"The Father[s] of Canning"? Narrating Nicolas Appert/American Industry

Bibliographic Data

ID2783142
AuthorsDanille Elise Christensen (0000-0003-3640-400X, danille elise christensen is Assistant Professor in the Department of Religion & Culture at Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, corresponding author)
Year2023
Volume136
Issue539
Pages16-47
Publication date2023-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of American Folklore (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0021-8715 • E-ISSN: 1535-1882
PublisherUniversity of Illinois Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.5406/15351882.136.539.02
OpenAlexW4319662341
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited35

Drawing on conventions of the insight legend, writers have consistently framed France's Nicolas Appert as "the father of canning," celebrating him as an innovative genius who in the early 1800s realized long-standing desires for fresh-yet-stable food. However, a process nearly identical to "appertization" was widely practiced more than a century earlier. Furthermore, unlike insight legends, Appert-centered histories never identify a Eureka! moment. Instead, these origin stories exemplify the perceptive vision of modern industry itself. Discounting knowledge coded as female or lodged in specific contexts, they construct a self-consciously modern corporate hero, holding up for veneration those with the power and desire to commodify, expand, and profit within capitalist systems. As they valorize "scientific" over and against "domestic" knowledge, these narratives minimize the costs of universalizing processes and misrepresent the ways knowledge is produced and circulated

Aesthetics · Apotheosis · Art · Comics · Genius · HERO · Legend · Literature · Narrative · Power (physics) · Sociology · Veneration · Historical and Scientific Studies · Historical Economic and Social Studies · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History

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