Miasma or germs? The
Miasma theory was a prominent idea in the 18th and 19th centuries that gave a false explanation of how deadly epidemics like
cholera,
yellow fever and
malaria ("bad air") originated and spread. It said that illnesses were caused by breathing in a mysterious "miasma"—a harmful vapor that arose from decaying organic matter. Epidemics often came in the summer because that is when people pent more time outside. The theory motivated an enormous emphasis on public sanitation in major cities to remove smelly pollution, especially human and animal excrement, from streets and back alleys. The theory collapsed when physicians accepted the new
germ theory of disease in the late 19th century. Germs coughed up by an infected person or spread by certain types of
mosquitos or
hookworms were the real reason people caught an infectious disease.
The challenge The emergence of great factories and the concomitant immense growth in
coal consumption gave rise to an unprecedented level of
air pollution in industrial centers. After 1900 the large volume of industrial chemical discharges added to the growing load of untreated human waste. The rapid industrial and urban expansion of America after the Civil War was heavily fueled by
bituminous coal, which powered everything from buildings and factories to ships and trains. This widespread reliance on coal led to a dramatic surge in its consumption, exploding 2000% from 21 million tons in 1870 to 407 million tons in forty years. Bituminous coal dominated the nation's energy supply, supporting one million jobs in the coal industry that stretched from mines to every city and town. This progress raised the GNP, but lowered the quality of life in the urban environment, especially downtown and in neighborhoods downwind of the factory districts.
The reformers The origins of the
environmental movement in Europe and North America lay in response to increasing levels of smoke pollution in the atmosphere during the Industrial Revolution, which began in Great Britain in the 18th century and spread to the United States after 1812. The pervasive problem of coal smoke plagued major cities in Great Britain and the United States for well over a hundred years, according to David Stradling and Peter Thorsheim. From London, Manchester, and Glasgow to Pittsburgh, Chicago, St. Louis, and Cincinnati, industrial centers relying on soft bituminous coal as their primary fuel source suffered through decades of severe air pollution before any relief. British cities, particularly London, were notorious with prolonged smoke and soot. Many U.S. cities faced strikingly similar environmental crises during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Across the Atlantic, activists shared deep concerns about the effects of coal smoke on vulnerable people and the quality of environment. Despite their different economic, political, and cultural systems, both defined the problem in comparable terms. This led to parallel movements dedicated to smoke abatement, where sanitarians, doctors, engineers, and middle and upper-class reformers, often led by women, engaged in an international dialogue, learning from each other's approaches to finding a solution. The key problem was that at first industry and the entire community welcomed smoke—it meant plants were in operation—chimneys without smoke was a bad sign that something had gone wrong. The business and political leadership of the industrial cities were enthusiastic backers of the industry; heavy black smoke meant prosperity and high profits. The workers knew that no smoke meant no paycheck. A new group now entered the scene: women were in charge of cleanliness—whether they ranged from maids who did the laundry, swept every day, and scrubbed the soot off the furniture, to high society hostesses who took pride in their hospitality. Furthermore, women were traditionally responsible for the health of people whose breathing was seriously impeded, especially young children, the elderly, and the sick. Women organized to demand a solution. In the U.S., the
General Federation of Women's Clubs and the
Daughters of the American Revolution were leaders in the conservation movement. The
National Association of Colored Women's Clubs raised environmental awareness in a minority community that had been segregated into the wrong side of the tracks. By 1912, 23 of the 28 largest American cities had passed smoke abatement ordinances, and nearly all had a smoke inspector. The anti-smoke movement in the United States emerged after 1910 as informal local networks of middle class activists who focused on the emissions of smoke by factories, railroads, and service industries. Some business leaders were on the vanguard of city clean-air campaigns. Shutting down major industries was of course out of the question, but persuasion did work, as the Weather Bureau reported steady declines in the number of smoky days. Pittsburgh had 202 smoky days in 1912 and 144 in 1914. The term "pollution" in the modern sense was rare before the 1860s. The term "air pollution" was seldom used before he 1930s. According to Adam Rome: To describe what we now call air pollution--i.e., the gaseous, chemical, and metallic by-products of combustion and industrial processes--people usually talked of "the smoke nuisance." There were several variations of that term --"the smoke problem," "the smoke evil," even "the smoke plague." ==United Kingdom==