Field Notes: Earth Day
An environmental historian like myself feels the obligation to share something of their work on Earth Day. My work centers on environmental violence, human-animal relationships, and as I alluded to on Monday, insects.
Today, I would like to share a few preliminary thoughts on a burgeoning research project on ticks. Now, very few people might think that ticks would be worthy of a historical treatment. But allow me to lay out a humble case for them.
Ticks carry many diseases. A person venturing into the woods might elect to roll their pants into their socks as a preventive measure. I recall one trip into the woods gave my friend and I some 100+ wood ticks a piece (we must have inadvertently stepped on a nest). But such practiced precautions suggest that ticks have influenced human habits.
If you want something more concrete than pants tucked into socks, look at the American West. Texas Fever, a tick borne illness, caused Texas cattle drives to move farther West so Longhorns wouldn't kill off settler’s dairy cows. (For more on this see, Earnest Staples Osgood, The Day of the Cattle Man, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966, 36). Each disease itself has a history, and one that is linked to the life and habits of the insect that carries them.
Like all insects that nuisance humans, there are many attempts to regulate or eradicate them. These efforts produce documents, which in turn, create an avenue for historical inquiry.
This work is in its preliminary stages. I look forward to sharing an update in the future. Until then, I'm back in the thicket.