Seduced by Radium: How Industry Transformed Science in the American Marketplace - Couverture rigide

Rentetzi, Maria

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 0822947064 ISBN 13 : 9780822947066

Editeur : University of Pittsburgh Press, 2022

Synopsis

The discovery of radium by Marie and Pierre Curie in 1898 eventually led to a craze for radium products in the 1920s until their widespread use proved lethal for consumers, patients, and medical practitioners alike. Radium infiltrated American culture, Maria Rentetzi reveals, not only because of its potential to treat cancer but because it was transformed from a scientific object into a familiar, desirable commodity. She explores how Standard Chemical Company in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania—the first successful commercial producer of radium in the United States—aggressively promoted the benefits of radium therapy and its curative properties as part of a lucrative business strategy. Over-the-counter products, from fertilizers to paints and cosmetics to tonics and suppositories, inspired the same level of trust in consumers as a revolutionary pharmaceutical. The radium industry in the United States marketed commodities like Liquid Sunshine and Elixir of Youth at a time when using this new chemical element in the laboratory, in the hospital, in private clinics, and in commercial settings remained largely free of regulation. Rentetzi shows us how marketing campaigns targeted individually to men and women affected not only how they consumed these products of science but also how that science was understood and how it contributed to the formation of ideas about gender. Seduced by Radium ultimately reveals how innovative advertising techniques and seductive, state-of-the-art packaging made radium a routine part of American life, shaping scientific knowledge about it and the identities of those who consumed it.

A propos du livre

À propos de l?auteur

Maria Rentetzi is professor and chair of Science, Technology and Gender Studies at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg. Her latest monograph is Seduced by Radium: How Industry Transformed Science in the American Marketplace.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: University of Pittsburgh Press
• Date d'édition: 2022
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0822947064
• ISBN 13: 9780822947066
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 308
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible