Virtual Event
March 26 2025
Registration for this event will be via Eventbrite
 

First introduced to the American public as military equipment in 1942, aerosol insecticides offered unprecedented control and conquest of mosquitos and malaria in the Pacific theater. Celebrated for their efficacy and convenience, these aerosol “bug bombs” would continue their heroic ascendance after WWII, reimagined as a consumer product for cleaning and maintaining the modern American home. This chapter from Yuen's recently completed dissertation traces the history of aerosol insecticides as a technology that promised a new scientific approach to killing insects: a method defined by swiftness, ease, and the novel pleasure of a white delicate mist. In the 1950s and 1960s, aerosols would further proliferate as all manner of products—from hairspray to whipped cream to artificial snow—came in a sprayable can. Transformed into ordinary, small, and feminine fixtures inside the postwar home, aerosol cans embodied a new vision of domesticity that industry insiders dubbed “the aerosol age,” marked by utmost ease and fresh sensory experiences. Yet as this chapter shows, this apparent revolution ultimately reinforced conformist ideals of gender, consumption, and the human body, as the new American home required constant housework to maintain its semblance and status of modern cleanliness, pleasure, and abundance.

Che Yuen is an assistant professor of history at Texas A&M University.

Kendra Smith-Howard of SUNY Albany will provide an introductory comment.

Advance registration via Eventbrite is required; everyone who is registered will receive the paper.