Dr. Harvey Analysis

Historians debate as to what the motives were of Dr. Harvey in campaigning for the 1906 laws and what purpose of the Pure Food and Drug Act was. Hunter Dupree stated that Wiley’s motives weren't to act out of pure selflessness, and loyalty to the public. Wiley pushed for reforms in the food and drug regulation via his adulteration of foods to save his Division of Chemistry, which Wiley thought was going to come to an end due to the large government agencies that were hiring their own private chemists (9, 277). Richard Hofstadter thought that the act was an example of the shift from the concern of the producer, to the concern of the consumer. Robert Wiebe saw the act as an example of experiment in bureaucratic reform. Conflict also arose about
who ultimately pushed for the Pure Food and Drug Act. Historians debate between Dr. Harvey Wiley, President Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressives. Donna Woods sees the act as being promoted by Wiley and was seen as a measure for consumer protection. Oscar E. Anderson Jr., on the other hand, was more in favor of Wiley and his leadership of the campaign for reform and even stated that Wiley barely had any mistakes (9, 278).
Another aspect of the debate was the issue of, what was the Progressive Era and if the Era had any effect on the food regulation.
Charles Beard and V. L. Parrington viewed the Progressive Era as just another battle between the forces of democracy and the forces of the privilege. Richard Hofstadter has a more skeptical attitude and says that history progressed through a cycle of conflicts along economic lines. He says progressivism was led by men who suffered from the harsh events of their time through the changed pattern of respect and power. Food and drug reforms were passed during the time of the progressive era because muckraking writers, especially middle class urbanites, pushed for and secured “something in the form of legislative change and social free-washing” (qtd. 9, 279). This category of theirs included the food and drug laws as they realized the terrible conditions of the manufacturing industries from Sinclair’s “Jungle.” Historian Robert H. Wiebe agrees that the Progressive era really pushed for the Pure Food and Drug Act, but from a different perspective than Hofstadter looked at it. Wiebe linked progressivism with ‘bureaucratic reform’ and said that the Pure Food and Drug Acts were experiments in “bureaucratic reform” (qtd. 9, 279). Regarding food regulation, James Kane states that it’s unlikely that the Progressive Era affected food regulation because Wiley was always a high tariff Republican, and would abandon the Republican party, and support Wilson years
after political infighting. Albeit, it did make it easier for Wiley to bring out change during this time period.
Roosevelt’s role during the passing of the act is also heavily debated amongst historians.
Historian Mark Sullivan states that Roosevelt played a central role in the passage of the act but the act was strengthened by the muckrakers and Wiley. In contrast to Sullivan’s views, Historians C.C. Regier and Louis Filler view Roosevelt as having more of an insignificant job regarding the act's passage (9, 75-76). Filler states that it was purely a chance that Roosevelt was president during the time of the passage. Filler focuses on the muckraker journalists who, he considered, to play the primary role in the establishment of the Pure Food and Drug
Act.
Wiley served in Tennessee during the Civil War. After the war, he earned his degree in chemistry and medicine and then became the head of the chemistry department at Purdue University. He was known for his experiments with sugar and used that skill to become chief of the chemistry division of the Department of Agriculture in 1883. Part of Wiley’s interest in pure food legislation came from his desire and interests to increase the importance of his own bureau. He was very anxious to have the enforcement of the pure food laws placed within the department of Agriculture’s Chemistry Division (3, 294). Wiley also took an early interest in adulterated foods. He became interested in adulterated foods when he needed to get ahead of the Bureau of Animal Industry and he took concern in adulterated foods. Wiley’s first study with adulterated foods were with the adulteration of dairy products. Wiley studied butter and milk and published his Bulletin 13 on “Food and Food Adulterants” in 1887, which stated the problems of food adulteration and would be “the best methods of detecting adulteration” (qtd. 9,103). He was worried with the effect that adulterated foods had on farmers, who he thought were “being cheated by the substitution of inferior and cheaper adulterants for their products” (qtd. 3, 294). Wiley, along with Robert Allen who supported Wiley, decided to organize a Pure Food Congress where they would rule out what foods they considered to be pure.