I. Urbanization

A. Ecological Impacts of Urbanization: Air and water pollution; noise, garbage and refuse, horse manure; toxic wastes; soot and grime.

B. Factors related to urbanization

1. Population: Urban population grows from 322,371 (6 percent) in 1800 to 6,216,518 (20 percent) in 1860 to 54,157,973 (51 percent) in 1920. Cities expand from immigration of soutern and eastern Europeans, 80 percent of whom settle in the Northeast. Rural population falls from 71.4 percent in 1880 to 48.6 percent in 1920.

2. Market: Industrial cities locate near markets. Examples: Pittsburgh at junction of Allegheny and Monongahela rivers; Cincinnati on Ohio River, St. Louis at junction of Mississippi and Missouri rivers. Steel, oil, and coal produced. By 1890 the United States outstrips Great Britain in industrial output.

3. Antipollution Technology

a. Air Pollution: Stokers, banked furnaces, down-draft furnaces, taller smoke stacks, efficiency; introduction of natural gas.

b. Garbage and Refuse: Collection and disposal of refuse, primary separation at household level, municipal rubbish sorting plants, salvage companies, street-cleaning equipment, sanitary engineering equipment; incinerators, cremators, plants for reducing wastes and extracting by-products for sale, improved dumping scows.

c. Noise: Technologies to suppress noise from brakes, gears, motors, bells, subways, railroads, engines.

d. Water Pollution: Sewers, municipal waterworks, aquaducts, reservoirs, water pumps, water purification, aeration, sunlight.

4. Social Relations: Middle class movement oriented toward protecting white society, neighborhoods, and the urban environment. Blacks and the poor experience brunt of industrial pollution.

a. Air pollution: Civic groups, chambers of commerce, committees on smoke prevention (Pittsburgh), Smoke Abatement League (Cincinnati), bureaus of smoke suppression form. Women's Clubs include Ladies Health Association (Pittsburgh), Women's Club of Cincinnati, Chicago Anti-Smoke League, Women's Organization of St. Louis. Smoke inspectors and engineering societies emerge.

b. Garbage and refuse: Health Boards (in 94 percent of cities by 1880), American Public Health Association, Ladies Health Protective Association, civic groups, journalists publicize the need for reform. Sanitary engineering societies, Juvenile Street Cleaning League, Society for Street Cleaning and Refuse Disposal, American Society of Civil Engineers appear.

c. Noise: Civic Clubs, Committee on Unnecessary Noise, antinoise groups and committees, police departments, and Society for Suppression of Unnecessary Noise (New York)

d. Water Pollution: Sanitary engineering societies, municipal engineers' groups, water boards, women's clubs, Ladies Health Protective Association, Women's Municipal League, and civic leagues.

5. Attitudes: Robert Woods (The City Wilderness, 1898) exposes slum conditions. Upton Sinclair, (The Jungle, 1905) creates outrage over conditions in the meatpacking industry. Booth Tarkington, (The Turmoil, 1914) denounces urban growth and human greed. Sigmund Freud (Civilization and its Discontents, 1930) portrays problems of civilization. Earlier viewpoint is reversed: nature now is antidote to city wilderness. Marketplace is eroding American moral character. Corrupt business practices lead to people into sin. Cleaning up cities leads to moral improvement. Squalid conditions for poor foster social upheaval and unrest and therefore should be ameliorated.

1. How does doing urban environmental history differ from doing the history of an ecological region (such as the Great Plains or New England)? Does urban environmental history require a different definition of "environment"?

2. How do you define pollution? Does pollution take on different meanings at different times in history? What particular forms of pollution were of concern to city dwellers at the turn of the century?

3. Describe the different forms of urban pollution in the early twentieth century. What kinds of wastes historically were generated by cities? What kinds of technologies were used by engineers to combat waste problems? Were they effective? Why or why not?

4. What non-technological solutions to the problem of urban pollution were promoted by reformers? Were these approaches effective? How did they in turn generate other problems?

5. Consider the role of women in urban reform movements. What kinds of women participated in reform movements? What were their concerns? What roles did they play in cleaning up urban areas and why did they take on these activities?

6. How did people of different ethnic and racial origins experience and use the urban environment? What are the differential effects of urban pollution on different ethnic groups? What roles have ethnic minorities and poor people played in environmental reform? What roles do they play today?

7. What are the historical roots of the "not in my backyard syndrome" (NIMBY)? What examples can you draw from the readings? What are the effects of this syndrome? How have target neighborhoods attempted to combat this problem and with what results? What techniques might you suggest to help such neighborhoods?