The Organic Profit: Rodale and the Making of Marketplace Environmentalism

The Rodale name has long been associated with organic gardening, and books from Rodale Press make up a significant part of the Miller Library’s section on this subject. The company’s magazine Organic Gardening, under that name and similar titles, was a mainstay of garden periodicals from the mid-20th century until it ceased publication in 2017.

What is the bigger story behind this name? The Organic Profit, written by Andrew Case and published by University of Washington Press, delves into this history. In part, this is a biography of J. I. Rodale (1898-1971) and his son, Robert Rodale (1930-1990). It also is an analysis of the mid- to later 20th century movement, in many ways sparked by this family effort, for self-improvement through healthy life choices, including gardening practices and diet. Reading this history, I particularly enjoyed a study of the etymology of the word “organic.”

As the play on words in the title would suggest, the family’s story is not completely altruistic. There was a market for their products and they were eager to meet and promote customers’ demands. However, this grew out of zeal for sharing their personal beliefs. “In his [J. I. Rodale’s] estimation, soils, plants, animals, and people all had a proper diet. Those proper diets were disrupted in the age of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and the health of people, plants, animals, and soils was breaking down as a result.”

The author also analyzes the role the Rodales played in the broader environmental movement of the 1960s and 1970s. For all who are researching or working in fields that were affected – or even created – by the changes in societal attitudes towards our collective stewardship of the environment at that time, this is an important history to know.

Published in the February 2019 Leaflet for Scholars, volume 6, issue 2