DDT

In the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, Americans flocked to their local shopping centers to purchase the latest and greatest consumer goods. Thanks to higher wages, the GI Bill, and a booming job market, consumers used their new spending power to purchase a wide array of products including televisions, washing machines, refrigerators, toaster ovens, and vacuum cleaners. Among the most desired of these postwar products was the latest in bug-killing technology, a chemical known as DDT. The new “miracle pesticide,” as some called it, had proven to be an effective tool for the elimination of disease in the European and the Pacific
Theaters and consumers were eager to get their hands on the insect-killing “war hero” for use in their homes and yards. In the fall of 1945 when the government finally lifted restrictions on domestic DDT sales, consumers around the country flocked to their local hardware stores and supermarkets, where they shopped for a number of DDT-laden products including bug bombs, aerosol sprays, paint, and …show more content…
It will begin by examining the connection between the malaria epidemic in the South Pacific and the heightened sense of urgency on the home front to eliminate bugs. It will then proceed to detail the development of DDT, its uses during the war, and depictions of the chemical within the popular press, which sparked enormous demand for the pesticide among American citizens. The essay will then turn to the postwar era, when consumers finally got their hands on DDT and the total war on insects hit a deadly peak. This section will cover the role of the pesticide industry in promoting the war on bugs and examine how their marketing strategies allowed the wartime determination to eliminate insects to persist throughout the postwar era. This essay will argue that both DDT and the larger war on bugs were