What is the origin of kudzu vines in the United States? Who introduced it to the US?

Question

What is the origin of kudzu vines in the United States? Who introduced it to the US?

Answer 1

Mr Dyskworld there has it, even though he nicked it off'f Wikipedia.

The Africa response looks like random guesswork.

I've seen the stuff growing in it's native habitat (where a native Japanese wasp keeps the vine in check).

Answer 2

Africa, when highways were introduced it was thought that kudzu would keep the sides or the roads from sliding down to the highways, there is nothing in the U.S. to combat the weed . So it just takes over.

Answer 3

Kudzu was introduced from Japan into the United States in 1876 at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition, where it was promoted as a forage crop and an ornamental plant. From 1935 to the early 1950s the Soil Conservation Service encouraged farmers in the southeastern United States to plant kudzu to reduce soil erosion as above, and the Civilian Conservation Corps planted it widely for many years.

However, it would soon be discovered that the southeastern US has near-perfect conditions for kudzu to grow out of control — hot, humid summers, frequent rainfall, temperate winters with few hard freezes (kudzu cannot tolerate low freezing temperatures that bring the frost line down through its entire root system, a rare occurrence in this region), and no natural predators. As such, the once-promoted plant was named a pest weed by the United States Department of Agriculture in 1953.