TY - JOUR
T1 - Frits went's atomic age greenhouse
T2 - The changing labscape on the lab-field border
AU - Kingsland, Sharon E.
N1 - Funding Information:
At Caltech phytotronics continued under the direction of plant physiologist Anton Lang, and a new laboratory partly funded by the Campbell Soup Company (and known as the ‘‘soup kitchen’’) was added to the complex in 1960. These did not long survive Lang’s departure in 1965 to become director of the Plant Research Laboratory built by the Atomic Energy Commission at Michigan State University. By this time, Lang recalled, he was the only faculty member at Caltech ‘‘still interested in plants as distinct organisms’’ and there was no one outside his own group with whom to discuss problems in depth.76 The decisive shift toward molecular biology and other areas of experimental biology meant the disappearance of plant research at Caltech. Its phytotron and associated laboratories and greenhouses were razed in 1972 to make way for a new laboratory for behavioral biology.
Funding Information:
In 1958 Hendricks and Went argued that the phytotron had been accepted as an experimental tool, ‘‘comparable to telescopes, particle accelerators, fossil collections, and other tools of science.’’72 They pointed to increased funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for controlled-environment studies, as proof of widespread interest in these tools. Went’s research had received NSF funding since 1952 and the Earhart Laboratory received operating funds from NSF starting in 1956.73 Hendricks and Went, along with other scientists and engineers, were part of a committee formed in 1958 (with NSF funding) to assess the level of support within the broader scientific community, not just for phytotrons but also for ‘‘biotrons’’ that would include animals as well as plants. The University of Wisconsin received an NSF grant for construction of a biotron laboratory, which was operational by 1967 and was envisioned as a national or regional laboratory serving people from other institutions. The USDA research center at Beltsville acquired a phytotron in 1963. By 1970 two phytotrons were in operation in a cooperative project between Duke University and North Carolina State University, the Southeastern Plant Environment Laboratories (or SEPEL).74 While meant for the use of plant scientists in the south-eastern U.S., the facilities were available to scientists from around the world.
PY - 2009/5
Y1 - 2009/5
N2 - In Landscapes and Labscapes Robert Kohler emphasized the separation between laboratory and field cultures and the creation of new "hybrid" or mixed practices as field sciences matured in the early twentieth century. This article explores related changes in laboratory practices, especially novel designs for the analysis of organism-environment relations in the mid-twentieth century. American ecologist Victor Shelford argued in 1929 that technological improvements and indoor climate control should be applied to ecological laboratories, but his recommendations were too ambitious for the time. In the postwar period Frits W. Went, plant physiologist at the California Institute of Technology, created a new high-tech laboratory, dubbed a "phytotron", in the hope that it would transform plant sciences by allowing for unprecedented control of environmental variables. Went's aspirations, the research conducted in his laboratory, and its impact in initiating an international movement, are considered. Went's laboratory can be seen as a "hybrid culture" evolving in the laboratory, complementing and intersecting with some of the field practices that Kohler describes. It was also a countercultural movement against the reductionist trends of molecular biology in the 1950s and 1960s. By considering the history of the laboratory in relation to field sciences, we can explore how new funding sources and cross-disciplinary relations affected the development of field sciences, especially in the postwar period.
AB - In Landscapes and Labscapes Robert Kohler emphasized the separation between laboratory and field cultures and the creation of new "hybrid" or mixed practices as field sciences matured in the early twentieth century. This article explores related changes in laboratory practices, especially novel designs for the analysis of organism-environment relations in the mid-twentieth century. American ecologist Victor Shelford argued in 1929 that technological improvements and indoor climate control should be applied to ecological laboratories, but his recommendations were too ambitious for the time. In the postwar period Frits W. Went, plant physiologist at the California Institute of Technology, created a new high-tech laboratory, dubbed a "phytotron", in the hope that it would transform plant sciences by allowing for unprecedented control of environmental variables. Went's aspirations, the research conducted in his laboratory, and its impact in initiating an international movement, are considered. Went's laboratory can be seen as a "hybrid culture" evolving in the laboratory, complementing and intersecting with some of the field practices that Kohler describes. It was also a countercultural movement against the reductionist trends of molecular biology in the 1950s and 1960s. By considering the history of the laboratory in relation to field sciences, we can explore how new funding sources and cross-disciplinary relations affected the development of field sciences, especially in the postwar period.
KW - Agriculture
KW - California Institute of Technology
KW - Ecology
KW - Field science
KW - Frits W. Went
KW - Phytotron
KW - Plant physiology
KW - Victor E. Shelford
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=68149166539&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=68149166539&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s10739-009-9179-y
DO - 10.1007/s10739-009-9179-y
M3 - Article
C2 - 19852398
AN - SCOPUS:68149166539
SN - 0022-5010
VL - 42
SP - 289
EP - 324
JO - Journal of the History of Biology
JF - Journal of the History of Biology
IS - 2
ER -