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• Harvest of Hazards: Family Farming, Accidents, and Expertise in the Corn Belt, 1940−1975 by Derek S. Oden
• Mark D. Hersey (bio)

Although farm technologies occupy a central place in Harvest of Hazards, Derek S. Oden frames the work principally as an agricultural and rural history. Oden thus offers little analysis of how farmers (or the experts advising them) constructed meanings around the technologies that often proved to be the cause of injury and death. More descriptive than argumentative, the book documents rather than traces change over time; causal connections remain elusive, with explanations assumed or asserted rather than interrogated. Nonetheless, even as a before and after snapshot, Oden's study proves valuable—both as the first serious study of its subject and in offering a salutary reminder that moving an ostensibly familiar story to a rural setting can cast it in a new and revealing light.

Although he gives a nod to some of the farm-safety movement's antecedents, Oden begins his story in World War II, by which time government regulation, the demands of labor unions, and "voluntary corporate efforts [had] combined to drastically improve workplace safety" in much of America's industrial sector. Farms, by contrast, remained as dangerous as ever. Moreover, because they were homes as well as workplaces, children faced many of the same dangers as their parents, and when injuries occurred, the rural nature of farms could delay medical attention.

Although Oden points to a number of risks unique to farms—from fires ignited by grain dryers to injuries at the hooves and teeth of livestock—he focuses on those posed by farm machinery and chemicals. The rapid adoption of new technologies in the mid-twentieth century led many to worry to that "mechanical transformations had outpaced farmers' capacity to adapt to the new machines." Tractors, elevators, and wagons crushed farmers with alarming regularity, and fast-moving parts—from spinning power-takeoff shafts (often shielded) to elevators and augers (generally lacked protective features)—cost farmers limbs and lives. As new technologies came on the scene, their maintenance fell to farmers, who had to measure maintenance and safety precautions against the time dedicated to doing things that kept their farms solvent. To such mechanical perils were added chemical ones. Farmers predictably understood little about the chemical properties and potential unintended consequences of pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, and fertilizers, and they used them, in contrast to factory workers, without any monitoring. Sparse, sometimes contradictory, instructions on the chemicals' labels compounded the danger, and Oden incorporates oral histories from farmers that underscore their regular exposure to (and often casual treatment of) such chemicals.

In these broader circumstances, a coherent farm-safety movement [End Page 1260] emerged in the early 1940s and gained traction over the next two decades. By 1944, the National Safety Council had created a separate division dedicated to farm safety. Not coincidentally, Farm Safety Week was inaugurated that same year. During the 1950s, the creation of organizations like the Institute of Agricultural Medicine lent momentum to the movement. Through printed material, direct instruction (often by land-grant institutions and the USDA's extension service), and demonstrations (tractor-tipping sparked particular enthusiasm), farm safety advocates sought to sell the safety message to sometimes skeptical farmers, who largely accepted risk as an inherent part of their occupation. Unsurprisingly, farm-safety advocates probably scored their greatest success via youth organizations, and Oden devotes an entire chapter to those efforts.

By the 1970s, federal laws restricted child labor on farms and protective measures like rollover protection systems and slow-moving-vehicle emblems had become commonplace, though hardly ubiquitous. The farm-safety movement, however, had fractured along several fault lines: as farm-safety specialists sought to carve out a distinctive professional identity, farmers resented the regulatory agencies charged with protecting them, and the movement's leaders divided over whether or not equipment manufacturers should be held legally culpable in lawsuits stemming from farm accidents. And despite real improvements, farming remained a dangerous occupation.

Although his book is more successful in...

审核人：

• 危险收获：1940−1975年玉米带中的家庭农业，事故和专门知识，作者：德里克·S·奥登（Derek S. Oden）
• 马克·D·赫尔西（生物）

尽管农业技术在《危害丰收》中占据中心位置，但德里克·S·奥登（Derek S. Oden）的工作主要是农业和农村历史。因此，Oden很少提供有关农民（或为他们提供建议的专家）如何围绕通常被证明是造成伤害和死亡的技术来构造意义的分析。这本书更具描述性，而不是辩论性，而是随着时间的推移而不是痕迹发生变化。因果关系仍然难以捉摸，只是假定或主张了解释，而不是加以审问。尽管如此，即使作为快照的前后，奥登的研究也被证明是有价值的–既是对其主题的首次认真研究，又是一种有益的提醒，即将表面上熟悉的故事搬到农村可以使它焕然一新。

尽管奥登向农业安全运动的某些先辈致敬，但奥登还是在第二次世界大战中开始了他的故事，那时政府监管，工会的要求和“公司的自愿性努力相结合，从而大大改善了工作场所的安全性”在美国大部分的工业领域。相比之下，农场仍然像以往一样危险。此外，由于儿童既是家又是工作场所，因此与父母一样面临许多相同的危险，一旦受伤，农场的乡村性质可能会延误医疗工作。

尽管Oden指出了农场独有的多种风险-从谷物烘干机引发的大火到牲畜的蹄和齿的受伤-他还是着眼于农业机械和化学药品带来的风险。在二十世纪中叶，新技术的迅速采用使许多人担心“机械改造已经超过了农民适应新机器的能力”。拖拉机，升降机和货车以令人震惊的规律压垮农民，而快速移动的零件-从旋转的取力轴（通常是带屏蔽的）到升降机和螺旋钻（通常缺乏保护功能）-花费了农民四肢和生命。随着新技术的出现，他们的维护工作由农民承担，他们不得不根据专门用于维持农场偿债能力的时间来衡量维护和安全预防措施。向此类机械危险中添加了化学危险。可以预见的是，农民对农药，除草剂，杀真菌剂和化肥的化学性质以及潜在的意想不到的后果了解甚少，与工厂工人相比，他们使用它们时没有进行任何监控。化学品标签上的稀疏，有时相互矛盾的说明加剧了危险，奥登（Oden）结合了农民的口述历史，强调了他们对此类化学品的定期暴露（通常是随意处理）。

在这些更广泛的情况下，一场连贯的农场安全运动[结束第1260页]出现在1940年代初期，并在接下来的20年中受到关注。到1944年，国家安全委员会已建立了一个专门负责农场安全的部门。并非偶然的是，同年成立了“农场安全周”。在1950年代，像农业医学研究所这样的组织的建立为运动提供了动力。通过印刷材料，直接指示（通常由土地赠予机构和USDA的推广服务部门）和示威活动（引爆拖拉机的行为引起了特别的热情），农场安全倡导者试图将安全信息卖给有时持怀疑态度的农民，他们普遍认为风险是他们职业的固有部分。毫不奇怪，农场安全倡导者很可能通过青年组织取得了最大的成功，而奥登（Oden）则整整一章致力于这些努力。

到1970年代，联邦法律已将童工限制在农场上，防倾翻保护系统和行驶缓慢的车辆标志等保护性措施已经普及，尽管几乎无处不在。但是，农场安全运动沿几个断层断裂：当农场安全专家试图树立独特的职业身份时，农民对负责保护他们的监管机构感到不满，运动的领导者就设备制造商与否进行了分歧在农场事故引起的诉讼中，应追究其法律责任。尽管取得了实际的进步，但耕种仍然是一项危险的职业。

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