Smokestacks and Progressives: Environmentalists, Engineers, and Air Quality in America, 1881--1951

By David Stradling

Book Overview

The author describes the evolution of one of America's first environmental movements - the anti-smoke crusade of the early 1900s. The roots of modern environmentalism, David Stradling explains, reach into this Victorian era when air quality became an important issue for middle-class residents in coal-dependent cities - how could a city without pure air, they asked, truly be clean, healthful and moral?

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0801860830
• ISBN13: 9780801860836
• Release Date: July 1999
• Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.3" x 0.8" x 6.3"

Customer Reviews

Important Work

This is an important addition to American urban environmental history. Stradling makes important connections about industrialization and early environmentalism in an interesting way. The book is very well written and enjoyable to read.

Essential reading for all environmentalists and historians.

The author, David S. Stradling, Ph.D., is on the forefront of today's analysis of environmental history. This work will soon be considered the definitive treatise on the subject. I recommend the text unequivocally.