“The Death-Dealing Smog Over Donora, Pennsylvania”: Industrial Air Pollution, Public Health Policy, and the Politics of Expertise, 1948–1949

Air pollution: A half century of progress

“…By October 29, visibility had reached a point where the crowd at the high school football game could barely see the players on the field. By the time the rain cleared the air on October 30, 20 people had died and thousands of others were sickened (Snyder, 1994).…”

A Bayesian hierarchical model for assessing the impact of human activity on nitrogen dioxide concentrations in Europe

“…Modern research into, and management of, air pollution began in the middle of the twentieth century when serious concern arose about the possible effects of air pollution on health. To a large extent, this was driven by a series of high profile air pollution episodes, such as those in the Meuse River Valley, Belgium in 1930 (Heimann, 1961;Ayres et al, 1972;Pope et al, 1995;Anderson, 2009) and Donora Pennsylvania in 1948 (Anderson, 1967;Snyder, 1994;Chew et al, 1999). In 1952 episodes of smog in London were associated with over 4000 deaths, resulting in the passing of the Clean Air Act (Brimblecombe, 1987;Giussani et al, 1994;Brunekreef and Holgate, 2002;Stone, 2002).…”

Rich Crevices of Inquiry: Mining and Environmental History

“…Environmental historians have shared the surge of interest in mining environmental history with mining historians (Aiken 2007;Smith 1987), public health historians (Snyder 1994), scholars interested in changing mining technologies and industrial hygiene (Quivik 1998;Sellers 1994Sellers , 1997, and urban historians (Tarr 1996(Tarr , 2005. The intersections across these fields of inquiry have been quite fruitful, perhaps nowhere more so than in the investigation of smoke.…”

“…This barren Appalachian landscape, severely eroded, reminded more than one observer of a moonscape or desert (Quinn 1993;Snyder 1994Snyder , 2003. Heat is an important part of the process.…”