RESUMO
The manufactured gas industry provided cities in the United States with energy for light and power during much of the period from approximately 1850 to 1950. This article explores the history of the effects of this industry on air, land, and water environments; it also examines attempts by the courts and municipal and state governments to regulate gas-waste pollution and the industry's response. The article concludes by exploring the heritage of badly contaminated sites that the manufactured gas industry left to the nation after it was replaced by natural gas after World War II.
Assuntos
Conservação de Recursos Energéticos/história , Poluição Ambiental/história , Indústrias Extrativas e de Processamento/história , Combustíveis Fósseis/história , Meio Ambiente , Poluição Ambiental/efeitos adversos , Combustíveis Fósseis/efeitos adversos , História do Século XIX , História do Século XX , Estados UnidosRESUMO
This paper explores the manner in which historians have dealt with the issue of industrial pollution in the United States. It reviews the existing literature, suggesting reasons for the subject's neglect in the past. It also raises a series of questions for historians of pollution to focus upon. These questions include the need to understand societal values and knowledge that determined how society reacted to past pollution that threatened its health and the quality of its environment; the need to identify major turning points in the understanding and regulation of these wastes; the need to clarify how different professional groups have related to the issue of industrial pollution; the need to explore the development of indicators for measuring and regulating industrial pollution; and, the importance of clarifying what past responsible parties understood about the risks of industrial pollutants and how they had grained this knowledge. These issues are important not only to clarify the historical record but also to inform public policy.
