Historic Bug Control

“What’s that?!” asks our Curator Cat, Frankie . . .

. . . With the warmer weather, it’s starting to be bug season! So far, we’re very lucky in the Harrison House. Museums are always especially careful about bugs, because of the damage they can do to the historic house or artifacts.

But that said, what might the Harrisons themselves have done if they had a bug infestation?

Here are some historic insect solutions:

—sprinkling compounds including lead or mercury around the home

—using tobacco or arsenic solutions on crops

—importing predators to eat the bugs (leading to new invasive species!)

. . . And there are many more, I’m sure! It wasn’t until the 1930s that commercial pesticides came on the market. Up until then, people made do the best way they knew how—usually in a way that was dangerous to humans and other animals, too. Here’s to constant improvement!