Geoengineering with Shovels

Mosquitoes, megaprojects, and the New Deal’s least-remembered public health initiative

Published by Do Not Research, this essay unearths one of the New Deal’s least-remembered megaprojects: a nationwide network of drainage ditches dug as part of an all-out war on mosquitoes. From its origins as a tool for imperial power projection to its transformation into an ultimately-misguided force for good, this century-old form of pest control reframes what “geoengineering” meant before the word existed — and what public health infrastructure once looked like.