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Questions and Answers
What did Harvey Washington Wiley aim to prove in 1901?
What did Harvey Washington Wiley's experiments raise awareness of?
What was the state of the American food industry at the turn of the century?
What did Harvey Washington Wiley become the face of?
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What did Harvey Washington Wiley's volunteers become known as?
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What did industrialization lead to in the food manufacturing industry?
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What was Harvey Washington Wiley's first target in his battle for pure food?
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What was the standard formula for adulterating milk in the early 1900s?
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What did milk purveyors add to give milk a layer of cream on top?
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What did the government's testing of milk reveal?
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What did the Pure Food and Drugs Act of 1906 establish?
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What did Harvey Washington Wiley's battle for pure milk lead to?
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What was Harvey Washington Wiley's goal in conducting human trials?
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What was the state of the American food industry at the turn of the century?
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What did Harvey Washington Wiley become the face of?
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What were the Poison Squad volunteers?
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What led to the consolidation in food manufacturing during the early 1900s?
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What was the dairy industry's standard formula for adulterating milk?
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What did dairy manufacturers add to milk to give it a layer of cream on top?
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Why were outbreaks of scarlet fever, tuberculosis, and cholera common in the early 1900s?
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What chemical did the dairy industry routinely turn to in order to cover up spoiled milk?
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What did the government's testing of milk reveal nationwide?
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What did Harvey Washington Wiley's battle for pure milk lead to?
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What was the state of the American food industry prior to the passage of the Pure Food and Drugs Act of 1906?
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Study Notes
The Poison Squad: How Harvey Washington Wiley Fought for Food Safety in America
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In 1901, Harvey Washington Wiley aimed to prove that Americans were being poisoned by chemical preservatives added to their food.
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Wiley had been advocating for government regulation of the food manufacturing industry for two decades.
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He conducted human trials to determine the effects of consuming large amounts of chemical preservatives.
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Wiley's experiments raised public awareness and led to questioning of large corporations adding chemicals to food.
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At the turn of the century, the American food industry was unregulated and any producer could get away with adding whatever they wanted to food.
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Wiley became the face of the pure food movement, which mobilized activists and led to the passage of the first consumer protection laws in American history.
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Wiley's volunteers, known as the Poison Squad, helped make the first federal attempt to regulate food quality and adulteration.
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Wiley's interest in food chemistry coincided with a moment of unprecedented change in the American diet and food manufacturing industry.
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Industrialization led to consolidation in food manufacturing, and companies began adding chemicals to preserve food for mass distribution.
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By 1901, companies like Dow and Monsanto had introduced a host of new chemicals to the food supply, including formaldehyde and copper sulfate.
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Wiley was determined to investigate the American food industry and raise public awareness about fake food and chemical adulterants.
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Wiley's findings of fraud in the honey and syrup industry outraged food manufacturers and awakened powerful forces against him, but he remained a lone voice fighting for food safety in America.Harvey Wiley's Battle for Pure Milk
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Harvey Wiley, a chemist, angered honey producers and scientists with his stands before enacting his plan to study American food manufacturing.
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Wiley's first target was the dairy industry, which was vulnerable to widespread adulteration and corruption.
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Milk had a strong association with purity and wholesomeness in the United States due to the country's agrarian economy.
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Dairy manufacturers had already learned that they could make money by adulterating their product, with the standard formula being a pint of warm water for every quart of milk.
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To rid the remaining liquid of its bluish tint, producers would add whitening agents such as plaster of paris or chalk, and to give it a layer of cream on top, they might add something yellowish, like pureed calf brains.
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Milk purveyors were often selling a product laden with deadly bacteria due to tenement houses packed with millions of laborers, lack of proper sewage and sanitation, and unrefrigerated milk sold in the streets in open buckets.
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Outbreaks of scarlet fever, tuberculosis, and cholera were common due to the consumption of spoiled milk.
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The government's testing of milk revealed problems nationwide, with one sample containing worms wriggling in the bottom of the bottles.
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To cover up spoiled milk, the industry routinely turned to the deadly chemical formaldehyde, which was also used as an embalming fluid during the Civil War.
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Thousands of children were dying every year due to the lack of regulation and corrupt inspectors being paid off by dairy owners.
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Wiley was angered by corporate misbehavior in the sphere of milk, which was heavily marketed for children.
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Wiley's battle for pure milk led to the Pure Food and Drugs Act of 1906, which established the FDA and set standards for food and drugs.
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Description
Test your knowledge on the history of food safety and the fight for pure food in America with these two fascinating stories. Learn about Harvey Washington Wiley's groundbreaking experiments with the Poison Squad to expose the dangers of chemical preservatives in food, and his battle for pure milk to rid the dairy industry of deadly bacteria and corruption. See if you can score high on this quiz by answering questions about the history of food manufacturing, government regulation, and consumer protection laws.
