Harvey Washington Wiley

The farm ran 125 acres in the southernmost county of Indiana, with the Ohio River and slave-owning Kentucky on the far bank, and Wiley's parents worked as conductors on the Underground Railroad. He was the sixth of seven children. He enlisted in 1864 as a corporal in Company I of the 137th Indiana Infantry, then collected degrees the way other men collect debts — an A.B. from Hanover in 1867, two years teaching Greek and Latin at Butler, an M.D. from Indiana Medical College in 1871, and a Harvard B.S. in 1873 after a few months of concentrated work. Purdue hired him to teach chemistry in 1874. Indiana made him its first state chemist in 1881. Then Purdue passed him over for its presidency, and he left for Washington.

He became chief chemist of the Agriculture Department in 1882 and set about establishing what was actually in American food. In 1902 Congress gave him 5,000 dollars, and he recruited 12 young men out of his own department to eat the answer — 5 dollars a month, free meals, one adulterant per trial. Borax came first, then salicylic acid in 1905, which bled the stomach, then formaldehyde in 1907, which the tests found flatly dangerous. Officially, the hygienic table trials. The newspapers called them the Poison Squad, and the coverage did what data alone could not. Wiley worked with Alice Lakey and the women's clubs, whose letter campaign buried the White House, and in December 1905 sat down with Theodore Roosevelt and the manufacturers willing to be regulated, Heinz among them. Congress passed the Pure Food and Drug Act that June.

Winning the law did not mean keeping it. Roosevelt, who took saccharin daily, put Ira Remsen, saccharin's co-discoverer, at the head of a referee board that re-ran Wiley's preservative work and repeatedly came out the other way. Saccharin, bleached flour, benzoate of soda and caffeine all ended in court rather than the bureau. Wiley went after Coca-Cola over caffeine in 1909 and lost the case in 1911. That same year his own department moved to force him out over an expert who had been paid above the legal rate, and Taft had to issue a letter clearing him. He resigned on March 15, 1912, saying he had watched the fundamental principles of the act paralysed or discredited. The Poison Squad, meanwhile, was 12 healthy men paid to be poisoned by their employer, a design no ethics board would now approve.

He landed at Good Housekeeping, running its Bureau of Foods, Sanitation and Health for 18 years and building the testing operation behind what became the Seal of Approval — a private regulator assembled by the man the public one had pushed out. In 1929 he published The History of a Crime Against the Food Law. He died at his Washington home on June 30, 1930, the 24th anniversary to the day of the signing of the act he had written, and lies at Arlington. The Food and Drug Administration named its College Park laboratory building for him in 2002. Almost nobody outside it knows the name, which is the usual fate of people who draft laws rather than sign them.

Harvey Washington Wiley's life against the full span of the corpus.

• The hygienic table trials other
  The Poison Squad — 12 volunteers, one adulterant per trial, 5 dollars a month 1902
• Pure Food and Drug Act law
  Passed in June 1906 alongside the Meat Inspection Act 1906
• Bureau of Chemistry enforcement division company
  The regulatory apparatus that grew into the Food and Drug Administration 1907
• Good Housekeeping Bureau of Foods, Sanitation and Health company
  Ran it for 18 years — the origin of the Seal of Approval 1912
• The History of a Crime Against the Food Law book
  His account of how the 1906 act was hollowed out 1929

• 1864 aged ~20 Enlists in the 137th Indiana Infantry
• 1874 aged ~30 Joins the chemistry faculty at Purdue in its first year of classes
• 1882 aged ~38 Becomes chief chemist of the Department of Agriculture He took the job after Purdue passed him over for its presidency.
• 1902 aged ~58 Congress funds the hygienic table trials with 5,000 dollars Twelve volunteers, 5 dollars a month and free meals. Borax first.
• December 1905 aged 61 Meets Roosevelt with the reformers and the sympathetic manufacturers Alice Lakey's letter campaign had already buried the White House.
• June 1906 aged 61 The Pure Food and Drug Act passes
• 1911 aged ~67 Loses the Coca-Cola caffeine case and survives an attempt to remove him Taft issued a letter exonerating him over the expert-pay charge.
• March 15, 1912 aged 67 Resigns from the Bureau of Chemistry He said the fundamental principles of the act had been paralysed or discredited.
• June 30, 1930 aged 85 Dies at home in Washington at 85 It was the 24th anniversary, to the day, of the signing of his law.

• Theodore Roosevelt 1858–1919
  26th President known for progressive reforms, conservation efforts, and assertive foreign policy. signed his law and then undercut him
• Upton Sinclair 1878–1968
  Novelist whose expose of Chicago meatpacking spurred federal food and drug inspection laws. supplied the public outrage
• William Howard Taft 1857–1930
  Only person to serve as both president and Chief Justice of the United States. cleared him and then lost him
• Ida Tarbell 1857–1944
  Investigative journalist whose serial history of Standard Oil contributed to the company's antitrust breakup. fellow investigator of the trusts
• Ralph Nader b. 1934
  Consumer advocate whose auto-safety campaign produced federal vehicle standards and a public-interest lobbying network. heir to the consumer-protection argument