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Businessmen Against Pollution in Late Nineteenth Century Chicago

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 December 2011

Christine Meisner Rosen
Christine Meisner Rosen
Affiliation:
Christine Meisner Rosen is associate professor of business and public policy at the Walter A. Haas School of Business at theUniversity of California, Berkeley.
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Abstract

In 1892, a group of Chicago's business leaders organized the Society for the Prevention of Smoke in the hope of persuading the city's business community to install equipment to control the black smoke pouring out of downtown chimneys and smokestacks. The following article uses an examination of the Society's activities to explore the diverse roles that business interests played in pollution control in American cities during the late nineteenth century. The episode reveals a panorama of business responses to smoke pollution which ranged from voluntary smoke abatement and strong support for regulation to indifference, reluctance, and organized resistance to efforts to impose controls. The author explores reasons why business interests responded in such diverse ways. She places the spectrum of responses evident in this episode within the broader context of business involvement in pollution control in Chicago and other cities in this period. She concludes by pointing out the need for additional research to explore the complex ambiguities of the role played by business in the history of the American environment.

Type
Articles
Information
Business History Review , Volume 69 , Issue 3 , Autumn 1995 , pp. 351 - 397
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1995

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References

1 Tunnicliff, Sarah B., “Smoke Elimination in Chicago,” Educational Bi-Monthly 10 (June 1916): 391–393Google Scholar. It was estimated that the chimney of a 1000 horse-power boiler plant discharged roughly 52 tons of gaseous hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide per hour, including the greenhouse gases of so much concern today. On the medical issues see Platt, Harold L., “Invisible Gases: Smoke, Science, and the Redefinition of Environmental Policy in Chicago, 1900–1920,” (paper presented at the meeting of the American Society for Environmental History, Pittsburgh, March 1993), 2, 6–7Google Scholar.

2 Chicago Tribune, 24 July 1892, in Scrapbooks Supposedly, Compiled byJ. C. Ambler for Citizens' Association of Chicago 69Google Scholar (SSCJCA), 16, in the collection of the Chicago Historical Society, Chicago, Ill. See the APPENDIX at the end of this, article for discussion of this serapbook collection and my research methodology. Citation to newspaper articles I found in these scrapbooks are referenced by the volume number and page on which article is found. Chicago Tribune, 27 May 1894, SSCJCA 70, 110.

3 Chicago Times, 28 March 1892.

4 Chicago Times, 13 Dee. 1891; Chicago Tribune, 24 July 1892; SSCCJCA 69, 16.

5 Experiments showed that there was often two or three times as much light in the country surrounding a smoky city than in the city itself. Benner, R. C., “The Cost of an Industrial Nuisance,” American City 8 (1913): 496Google Scholar. See also Chicago Times, 13 Dec. 1891; 16 Jan. 1892.

6 Chicago Herald, 18 Dec. 1892, SSCJCA 69, 97. Tunnicliff, “Smoke Elimination in Chicago,” 393–394. Bird, Report of the Department of Smoke Inspection (Feb. 1911): 25. Wilson, Herbert M., “Smoke Worse Than Fire,” American City 4 (1911): 210–212Google Scholar. The $500,000,000 estimated cost of smoke compares to a GNP in current prices in 1911 of $35,300,000,000 in 1911 (Department of Census, Historical Statistics of the United States Colonial Times to 1970, Centennial Edition, Part I (Washington, D.C., 1975), 224). The total value of the nearly 430 million tons of bituminous and anthrocite coal marketed in the U.S. in 1910 was $629,557,021 (U.S. Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, Department of Commerce and Labor, Statistical Abstract of the United States 1912 (Washington, D.C., 1913), 217). The total receipts from general revenues for all cities having populations over 300,000 (including property taxes, license fees, special assessments, fines, etc.) in 1910 was $505,987,016 (Ibid., 660). See also Outline of the Smoke Investigation, Bulletin No. 1, Mellon Institute of Industrial Research and School of Specific Industries, Smoke Investigation (Pittsburgh, 1913), 10.

7 The history of the smoke reform movement in Chicago is discussed in Bird, Paul P., Report of the Department of Smoke Inspection City of Chicago (Chicago, Ill., Feb. 1911): 12–16Google Scholar (see 12 for the wording of the 1881 ordinance which predated the development of the Ringleman Scale for measuring the density of smoke); Bird, Paul P., “Chicago's Smoke Problem,” Journal of the Western Society of Engineers 15 (June, 1910): 279–345Google Scholar; Tunnicliff, “Smoke Elimination in Chicago,” 391–404; Platt, “Invisible Gases”; Chicago Association of Commerce, Smoke Abatement and Electrification of Railroad Terminals in Chicago, (Chicago, Ill., 1915)Google Scholar; and Flannagan, Maureen, “Gender, the Environment and Public Policy: Chicago in the 1910s,” paper presented at annual meeting of American Society of Environmental History (Houston, Tex., 1991)Google Scholar.

8 Bird, “Chicago's Smoke Problem,” 315–316; Bird, , Report of the Department of Smoke Inspection (Chicago, 1911): 12–13Google Scholar; Citizens' Association of Chicago (CAC), Annual Report (1880): 8; CAC, Annual Report (1882): 6–7; CAC,' Annual Report (1883): 6–8; CAC, Annual Report (1884): 5–6; CAC, Annual Report (1886): 22; CAC, Annual Report (1887): 13; CAC, Annual Report (1888): 25–26; CAC, Annual Report (1889): 8; CAC, Report of the Smoke Committee (May 1889).

9 CAC, Report of the Smoke Committee (May 1889).

10 Report of the Department of Smoke Inspection (1911): 13; Chicago Tribune, 24 July 1892, SSCJCA 69, 16; Interocean (?) 30 Sept. 1892, SSCJCA 70, 81. Chicago Herald, 3 Oct. 1892, SSCJCA 69, 85; Chicago News, 4 March 1894, SSCJCA 70, 73; Chicago Tribune, 27 May 1894, SSCJCA 70, 110.

11 Chicago Tribune, 5 Nov. 1893, SSCJCA 70, 28; Report of the Department of Smoke Inspection (1911): 13; CAC, Report of Smoke Committee (May 1889): 5–9; Chicago Times, 3 Jan. 1892; Chicago Tribune, 24 July 1892, SSCJCA 69, 16; Interocean, 30 Sept. 1892, SSCJCA 69, 81; Chicago Herald, 3 Oct. 1892, SSCJCA, 85; Chicago News, 4 March 1894, SSCJCA 70, 73; Chicago Tribune, 27 May 1894, SSCJCA 70, 110. See also Chicago Times, 27 Jan. 1892.

12 CAC, Report of the Smoke Committee (May 1889).

13 lnterocean, 22 Sept. 1892, SSCJCA 69, 70. See also Chicago Times, 4 Nov. 1891, 14 Nov. 1891, 13 Dec. 1891, 18 Dec. 1891, 24 Dec. 1891; and Tunicliff, “Smoke Elimination in Chicago,” 394–395.

14 Dunne, Edward F., ed., Illinois: The Heart of the Nation (Chicago, Ill., 1933): 43Google Scholar. Chicago Historical Society, Charter, Constitution, By-laws: Sixtieth Anniversary Year Book—Annual Report of the Year Ending October 31, 1916 (Chicago, Ill., 1916): 57–59Google Scholar.

15 Dunne, Illinois, 487; Chicago Historical Society, Charter, Constitution, By-Laws, Membership List—Annual Report for the Year Ending October 31, 1914 (Chicago, Ill., 1914): 173–175Google Scholar; The Biographical Dictionary and Portrait Gallery of Representative Men, 584–585.

16 The Biographical Dictionary, 273–274; Hall, Henry, ed., America's Successful Men of Affairs: An Encyclopedia of Contemporaneous Biography Vol. 3 (New York, 1896), 155Google Scholar; “William J. Chalmers,” Chicago Tribune, 6 Jan. 1901, 39 (typescript Chicago Historical Society); Obituary, Field Museum News, Jan. 1939 (typescript Chicago Historical Society); Report of Smoke Committee (May 1889): 9.

17 The Biographical Dictionary, 281–282; Dunne, Illinois, 481; Hall, ed., America's Successful Men of Affairs, 21; “The Multimillionaires of Chicago IV—Samuel W. Allerton,” Chicago Tribune, 30 June 1907 (typescript Chicago Historical Society).

18 The Biographical Dictionary and Portrait Gallery of Representative Men of Chicago, Minnesota Cities, and the World's Colombian Exposition (Chicago, Ill., 1892), 56–57Google Scholar.

19 lnterocean, 22 Sept. 1892, SSCJCA 69, 70. Leonard, John W., ed., The Book of Chicagoans: A Biographical Dictionary of Leading Living Men of the City of Chicago (Chicago, 1905), 17Google Scholar.

20 Chicago Times, 4 Nov. 1891. See also Chicago Times, 17 Feb. 1892.

21 Chicago Times, 22 Jan. 1892; 28 Jan. 1892; Chicago Tribune, 5 Nov. 1893, SSCJCA 70, 28. The experimental nature of smoke abatement is evident in reports from companies claiming to have finally found a workable device. See for example: Chicago Herald, 15 Nov. 1893, SSCJCA 70, 29; Chicago Tribune, 18 Nov. 1893, SSCJCA 70, 31. Chicago Tribune, 19 Nov. 1893, SSCJCA 70, 31; Chicago Tribune, 20 May 1894, SSCJCA 70, 106; Chicago Tribune, 27 May 1894, SSCJCA 70, 110; Chicago Tribune, 22 June 1894, SSCJCA 70, 128; Chicago Tribune, 1 July 1894, SSCJCA 70, 133. See also Breckinridge, L. P., “How to Burn Illinois Coal Without Smoke,” University of Illinois Bulletin No. 31 (Aug. 12, 1907): 15–16Google Scholar, and Bird, “Chicago's Smoke Problem.”

22 Chicago Times, 22 Jan. 1892; 28 Jan. 1892; Chicago Herald, 23 July 1892, SSCJCA 69, 15; Chicago Tribune, 24 July 1892, SSCJCA 69, 16; Interocean, 22 Sept. 1892, SSCJCA 69, 70.

23 Chicago Times, 21 Feb. 1892; Chicago Herald, 24 July 1892, SSCJCA 69, 15; Chicago News, 14 Sept. 1892, SSCJCA 69, 63; Chicago Tribune, 5 Nov. 1893, SSCJCA 70, 28.

24 Chicago Herald, 23 July 1892, SSCJCA 69, 15; Interocean, 24 July 1892, SSCJCA 69, 15.

25 Callenbach, Ernest et al. , EcoManagement: The Elmwood Guide to Ecological Auditing and Sustainable Business (San Francisco, Calif, 1993)Google Scholar; Graedel, T. E. and Allenby, B. R., Industrial Ecology (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1995)Google Scholar; “Focus Issue: Corporate Environmentalism,” (special issue) Columbia Journal of World Business, (Fall/Winter, 1992).

26 Olson, Mancur, The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups (Cambridge, Mass., 1965, 1971), 21Google Scholar.

27 The exception was Brian Lathrop, President of the Society.

28 Chicago Times, 4 Nov. 1891; 17 Feb. 1892.

29 Wilson, William H., The City Beautiful Movement, (Baltimore, Md., 1989), 60Google Scholar; Scott, Mel, American City Planning Since 1890 (Berkeley, Calif., 1969), 32, 37–39Google Scholar; Fogelsong, Richard E., Planning the Capitalist City: The Colonial Era to the 1920s (Princeton, N.J., 1986), 129–130Google Scholar, 134–135; Carl Smith, Urban Disorder and the Shape of Belief: The Great Chicago Fire, the Haymarket Bomb, and the Model Town of Pullman, 223–224.

30 Olson, Logic of Collective Action, 49–52.

31 Fogelsong, Planning the Capitalist City, 129–130, 134–135. For example, exposition director George Pullman, manufacturer of Pullman railroad cars, purchased one hundred thousand dollars worth of stock (130).

32 Chicago Herald, 5 Aug. 1892, SSCJCA 69, 27; Chicago Tribune, 21 Sept. 1892, SSCJCA 69, 37.

33 See Chicago Herald, Interocean, and Chicago Tribune articles from 28–31 July 1892 and 5–10 Aug. 1892, SSCJCA 69, 19–22, 27–30.

34 Interocean, 6 Aug. 1892, SSCJCA 69, 28; Chicago Herald, 6 Aug. 1892, SSCJCA 69, 28.

35 Interocean, 6 Aug. 1892, SSCJCA 69, 28.

36 Chicago Herald, 5 Aug. 1892, SSCJCA 69, 27; Chicago Tribune, 10 Aug. 1892, SSCJCA 69, 30.

37 Chicago Herald, 5 Aug. 1892, SSCJCA 69, 27.

38 Chicago Times, 24 Dec. 1891. See also notes 14–18.

39 Interocean, 30 Sept. 1892, SSCJCA 69, 81.

40 Chicago Herald, 5 Sept. 1892, SSCJCA 69, 27; Chicago Tribune, 10 Sept. 1892, SSCJCA 69, 30. See also Tarr, Joel A. and Lamperes, Bill C., “Changing Fuel Use Behavior and Energy Transitions: The Pittsburgh Smoke Control Movement, 1940–1950,” Journal of Social History 14 (Summer 1981): 564CrossRefGoogle Scholar, in which the authors explain how one man was motivated to become a leader of the Pittsburgh anti-smoke movement because of the effect of smoke on the health of his son.

41 Chicago Tribune, 9 July 1892, SSCJCA 69, 4; Chicago Herald, 23 July 1892, SSCJCA 69, 15; Chicago Tribune, 24 July 1892, SSCJCA 69, 16; Interocean, 24 July 1892, SSCJCA 69, 15; Interocean, 26 July 1892, SSCJCA 69, 17. The Chicago Times derided this land of thinking in its editorials against the Society. See text at notes 81–86.

42 CAC, “Report of the Smoke Committee” (1889): 9; Bird, Report of the Department of Smoke Inspection (1911): 13, 17.

43 Chicago Times, 24 Dec. 1891; Interocean, 29 July 1992, SSCJCA 69, 17; Chicago Tribune, 11 Aug. 1992, SSCJCA 69, 30.

44 Chicago Times, 27 Dec. 1891; Chicago Herald, 25 Dec. 1892, SSCJCA 69, 102; Chicago Tribune, 4 June 1894, SSCJCA 70, 116.

45 Chicago Tribune, 10 Aug. 1892, SSCJCA 69, 30; see also Chicago Herald, 29 July 1892, SSCJCA 69, 20; Interocean, 29 July 1892, SSCJCA 69, 17; Chicago Tribune, 11 Aug. 1892, SSCJCA 69, 30.

46 Wilson, The City Beautiful Movement, 5–74; Scott, American City Planning, 31–44; Mayer, Harold M. and Wade, Richard C., Chicago: Growth of a Metropolis (Chicago, Ill., 1969), 193–200Google Scholar; Smith, Urban Disorder and the Shape of Belief 225–226.

47 Chicago Herald, 23 July 1892, SSCJCA 69, 15; see also Bird, “Chicago's Smoke Problem,” 282, 287–288, 296–297, 311–314; “The Smoke Nuisance and Its Regulation, with Special Reference to the Condition Prevailing in Philadelphia,” Journal of the Franklin Institute 142 (June, 1897): 397Google Scholar.

48 Bird, “Chicago's Smoke Problem,” 335–338.

49 Chicago Tribune, 5 Nov. 1892, SSCJCA 70, 28; Interocean, 22 Sept. 1892, SSCJCA 69, 70; Chicago Herald, 5 Aug. 1892, SSCJCA 69, 27. See also Chicago Tribune, 25 Sept. 1892, SSCJCA 69, 3; Chicago Herald, 9 July 1892, SSCJCA 69, 3; Chicago Herald, 23 July 1892, SSCJCA 69, 15; Chicago Herald, 22 Sept. 1892, SSCJCA 69, 70; Chicago Herald, 6 Oct. 1892, SSCJCA 69, 88; Chicago Herald, 8 May 1894, SSCJCA 70, 95; Bird, “Chicago's Smoke Problem,” 289, 296, 342.

50 Chicago Tribune, 22 Sept. 1892, SSCJCA 69, 70; Chicago Tribune, 25 Sept. 1892, SSCJCA 69, 75.

51 Chicago Herald, 23 July 1892, SSCJCA 69, 15.

52 Chicago Herald, 10 July 1892, SSCJCA 69, 4.

53 Chicago Tribune, 9 July 1892, SSCJCA 69, 4.

54 Chicago Tribune, 24 July 1892, SSCJCA 69, 16. See also Chicago Herald, 23 July 1892, SSCJCA 69, 15, and Interocean, 24 July 1892, SSCJCA 69, 16.

55 Interocean, 24 July 1992, SSCJCA 69, 15; Chicago Herald, 24 July 1892, SSCJCA 69, 15.

56 Report of the Department of Smoke Inspection (1911): 13; Chicago Tribune, 24 July 1892, SSCJCA 69, 16; Interocean (?) 30 Sept. 1892, SSCJCA 70, 81; Chicago Herald, 3 Oct. 1892, SSCJCA 69, 85; Chicago News, 4 March 1894, SSCJCA 70, 73; Chicago Tribune, 27 May 1894, SSCJCA 70, 110; Chicago Tribune, 5 Nov. 1893, SSCJCA 70, 28; CAC, Report of Smoke Committee (May 1889): 5–9. Chicago Times, 3 Jan. 1892, documents the cancellation and dismissal of cases.

57 Chicago Herald, 23 July 1892, SSCJCA 69, 15. See also Bird, “Chicago's Smoke Problem,” 282, 287–288, 296–297, 311–314; “The Smoke Nuisance and Its Regulation, with Special Reference to the Condition Prevailing in Philadelphia,” Journal of the Franklin Institute, 142 (June, 1897): 397Google Scholar.

58 Chicago Herald, 23 July 1892, SSCJCA 69, 15; Chicago Tribune, 9 July 1892, SSCJCA 69, 4; Interocean, 26 July 1892, SSCJCA 69, 17.

59 Chicago Tribune, 8 Aug. 1892, SSCJCA 69, 29; Chicago Tribune, 9 Aug. 1892, SSCJCA 69, 29; Chicago Tribune, 11 Aug. 1892, SSCJCA 69, 30; Chicago Herald, 11 Aug., 1892, SSCJCA 69, 31. In general see also SSCJCA 69, 32–45. For news of prosecution of Chalmers see: Interocean, 29 July 1992, SSCJCA 69, 17; Chicago Tribune, 11 Aug. 1992, SSCJCA 69, 30.

60 Chicago Times, 18 Dec. 1892, SSCJCA 69, 97.

61 Chicago Tribune, 26 July 1892, SSCJCA 69, 17; Chicago Tribune, 28 Aug. 1892, SSCJCA 69, 45; Chicago Herald, 28 Aug. 1892, SSCJCA 69, 46; Interocean, 22 Sept. 1892, SSCJCA, 69, 70; Chicago News, 14 Sept. 1892, SSCJCA 69, 63; Interocean, 22 Sept. 1892, SSCJCA 69, 58.

62 Chicago Tribune, 17 Dec. 1992, SSCJCA 69, 95.

63 Chicago Tribune, 22 June 1894, SSCJCA 70, 128.

64 Chicago Herald, 20 Aug. 1892, SSCJCA 69, 36.

65 Chicago Herald, 28 Aug. 1892, SSCJCA 69, 45.

66 Chicago Herald, 12 Aug. 1892, SSCJCA 69, 32; Chicago Tribune, 19 Aug. 1892, SSCJCA 69, 33; Chicago Herald, 26 Aug. 1892, SSCJCA 69, 43; Chicago Tribune, 31 Aug. 1892, SSCJCA 69, 49.

67 Chicago Times, 4 Sept. 1892, SSCJCA 69, 54; Journal, 24 July 1893, SSCJCA 69, 122; Interocean, 25 July 1893, SSCJCA 69, 123.

68 Interocean, 21 Sept.?, SSCJCA 69, 69; Chicago Tribune, 22 Sept. 1892, SSCJCA 69, 70; Chicago Tribune, 24 Sept. 1892, SSCJCA 69, 74. See also Chicago Herald, 26 Sept. 1892, SSCJCA 69, 77; Interocean, 5 Oct. 1892, SSCJCA 69, 87; Post, 5 Oct. 1892, SSCJCA 69, 88.

69 Interocean, 5 Oct. 1892, SSCJCA 69, 87; Post, 5 Oct. 1892, SSCJCA 69, 88; Chicago Herald, 6 Oct. 1892, SSCJCA 69, 88; Chicago Tribune, 7 Oct. 1892, SSCJCA 69, 89; Chicago Times, 8 Oct. 1892, SSCJCA 69, 90. They continued to give smoke reformers problems for years afterwards. See Bird, “Chicago's Smoke Problem,” 281.

70 The Society disputed the tug owners contention that no smoke consuming device would work on tug boilers and claimed experiments by their engineers proved this. However, it was ultimately forced to pay $100 to a tug owner for damage caused by its experiments. Chicago Herald, 12 July 1892, SSCJCA 69, 15; Chicago Tribune, 20 Aug. 1892, SSCJCA, 36; Chicago Tribune, 31 Aug. 1891, SSCJCA 69, 49; Chicago Post, 5 Sept. 1892, SSCJCA 69, 55; Chicago Herald, 5 Sept. 1892, SSCJCA 69, 56.

71 For tug owners' complaints about the high cost (and the relative physical difficulty) of burning hard coal see: Chicago Post, 5 Sept. 1892, SSCJCA 69, 55; Chicago Herald, 5 Sept. 1892, SSCJCA 69, 56; For the Society's response, see: Chicago Herald, 6 Sept. 1892, SSCJCA 69, 56; Chicago Tribune, 7 Sept. 1892, SSCJCA 69, 56; Chicago Herald, 8 Sept. 1892, SSCJCA 69, 57. The tug captains kept trying to find an alternative to the expensive hard coal, but finally gave up. The articles suggest they tried quite hard to find alternative fuels that would be cheaper than hard coal. See Chicago Herald, 10 Sept. 1892, SSCJCA 69, 56; Chicago Herald, 13 Sept. 1892, SSCJCA 69, 62; Chicago Herald, 14 Sept. 1892, SSCJCA, 69, 63; Chicago Herald, 2 Oct. 1892, SSCJCA, 69, 84.

72 Chicago Herald, 5 Sept. 1892, SSCJCA 69, 56.

73 Chicago Tribune, 17 Dec. 1892, SSCJCA 69, 95; Interocean, 17 Dec. 1892, SSCJCA 69, 95; Chicago News, 17 Dec. 1892, SSCJCA 69, 96.

74 Chicago Herald, 25 Dec. 1892, SSCJCA 69, 102; Chicago Herald, 30 Dec. 1892, SSCJCA 69, 102; Chicago Tribune, 4 June 1894, SSCJCA 70, 116. SSCJCA contains very little on the Society's activities for the period from mid Dec. through late June.

75 Chicago Herald, 23 June 1893, SSCJCA 69, 122; Chicago Herald, 24 June 1893, SSCJCA 69, 122; Chicago Journal, 24 July 1892, SSCJCA 69, 123; Interpcean, 25 July 1893, SSCJCA 69, 123; Chicago Herald, 2 Aug. 1893, SSCJCA 70, 1; Chicago Herald, 3 Aug. 1893, SSCJCA 70, 1; Chicago News, 4 Aug. 1893, SSCJCA 70, 2; Chicago Herald, 4 Aug. 1893, SSCJCA 70, 2; Chicago Herald, 11 Aug. 1893, SSCJCA 70, 5; Chicago Herald, 12 Aug. 1893, SSCJCA 70, 5; Chicago Herald, 19 Aug. 1893, SSCJCA 70, 7.

76 Chicago Herald, 20 Aug. 1893, SSCJCA 70, 7.

77 Chicago Herald, 19 Aug. 1893, SSCJCA 70, 7; Chicago Herald, 20 Aug. 1893, SSCJCA 70, 7.

78 Chicago Herald, 18 Sept. 1893, SSCJCA 70, 14; Chicago Herald, 9 May 1894, SSCJCA 70, 95; Chicago Herald 19 May 1894, SSCJCA 70, 106; Chicago Herald, 22 May 1894, SSCJCA 70, 107; Chicago Tribune, 4 June 1894, SSCJCA 70, 116.

79 Chicago Times, 14 Nov. 1891, 13 Dec. 1891, 27 Dec. 1891; 3 Jan. 1892; 5 Jan. 1892; 16 Jan. 1892; 28 Jan. 1892; 1 July 1892; 14 Aug. 1892.

80 See for example, Chicago Times, 30 Dec. 1891; 3 Mar. 1892; 8 Mar. 1892; 14 Mar. 1892; 10 April 1892; 12 April 1892.

81 Chicago Times, 10 Jan. 1892.

82 Chicago Times, 16 Jan. 1892. See also Chicago Times, 20 Dec. 1891; 25 Dec. 1891; 8 Jan. 1892; 28 Jan. 1892; 18 Dec. 1892.

83 See for example, Chicago Times, 4 Mar. 1892; 8 Mar. 1892.

84 Chicago Times, 25 Dec. 1891.

85 Chicago Times, 31 Mar. 1892. See also Chicago Times, 29 Mar. 1892.

86 Chicago Times, 18 Dec. 1892, SSCJCA 69, 97.

87 Chicago Times, 23 Feb. 1892.

88 Chicago Herald, 2 Aug. 1893, SSCJCA 70, 1; Chicago Herald, 3 Aug. 1893, SSCJCA 70, 1.

89 In Urban Disorder and the Shape of Belief, Smith discusses the connections between the Columbian Exposition and the Pullman Strike (223–270).

90 Chicago Times, 27 Jan. 1892.

91 Chicago Times, 28 Jan. 1892. See also Platt, “Invisible Gases,” 2, 5.

92 Wilson, The City Beautiful Movement, 57–74; Mayer and Wade, Chicago: Growth of a Metropolis, 193–200; Scott, American City Planning, 44–45; Wilson, Urban Disorder and the Shape of Belief, 224–226.

93 Adams, Henry, The Education of Henry Adams (Boston, Mass., 1961), 340–341Google Scholar.

94 Fogelson, Planning the Capitalist City, 130, 135; Wilson, The City Beautiful Movement, 57–74; Scott, American City Planning, 3–32; Smith, Urban Disorder and the Shape of Belief, 223–226.

95 CAC, Annual Report (1876): 31–32; (1877): 12; (1878): 6–8; (1979): 13–15; (1880): 8–10, 18–19; (1882): 6–9; (1883): 6–8, 12; (1884): 5–6, 11; (1885): 14–15; (1886): 22; (1887): 13, 18; (1888): 25–26; (1889): 8–9; (1890): 12–13; CAC, Report of the Smoke Committee (May 1889).

96 CAC, Report of the Main Drainage Committee… 1880, (Chicago, 1880), 6–7Google Scholar; Annual Report, (1885): 12; Annual Report (1882): 7; Report on the Main Drainage… September 1885: Supplementary Report of the Committee (Chicago, 1885): 18–32Google Scholar; Report of the Committee on Drainage and Water Supplies to the Executive Committee of the Citizens' Association… May 25, 1887 (Chicago, 1887): 3–4Google Scholar; Report of the Committee on Drainage (1887): 4; Report of Smoke Committee (May 1889). See also CAC, Report of the Committee on Tenement Houses (1884).

97 On the fertilizer stench issue see CAC, Annual Report (1880): 18; (1882): 9; (1883): 12. The effort was successful. See Annual Report (1884): 12. On the steam whistle issue, see CAC, Annual Report (1878): 6; (1879): 13–14; (1880): 9; (1884), 11; (1885): 14–15. On the smoke issue see CAC, Annual Report, (1880): 8; (1882); 6–7; (1883): 6–8; (1884): 5–6; (1886): 22; (1887): 13; (1888): 25–26; (1889): 8; Report of the Smoke Committee (May 1889). For additional examples of this kind of activity, see also CAC, Annual Report (1883): 12–16; (1884): 4–5, 7–9; (1885): 15–16; (1886): 9, 16; (1891): 9–11.

98 Bird, Report of the Department of Smoke Inspection (1911): 14–16, 17–19, 21, 23–24. See also Bird, Chicago's Smoke Problem, 283–286; Tunnicliff, “Smoke Elimination in Chicago,” 395–396; and Chicago Association of Commerce, Smoke Abatement and Electrification of Railroad Terminals.

99 As William Cronon observed in his dissenting contribution to the 1990 Journal of American History “Round Table: Environmental History,” “Environmental history continues to have too strong a bias toward the wild and the rural.… “ (“Modes of Prophecy and Production,” Journal of American History, 1131). Recent reviews of the environmental history field also note the failure of scholars to consider the impacts of and responses to industrial pollution and other urban environmental problems: See Darnovsk, Marcy, “Stories Less Told: Histories of U.S. Environmentalism,” Socialist Review 22 (Oct.–Nov. 1992): 26–28Google Scholar; and White, Richard, “American Environmental History: The Development of a New Field,” Pacific Historical Review 54 (Aug. 1985): 330CrossRefGoogle Scholar. William Cronon's awardwinning Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West (New York, 1991Google Scholar) exemplifies a growing recognition on the part of environmental historians that industrial development has played a significant role in the environmental history of the world, but it, too, continues to reflect the field's lack of interest in industrial pollution and the impact of industrial development on urban environments. While providing an impressive description of how the rise of big business affected the natural ecology of Chicago's agricultural hinterlands, Cronon has virtually nothing to say about how business affected biological ecosystems and the quality of human life within the city.

A small but growing number of historians, so far mostly from the field of urban history, have begun to fill the void. This new work is represented in recent special issues of the Environmental History Review and the Journal of Urban History. See Stine, Jeffrey K. and Tarr, Joel A., eds., “Special Issue on Technology, Pollution, and the Environment,” Environmental History Review 18 (Spring 1994)Google Scholar and Rosen, Christine Meisner and Tarr, Joel Arthur, eds., “The Environment and the City,” Journal of Urban History 20 (May 1994)Google Scholar. For theoretical overviews of the research agenda of urban environmental history, see Martin V. Melosi, “The Place of the City in Environmental History,” Environmental History Review (Spring 1993): 1–23, and Rosen, Christine Meisner and Tarr, Joel Arthur, “The Importance of an Urban Perspective in Environmental History,” Journal of Urban History 20 (May 1994): 299–310CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

The best general introductions to the topic of industrial pollution and industrial pollution control are: Melosi, Martin V., ed., Pollution and Reform in American Cities, 1870–1930 (Austin, Tex., 1980)Google Scholar, which contains a helpful bibliography as well as articles on many varieties of pollution control, including water pollution, air pollution, noise, and solid waste; Tarr, Joel A., “The Search for the Ultimate Sink: Urban Air, Land and Water Pollution in Historical Perspective,” Records of the Columbia Historical Society of Washington, DC. 51 (Charlottesville, Va., 1984), 1–29Google Scholar; and Melosi, Martin V., “Hazardous Waste and Environmental Liability: An Historical Perspective,” Houston Law Review 25 (July 1988): 741–779Google Scholar.

10 Grinder, Robert Dale, “The Anti-Smoke Crusades: Early Attempts to Reform the Urban Environment, 1893–1918,” (Ph.D. diss., University of Missouri, 1973)Google Scholar. See also: Grinder, , “The War Against St. Louis's Smoke, 1891–1924,” Missouri Historical Review 69 (Jan. 1975): 191–205Google Scholar; “From Insurgency to Efficiency: The Smoke Abatement Campaign in Pittsburgh Before World War I,” The Western Pennsylvania Historical Magazine 61 (July 1978): 187–202Google Scholar; and “The Battle for Clean Air: The Smoke Problem in Post-Civil War America,” in Melosi, ed., Pollution and Reform. Tarr, Joel A., Koons, Kenneth E., “Railroad Smoke Control: The Regulation of a Mobile Pollution Source,” in Daniels, George H. and Rose, Mark H., Energy and Transport: Historical Perspectives on Policy Issues (Beverly Hills, Calif., 1982)Google Scholar; see also Lubove, Roy, Twentieth Century Pittsburgh: Government, Business and Environmental Change (Pittsburgh, Penn., 1969), 31, 46–50Google Scholar; MacMillan, Donald, “A History of the Struggle to Abate Air Pollution from Copper Smelters of the Far West,” (Ph.D. diss., University of Montana, 1973)Google Scholar. For a British perspective see Flick, Carlos, “The Movement for Smoke Abatement in 19th Century Britain,” Technology and Culture 21 (Jan. 1980): 29–50CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed. For an interesting analysis of how men's and women's reform organizations in Chicago differed on political strategy and philosophical orientation see Flannagan, Maureen A., “Gender and Urban Political Reform: The City Club and the Woman's City Club of Chicago in the Progressive Era,” American Historical Review 95 (Oct. 1990): 1032–1050CrossRefGoogle Scholar. This article looks at differences in how the two kinds of organizations handled certain sanitary issues such as street cleaning and garbage disposal, but not, unfortunately, smoke abatement. Flanagan briefly analyzes the differences between men and women's approach to smoke abatement in “Gender, the Environment, and Public Policy: Chicago in the 1910s,” (1991, unpublished paper). See also Hoy, Suellen M., “‘Municipal Housekeeping’: The Role of Women in Improving Urban Sanitation Practices, 1880–1917,” in Melosi, , ed., Pollution and Reform. Also useful is Henry Obermeyer, Stop That Smoke! (New York, 1933)Google Scholar.

101 See, for example, scrapbooks on smoke at the Cleveland Public Library, containing articles from newspapers from cities across the U.S. as well as Cleveland for the years 1901–1909 scrapbooks on smoke in the Pennsylvania Division of the Carnegie Library, Pittsburgh, containing articles from newspapers from cities across the U.S. as well as Pittsburgh for the years 1912–1918; and Smoke Abatement League scrapbooks at the Cincinnati Historical Society covering the years 1906–1915. See also SSCJCA at the Chicago Historical Society.

102 Tarr and Lamperes, “Changing Fuel Use Behavior”; Hurley, Andrew, “Environmental and Social Change in Gary Indiana, 1945–1980” (Ph.D. diss., Department of History, Northwestern University, 1988), 99–107Google Scholar, 253–256.

103 Historical scholarship on 19th and early 20th century water pollution problems has traditionally focused primarily on sewerage and sanitary wastes, rather than industrial waste. It also tends to focus on water and sewerage system design and the political processes that underlay sewerage and water system construction, rather than questions relating to industrial pollution regulation. For the most part, historians who deal directly with industrial water pollution in the period before World War I focus on the kinds of pollution generated by a particular industry and that industry's indifference or opposition to voluntary abatement and regulation. See, for example, Hurley, Andrew, “Creating Ecological Wastelands: Oil Pollution in New York City, 1870–1900”, Journal of Urban History 20 (May, 1994): 340–364CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Craig Colton, “Creating a Toxic Landscape: Chemical Waste Disposal Policy and Practice,” Environmental History Review (Spring 1994); Pratt, Joseph A., “Growth or a Clean Environment? Responses to Petroleum-related Pollution in the Gulf Coast Refining Region,” Business History Review 52 (Spring 1978): 1–10CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Kelley, Robert L., “The Mining Debris Controversy in the Sacramento Valley,” Pacific Historical Review 25 (Nov. 1956): 331–346CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

Some historical studies of rivers, lakes, and other waterways shed light on industrial water pollution problems. See for example, Capper, John, Power, Garrett, and Shivers, Frank R. Jr, Chesapeake Waters: Pollution, Public Health, and Public Opinion, 1607–1972 (Centreville, Md., 1983)Google Scholar; Steinberg, Theodore, Nature Incorporated: Industrialization and the Waters of New England (New York, 1991)Google Scholar; and Bruggemeier, Franz-Joseph, “A Nature Fit for Industry: The Environmental History of the Ruhr Basin, 1840–1990,” Environmental History Review 18 (Spring 1994): 35–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also John Cumbler, “What ever Happened to Industrial Waste: Reform, Compromise, and Science in Nineteenth Century New England,” (unpublished paper, Department of History, University of Louisville, 1993).

Craig Colton has written extensively on industrial waste disposal on land as well as water in the area around Chicago. See, for example, Industrial Wastes in the Calumet Area, 1869–1970: An Historical Geography, Hazardous Waste Research and Information Center, Illinois Department of Energy and Natural Resources (Champaign, Ill., 1985); and “Industrial Wastes in Southeast Chicago: Production and Disposal, 1870–1970,” Environmental Review 10 (Summer 1986): 93–106Google Scholar.

104 See, for example, Merrifield v. Lombard, 95 Mass. 16 (1866); New England Cotton Yarn Co. v. Laurel Lake Mills, 190 Mass. 48 (1906)Google Scholar; Parker v. American Woolen Co., 195 Mass. 591 (1907)Google Scholar; Beach v. Sterling Iron and Zinc Co., 54 N.J. Eq. 65 (1895)Google Scholar; Worthen & Aldrich v. White Spring Paper Co., 75 N.J. Eq. 624 (1909)Google Scholar; Voss v. Chicago Sandoval Coal Co., 165 111. App. 565 (1911)Google Scholar.

105 Stuart Galishoff, “Triumph and Failure: The American Response to the Urban Water Supply Problem, 1860–1923,” in Melosi, ed., Pollution and Reform, 47–52 and notes 155, 160–163.

106 Casner, Nicholas, “Changing Legal Perceptions of Mine Acid Drainage Pollution,” (unpublished paper, Boise State University, 1993)Google Scholar.

107 Pratt, “Growth or a Clean Environment?” 16–21. Colton, “Chemical Manufacture and Waste Treatment.”

108 Tarr, Joel, “Searching for a ‘Sink’ for Industrial Waste: Iron Making Fuels and the Environment,” Technology and Culture 18 (Spring, 1994): 9–34Google Scholar. Unfortunately the quenching process caused air pollution. See also Tarr, “Industrial Wastes and Public Health,” 1061, and M. L. Quinn, “Industry and Environment in the Appalachian Copper Basin, 1890–1930,” Technology and Culture (July 1993): 575–612.

109 For an overview of the mainstream approach to interpreting the role of capitalism in environmental history see articles by Donald Worster (“Transformations of the Earth: Toward an Agroecological Perspective in History” and “Seeing Beyond Culture”), with comments by Crosby, Alfred W., White, Richard, Merchant, Carolyn, Cronon, William, and Pyne, Stephen J., in “A Round Table: Environmental History,” Journal of American History 76 (March 1990): 1087–1147Google Scholar. See also Merchant, Carolyn, Ecological Revolution: Nature, Gender, and Science in New England, (Chapel Hill, 1989)Google Scholar, and Worster, Donald, The Wealth of Nature: Environmental History and the Ecological Imagination, (New York, 1993)Google Scholar.

110 Colton, “Creating a Toxic Landscape: Chemical Waste Disposal Policy and Practice, 1900–1960,” Environmental History Review (Spring 1994): 85–116; Lynne Page Snyder, “The Death-Dealing Smog Over Donora, Pennsylvania: Industrial Air Pollution, Public Health Policy, and the Politics of Expertise, 1948–1949,” Environmental History Review (Spring 1994): 117–139. Hurley, “Environmental and Social Change in Gary Indiana,” 124–140. See also Andrew Hurley, “Challenging Corporate Polluters: Race, Class, and Environmental Politics in Gary, Indiana Since World War II,” Indiana Magazine of History (Dec. 1992). See also Quinn, “Industry and the Environment in the Appalachian Copper Basin,” 610–611.

111 Petulla, Joseph M., Environmental Protection in the United States: Industry, Agencies, Environmentalists, (San Francisco, 1987), 71–92Google Scholar; Logsdon, Jeanne M., “Organizational Responses to Environmental Issues: Oil Refining Companies and Air Pollution,” Research in Corporate Social Performance and Policy 7 (1985): 47–71Google Scholar; Mahon, John F., “Corporate Political Strategies: An Empirical Study of Chemical Firm Responses to Superfund Legislation,” Research in Corporate Social Performance and Policy 5 (1983): 143–182Google Scholar; Sonnenfeld, Jeffry A., “Structure, Culture, and Performance in Public Affairs: A Study of the Forest Products Industry,” Research in Corporate Social Performance and Policy 4 (1982): 105–127Google Scholar; Miles, Robert H., Managing the Corporate Social Environment: A Grounded Theory (Englewood Cliffs, 1987)Google Scholar; Sethi, S. Prakash, “A Conceptual Framework for Environmental Analysis of Social Issues and Evaluation of Business Response Patterns,” Academy of Management Review 4 (Jan. 1979): 63–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Steiner, George A. and Steiner, John F., Business, Government, and Society: A Managerial Perspective, Text and Cases, sixth ed. (New York, 1991), 155–160Google Scholar.

112 Craig E. Colton, et al., Industrial Waste Management Practices, 1890–1950: A Bibliography, Vance Bibliographies: Public Administration Series #P 1880 (Hazardous Waste Research and Information Center, State Water Survey, Illinois Department of Energy and Natural Resources, 1985) and Davenport, S. J. and Morgis, G. G., Air Pollution: A Bibliography, Bulletin 537, Bureau of Mines, (Washington D.C., 1954Google Scholar) are useful indexes to the technical literature on trade waste and air pollution abatement. See also Quinn, “Industry and Environment in the Appalachian Copper Basin.”