrocarbon mist of kerosene.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no doubt that Howard was right. Kerosene worked. With the Insecticide Act of 1910, mosquito spraying became not only standardized, but also relatively safe. Then came World War I. In yet another ingeniously calculating move, Howard let the War Department know that, with mites and mosquitoes and lice endemic to trench warfare, entomologists armed with chemical sprays could be just as critical to the war effort as soldiers armed with rifles. \u201cWarfare against insect life,\u201d he explained, required the Division of Entomology to expand its arsenal to include benzene, carbolic acid, creosote, alkaline soaks, and sulfur baths. Medical entomology, as they called it, was born.<\/p>\n

\"Man<\/a>And surely, the thinking went, what worked in the trenches would work in the fields at home. While chemical treatments were administered in Europe, farmers in the United States\u2014men and women burdened with provisioning the war effort\u2014had no time to dither with the trial-and-error headache of biological control. Castor beans (used for castor oil to lubricate airplane engines), beef, and wheat showed up in ample quantities because of the arsenical compounds and cattle \u201cdipping vats\u201d designed to keep insects at bay. In the decade after the war, the trend continued apace: farmers fought the boll weevil with ten million pounds of carbon arsenate dust and dropped bombs of Paris Green from airplanes and blimps over corn fields. An arsenic-based mosquito larvicide came to market, and companies such as DuPont and the Hercules Powder Company began to lure farmers into the quick-fix fold. A kind of path dependency set in.<\/p>\n

By the time Leland Howard retired, in 1927, the United States was a full-fledged insecticide nation. When he died in 1950, DDT had replaced his career-launching kerosene as the mosquito killer of choice. The last vestiges of Riley\u2019s biological-control regime were fading from the public memory. And wouldn\u2019t you know it? In his retirement, Howard took up cycling.<\/p>\n

James McWilliams is a writer living in Austin, Texas. He teaches at Texas State University and is the author of <\/em>Just Food: Where Locavores Get It Wrong and How We Can Truly Eat Responsibly<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Long before environmentalism, Charles Valentine Riley had a problem with pesticide. In science, good ideas often trump great ones. Take, for instance, Charles Valentine Riley, the most prescient scientist of whom you\u2019ve never heard. The man had a great idea. Then came Leland Howard, his prickly and calculating successor. He had the good one. These […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":732,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7555],"tags":[16065,16066,14142,16067,16068,16069],"class_list":["post-79661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-on-history","tag-charles-valentine-riley","tag-environmentalism","tag-insects","tag-leland-howard","tag-u-s-department-of-agriculture","tag-u-s-entomological-commission"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nA Brief History of Insect Control<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Long before environmentalism, Charles Valentine Riley had a problem with pesticide.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/17\/a-brief-history-of-insect-control\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Brief History of Insect Control by James McWilliams\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"November 17, 2014 \u2013 Long before environmentalism, Charles Valentine Riley had a problem with pesticide. In science, good ideas often trump great ones. Take, for instance,\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/17\/a-brief-history-of-insect-control\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-11-17T21:06:15+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-11-17T21:19:09+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/capitol-spraying.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"900\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"687\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"James McWilliams\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"James McWilliams\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"8 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/17\/a-brief-history-of-insect-control\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/17\/a-brief-history-of-insect-control\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"James McWilliams\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/19b8b20e82e76a25028643abe5a7cd01\"},\"headline\":\"A Brief History of Insect Control\",\"datePublished\":\"2014-11-17T21:06:15+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2014-11-17T21:19:09+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/17\/a-brief-history-of-insect-control\/\"},\"wordCount\":1670,\"commentCount\":4,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/17\/a-brief-history-of-insect-control\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/capitol-spraying.png\",\"keywords\":[\"Charles Valentine Riley\",\"environmentalism\",\"insects\",\"Leland Howard\",\"U.S. Department of Agriculture\",\"U.S. Entomological Commission\"],\"articleSection\":[\"On History\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/17\/a-brief-history-of-insect-control\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/17\/a-brief-history-of-insect-control\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/17\/a-brief-history-of-insect-control\/\",\"name\":\"A Brief History of Insect Control\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/17\/a-brief-history-of-insect-control\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/17\/a-brief-history-of-insect-control\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/capitol-spraying.png\",\"datePublished\":\"2014-11-17T21:06:15+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2014-11-17T21:19:09+00:00\",\"description\":\"Long before environmentalism, Charles Valentine Riley had a problem with pesticide.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/17\/a-brief-history-of-insect-control\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/17\/a-brief-history-of-insect-control\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/17\/a-brief-history-of-insect-control\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/capitol-spraying.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/capitol-spraying.png\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/17\/a-brief-history-of-insect-control\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"A Brief History of Insect Control\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"description\":\"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"width\":696,\"height\":696,\"caption\":\"The Paris Review\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview\",\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/19b8b20e82e76a25028643abe5a7cd01\",\"name\":\"James McWilliams\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/85debff76253d6234c0314fdd8ff9ec5195f584f1ed2e4113ffa497affb9388e?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/85debff76253d6234c0314fdd8ff9ec5195f584f1ed2e4113ffa497affb9388e?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"James McWilliams\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/jmcwilliams\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"A Brief History of Insect Control","description":"Long before environmentalism, Charles Valentine Riley had a problem with pesticide.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/17\/a-brief-history-of-insect-control\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"A Brief History of Insect Control by James McWilliams","og_description":"November 17, 2014 \u2013 Long before environmentalism, Charles Valentine Riley had a problem with pesticide. In science, good ideas often trump great ones. Take, for instance,","og_url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/17\/a-brief-history-of-insect-control\/","og_site_name":"The Paris Review","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","article_published_time":"2014-11-17T21:06:15+00:00","article_modified_time":"2014-11-17T21:19:09+00:00","og_image":[{"width":900,"height":687,"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/capitol-spraying.png","type":"image\/png"}],"author":"James McWilliams","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@parisreview","twitter_site":"@parisreview","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"James McWilliams","Est. reading time":"8 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/17\/a-brief-history-of-insect-control\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/17\/a-brief-history-of-insect-control\/"},"author":{"name":"James McWilliams","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/19b8b20e82e76a25028643abe5a7cd01"},"headline":"A Brief History of Insect Control","datePublished":"2014-11-17T21:06:15+00:00","dateModified":"2014-11-17T21:19:09+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/17\/a-brief-history-of-insect-control\/"},"wordCount":1670,"commentCount":4,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/17\/a-brief-history-of-insect-control\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/capitol-spraying.png","keywords":["Charles Valentine Riley","environmentalism","insects","Leland Howard","U.S. Department of Agriculture","U.S. Entomological Commission"],"articleSection":["On History"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/17\/a-brief-history-of-insect-control\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/17\/a-brief-history-of-insect-control\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/17\/a-brief-history-of-insect-control\/","name":"A Brief History of Insect Control","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/17\/a-brief-history-of-insect-control\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/17\/a-brief-history-of-insect-control\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/capitol-spraying.png","datePublished":"2014-11-17T21:06:15+00:00","dateModified":"2014-11-17T21:19:09+00:00","description":"Long before environmentalism, Charles Valentine Riley had a problem with pesticide.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/17\/a-brief-history-of-insect-control\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/17\/a-brief-history-of-insect-control\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/17\/a-brief-history-of-insect-control\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/capitol-spraying.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/capitol-spraying.png"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/17\/a-brief-history-of-insect-control\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"A Brief History of Insect Control"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","name":"The Paris Review","description":"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization","name":"The Paris Review","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","width":696,"height":696,"caption":"The Paris Review"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/19b8b20e82e76a25028643abe5a7cd01","name":"James McWilliams","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/85debff76253d6234c0314fdd8ff9ec5195f584f1ed2e4113ffa497affb9388e?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/85debff76253d6234c0314fdd8ff9ec5195f584f1ed2e4113ffa497affb9388e?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"James McWilliams"},"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/jmcwilliams\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/732"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79661"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79661\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79691,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79661\/revisions\/79691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}