text: Automaker Henry Ford began to test farm crops for their industrial potential around 1930, and soon settled on hemp and the soybean  as particularly promising (the famous Hemp Body or Soybean Car). The Ford Motor Company used soybeans in such parts as gearshift knobs and horn buttons, and hemp for the body of the car. The automobile was designed to run on hemp diesel. Ford Motor Company accessed these innovations via the discovery and ingenuity of George Washington Carver, Tuskegee Scientist and Father of Chemurgy. 
  In 1935, the Farm Chemurgic Council (later renamed the National Farm Chemurgic Council) was formed to encourage greater use of renewable raw materials in industry. In its early years, the Council received substantial publicity. It was perceived by the Roosevelt Administration as a political threat, since Council leaders questioned U.S. Department of Agriculture policies. First placing much of its emphasis on demonstrating the benefits of Agrol (a line of blended motor fuels that included ethanol), the Council drew strong opposition from the petroleum industry. The Agrol pilot plant, which also experienced management and financial difficulties, shut down in 1938. Wheeler McMillen, who had become president of the Council the previous year, decided to distance the chemurgy movement from ethanol, mend fences with the petroleum industry, and place the Council on a more cautious course. 
  The Council’s cause received an unexpected boost when Theodore G. Bilbo, a U.S. senator from Mississippi, sought a means to promote new uses for his region’s surplus cotton. To make his goal more politically attractive, he supported a broader research program. In the end, four regional U.S. Department of Agriculture laboratories, dedicated to finding new uses for farm crops, were authorized under the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938. The labs were established in Wyndmoor, Pennsylvania; New Orleans, Louisiana; Peoria, Illinois; and Albany, California. Over time, their research agendas expanded, and they became less focused on chemurgy. Nevertheless, their involvement in that field was symbolic of the chemurgy movement’s transformation from a cause associated with Roosevelt Administration critics to one with clear support from that administration.