Dissertation Research: Trucking Country: Food, Farms, and Freight in America's Rural Industrial Landscape, 1945-1975

论文研究：卡车运输国家：美国农村工业景观中的食品、农场和货运，1945-1975 年

• 批准号: 0322268
• 负责人: Deborah Fitzgerald
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2003
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2003-08-01 至 2004-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0322268&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Dissertation; Research; Trucking; Country; Food

This is a Science and Technology Studies Dissertation Improvement Grant that explores how systems of mass food production and consumption came to depend on flexible highway transportation after World War II, transforming the lives and landscapes of rural Americans in the process. At the end of World War II the booming growth of suburbs, supermarkets, and highways created the conditions for a streamlined food economy. Food processors and supermarkets teamed up to rationalize the system for getting fresh food to suburban consumers. This dissertation argues that trucks and highways provided the flexible infrastructure that made this rationalization possible, connecting super-productive farms and high-tech food processors to suburban supermarkets. The dissertation uses three case studies (milk, beef, and frozen vegetables) to explore how and why these changes in America's food distribution network came about. Furthermore, long-haul trucks were part of an intricate web of technologies, businesses, and political networks that not only helped to feed Americans in new ways, but also helped to transform rural landscapes that had once been dependent on railways. Trucking bound together federal agricultural experts, food processors and supermarkets, truck manufacturers, and rural working-class truck drivers in a political and economic system dedicated to moving food smoothly to suburban consumers. "Trucking Country" seeks to bridge the gap between the history of technology and the history of agriculture by looking at the flow of food from producers to consumers. The dissertation contributes to studies of transportation, technological systems, and industrialization, which have constructed an incomplete history of industrial America by generally ignoring rural technologies and the period after WWII. Agricultural and rural historians, meanwhile, have tended to treat technological change as an autonomous force that deterministically reconstructs rural life. While historians of technology generally seek to understand technological change within a broad social context, historians of agricultural technology have generally focused only on technologies of production on farms. "Trucking Country" opens up the "black box" of agricultural technology while simultaneously pushing the history of technology farther afield. Importantly, this integration leads to a significant contribution to "mainstream" American history. Studying the flow of food between producers and consumers provides an empirically rich understanding of postwar suburban consumer culture and its consequences for the rest of the nation. The dissertation is thus intended to reach a broad audience of readers who have yet to see a rigorous scholarly treatment of the history of trucking in America. "Trucking Country" would furthermore make significant contributions to contemporary political debates about industrial agribusiness and transportation policies. An NSF grant would support the achievement of these goals by providing funds for archival research that would otherwise be impossible. Visits will be made to collect manuscript materials and oral histories regarding dairy, beef, and frozen food processing, agricultural organizations, federal agricultural transportation policymaking, and the trucking industry.

这是一项科学与技术研究论文改进赠款，探讨了大众粮食生产和消费系统如何取决于第二次世界大战后灵活的高速公路运输，从而改变了美国农村地区的生活和景观。第二次世界大战结束时，郊区，超市和高速公路的蓬勃发展为简化的食品经济创造了条件。食品加工商和超市合作，合理化了该系统，以将新鲜食品送往郊区消费者。该论文认为，卡车和高速公路提供了使这种合理化的灵活基础设施，将超级生产的农场和高科技食品加工机连接到郊区的超市。论文使用三个案例研究（牛奶，牛肉和冷冻蔬菜）来探讨美国食品分销网络中这些变化的方式以及为什么出现。此外，长途卡车是复杂的技术，企业和政治网络网络的一部分，这些网络不仅有助于以新的方式养活美国人，而且还有助于改变曾经依赖铁路的农村景观。货运将联邦农业专家，食品加工商和超市，卡车制造商和农村工人阶级卡车司机绑架在一起，该驾驶员专门用于将食品顺利地移向郊区消费者。 “货运国”试图通过查看从生产者到消费者的食物流来弥合技术历史与农业历史之间的差距。论文有助于对运输，技术系统和工业化的研究，这些研究通常通过忽略农村技术和第二次世界大战后的时期来构建了不完整的工业美国历史。同时，农业和农村历史学家倾向于将技术变革视为确定性地重建农村生活的自主力量。尽管技术的历史学家通常寻求在广泛的社会环境中理解技术变革，但农业技术的历史学家通常只关注农场生产技术。 “货运国”打开了农业技术的“黑匣子”，同时推动了更远的技术历史。重要的是，这种整合为“主流”美国历史做出了重大贡献。研究生产者和消费者之间的食物流动为战后郊区消费者文化及其对全国其他地区的影响提供了丰富的认识。因此，论文旨在吸引大量的读者，他们尚未看到对美国卡车运输历史的严格学术对待。 “卡车国家”将为有关工业农业综合企业和运输政策的当代政治辩论做出重大贡献。 NSF赠款将通过为档案研究提供资金来支持这些目标实现，否则这是不可能的。将进行有关乳制品，牛肉和冷冻食品加工，农业组织，联邦农业运输决策和卡车运输行业的审查材料和口述历史的访问。