“The Donora Smog Tragedy and the Birth of Modern Environmentalism” 

By: 

Mitchell Burrows 

 

 

A Small‐Town Tragedy 

The town of Donora, Pennsylvania, founded in the 18th century, saw its first success with the interests of Steel and Coal projects that became more prominent in the rust belt of America during the early 20th century.  The discovery of vast amounts of natural resources in addition to a prime manufacturing and shipping location was more than enough to cause the industrial boom that carried the country through the next half of the century and through two world wars. However, like other industrialized centers across the country, Donora had no measures put in place to protect the air. In October of 1948, this would prove to be a fatal error, as smog swept across the valley due to a thermal inversion, a simple meteorological happening common to several and nearly all valley dwelling cities in America. This inversion was caused by air rushing down the mountain slopes which developed a bubble of cooler air over a thick fog in the valley which was subsequently trapped, with the pollutants from the factories. The combination of new technology, working class ideals, industrial production standards, and 

unfortunate weather created a devastating situation that took the lives of close to two dozen and made thousands more ill.  Donora, Pennsylvania and National Environmental Awareness  The Donora Smog Tragedy was the main catalyst for the creation of several interest groups that lobbied for more legislation at the state level and became watchdogs for the implementation of national legislature as the environmental movement grew. To add to this new popular surge programs dedicated to consistently spreading awareness on air pollution continuously increased the numbers of supporters willing to voice their opinion on the subject.  But as this new cause gained momentum, the ‘paradox of progress’ reared its ugly head and once more the detriment fell heaviest on the small steel producing cities of the American industrial northeast. Residents in these towns feared new regulation would stop the economic machine that provided them with jobs and a way of life. The fear of economic downturn in industrial towns was well founded but remains less noteworthy in the face of larger more thematic movements. In the wake of an explosive growth of the environmentalist movement a renaissance of sorts has been undertaken to cleanup and rearm these communities to again be a part of the economy.  “Clean Air Started Here”  The momentum that was created by the environmental disaster in Donora during 1948 was a catalyst for national and popular opinion concerning pollution that carried through to the Clean Air Act of 1970. This time marks a crucially important point in the history of the United States through both the social political relationship as well as the federal expansion to concerns regarding the environment. Along with the creation of the Pennsylvania Environmental Bill of Rights which guarantees the right to clean air and water, the conception of the Environmental Protection Agency took place giving the government a department with which to enforce and monitor its environmental policies. Possibly the most widely known milestone in the environmentalism surge was the declaration of a Federal Earth Day that spreads awareness and information on the Environment. Although the Donora smog incident of 1948 was not the reason that the EPA was formed, nor the sole proponent of the government to legislate environmental reforms, the incident in Donora is almost exclusively responsible for thrusting air pollution into the forefront of ecological worries. “Clean Air Started Here”, the slogan of the Donora Smog Museum points to the reality that the air in Donora was so dirty that it caused a social uproar large enough to make an impact at the national level. Clean air may not have started in Donora Pennsylvania, but the origins of modern environmentalism as we know it today may have.      

1

Mitchell Burrows

Final Paper

4/13/09

“The Donora Smog Tragedy and the Birth of Modern Environmentalism”

Sixty years after the fact, the slogan “Clean Air Started Here” proclaimed the opening of

the Donora Smog Museum in honor of those twenty plus individuals who lost their lives in the

smog incident of 1948.1 This conception goes far in an attempt to summarize and analytically

look at the timeline of Donora and its infamous episode involving the first air-pollution caused

deaths in American history. “Clean Air Started Here” A simple statement like this can easily stir

up a philosophical discussion bound to last for some time. The purpose of this paper is to answer

some of those questions concerning the Donora Smog Museum’s slogan. Questions like what is

‘clean air’, or why did it start in Donora. Additionally much of the examination in this paper will

be directed at how exactly the Donora smog incident happened and the significance of its place

in history, or in other words the actions and events that were indirectly spurred into existence by

the smog disaster of 1948. Ultimately the Donora tragedy and subsequent history results in the

first comprehensive stance on environmental protection at the national level. This event stands

alone as the catalyst to American federal recognition of the multi-facet scale that environmental

interaction takes place. In order to properly conceptualize the significance of such an occasion it

is necessary to first examine a comparative historiography that will set the stage for the Donora

Smog Incident of 1948.

The environmentalism movement during the 20th

century has created numerous new

debates and controversies concerning right and wrong choices and our relationship with the

environment. Additionally, new philosophical and social studies have been integrated into

1 California University. “The Donora Digital Collection: From Origins to the case for clean air.”

California University of Pennsylvania. http://www.cup.edu/education/aam/artexhibit.jsp?pageId=

1580830010421224903422510, Accessed 20 March 2009.

2

history for an interdisciplinary look at the how decisions were reached and why we have arrived

exactly where we are. The three books I chose to examine give reference to different specific

places, people, and time periods as they all attempt to expand on the history of modern

environmentalism. Green Imperialism by Richard Grove looks at the depletion of natural

resources, in the form of deforestation mostly, and tries to give a home to some of what he

argues were direct influences and causes of the conservation movement. The Bulldozer in the

Countryside by Adam Rome examines the push towards suburban growth after World War II.

Rome effectively gives credence to ways that isolated conservation attempts like forest and

wildlife preservation are inherently connected to water and land conservation and in turn water,

air, and land pollution. The Search for the Ultimate Sink is a combination of revisited essays

from the career of historian Joel Tarr. Tarr does a remarkable job of applying modern historical

theory to studies on land, air, and water pollution in the cultural and technological context of

America during the 19th

and 20th

century. Using these bodies of work together I hope to create a

comparative history of the evolution of conservation and environmentalism.

Green Imperialism

Richard H. Grove is currently a Visiting Fellow in Environmental History at the Institute

of Advanced Studies of the Australian National University in Canberra. Concentrating on

human interactions with the ecosystems they inhabit Grove has researched specific subjects such

as El Nino and Island ecosystems. Grove’s expertise and broad historical knowledge allowed

him to fill an important period of conservationism history few have touched on. This innovative

explanation is dissected in his 1995 book Green Imperialism. This particular book establishes a

clear argument formed around one of the oldest human/ecological relationship, that is with the

use of trees, and carries this theme into the emergence of contemporary conservationism.

3

In Green Imperialism, Richard Grove attempts to explain the origins of modern

conservation theories, specifically considering deforestation, by examining European

imperialism and the response to obvious ecological change in island colonies. The age of

European imperialism serves as his timetable because of the more accurate records and accounts

of the past and it’s also the first time conservation efforts were taken seriously in the form of

legislation or state regulations.2 Grove argues that island colonies were more important than

inland or continental colonies for measuring ecological change because they existed on smaller

scales and were much more isolated from the effects of other ecosystems. In his conclusion he

states, “the state could be made to act by persuading it of the dangers to its own survival. These

dangers were easily represented on islands.”3 These qualities allowed for a much quicker

observation of how colonial presence was affecting the island ecology and created a situation

where conservation efforts were demanded, as seen in the conclusion to Grove’s book.

The early phase of territorial expansion along the great trade routes to India and China

undoubtedly provided the critical stimulus to the emergence of colonial environmental

sensibilities. While the early oceanic island colonies provided the setting for well-

documented episodes of rapid ecological deterioration, they also witnessed some of the

first deliberate attempts to counteract the process artificially.4

In the chapters forming the body of the book Grove examines the histories of places such

as India, Mauritius, and the Caribbean in relation to the colonial powers that governed them. In a

2Throughout the first chapter he takes a look at how man has had an impact on the environment, good and bad,

longer than most realize. He mentions early city states and river/valley civilizations as well as the proliferation

of military activity because they marked times of ecological exploitation (usually in the form of deforestation)

and some of the first conservation theorists. Grove uses Theophrasts as an example of this on page 20. He

goes on further to explain why conservation pleas were usually ignored as it wasn’t accepted to be a detriment

to their society to use the forests.

Richard Grove, Green Imperialism: Colonial Expansion, Tropical Island Edens and the Origins of

Environmentalism, 1600-1860 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 16-42. 3 Grove, Green Imperialism, 484.

4 Ibid, 474.

4

uniquely effective fashion Grove attaches conservationist’s efforts to the policies and regulations

on deforestation that succeeded in many of these island colonies.5 Emphasizing the fluidity of

his work Grove connects the different conservation efforts of separate colonies in a timeline

of events developing on top of one another as if to show an evolution of ideals that took place

independently from location. In other words, the conservation policies and experiences were

built upon repeatedly by emerging leaders in conservation attempts. Grove uses the different

interacting histories to show how the colonial expansion of European powers contributed to the

growth and development of environmental policy.

My main critique of Green Imperialism is that Grove should have put more of an

emphasis on the effect of technology in regard to both the need for lumber (i.e. military ship

building on top of necessities like homes and heating) and the evolving abilities to research and

implement conservation techniques. This being said I think he does a wonderful job of relating

the priorities of those in power with the inherent relationship of all people and the environment,

or in other words the needs of the government and the wants/interests of the people.

The Bulldozer in the Countryside

Adam Rome is currently the Associate Professor of History at Pennsylvania State

University. As an environmental historian Rome has contributed to the field in the past and has

even held such positions as editor of Environmental History from 2002 to 2005, a leading journal

in the discipline. His first book, The Bulldozer in the Countryside, concentrates on the

environmental movement in post World War II Suburban America. This book is important

because it gives a history of suburbia as a contributing factor for the environmentalism

movement. It is also one of the first looks at the history of suburbia with the ecology as a main

5 For example Grove uses chapter five to explain Pierre Poivre’s role in the conservation of Mauritius.

Ibid, 168.

5

subject of interest. This book finds its historical significance regarding environmental history in

the fact that it seeks to identify the shift from conservation to environmentalism and catalogue

our country’s trials during this transition.6

In The Bulldozer in the Countryside Adam Rome argues that the push towards suburban

lifestyles in the post World War II decades created numerous unforeseen problems that resulted

in further evidence for the need and support of an American environmentalism movement. In

other words, Rome examines why exactly the opinion of suburban homes changed so drastically

from positive to negative in just about one generation’s time. More specifically he tries to

identify the negative aspects of the process of multi tract-housing that surfaced. Rome also

spends time trying to put the suburbia movement in the context of American culture history.

The first chapter of Adam Rome’s book does just that, while alluding to the reasons

conservationists and other activists in existence didn’t find immediate grounds or cause for

action. This theme of ‘we didn’t know that would happen’ comes up repeatedly but is most

evident in his section on the development of suburbia. The reasoning behind suburban home

building processes Rome describes in chapter one is immediately and repeatedly gratified as the

same reasons seen as why detrimental aspects metaphorically singled themselves out.7 Next

Rome discusses the reasons for the abandonment of conservationist concepts like solar energy in

place of fossil fuel use.8 Rome labels the relationship concerning this issue by quoting Hal

6 Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside: Suburban Sprawl and the Rise of American

Environmentalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2001). 7As underlying themes for most sections of his book Rome portrays a two way relationship between

government and industry with money in mind, capitalism/profit on the part of the home builders and national

economic interests on government’s end. According to Rome, the government attempted to harness the

potential shift from rural to urban/suburban in the majority of the population that was taking place in the

twentieth century. On the other side efficiency, low-cost, and hastiness plagued industry after the effects of

such became realized.

Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside, 15-45. 8 The second chapter stands out as one of the only localized looks from the perspective of the consumer in the

book. Ibid, 45-87.

6

Rothman, “Americans ‘embrace environmentalism when it is convenient and inexpensive’.”9

Like his explanation on the industry/government symbiosis Rome revisits this theme of

American apathy throughout the book.

In the next chapters Rome takes a further look at the unpredicted effects of this suburban

expansion. In an excellent section Rome inspects the issues made public concerning septic tank

use as a quick and easy method for removing waste. He also takes a good look at the discussions

involving quality assurance in regard to building location and the need to reassess the decision

making processes in planning suburban home-building. Again Rome exhibits how the

technology and methodology that made the mass production of a home owning class possible,

(something most people not only accepted as necessary but encouraged i.e. the patronage of

suburbia by the media), were the same reasons for an environmental call to arms just decades

later.

Rome revisits the issues that continued to emerge after the peak of tract-housing

production from the perspective of the environmentalists that found cause in suburban America.

In these later sections Rome concentrates on the numerous non-local activist movements and

government departments supporting a change of means in response to the detrimental effects

caused by mass produced suburbs.10

He makes a point of showing how it wasn’t until these

effects became common knowledge and common concerns that Environmentalists made

headway in reforms and policy influence. In the last parts of the book Rome looks into how the

bureaucracy reoriented itself from rural interests, (as originally intended) to more urban and

9 Ibid, 12.

10 An example is the publications of House and Home, a trade publication citing the FHA and discussing septic

tank procedures and the need for regulation.

Ibid, 99.

7

suburban issues (since that’s where the majority of Americans now resided).11

Rome concludes

his investigation to the ripple-like effects of tract-house production by showing the ‘quiet

revolution’, or acceptance of land-use as an issue by the government. This appeal for change in

how Americans viewed their relationship with the land and conceptual ownership of property

mark some key issues in modern environmentalism. Although not whole-heartedly embraced,

these concepts Rome suggests are far-reaching but practical applications of the same issues

necessary to discussing suburban development as a whole.

Several critiques come up about the structure of Rome’s book; the application method

that he uses to correlate the lessons of tract-housing to the environmentalism movement is just

one of them. For starters, Rome nearly ignores the social history of suburban development such

as group liberties (such as the civil and women’s rights interests) and the desire for affordable

housing. My main issue with Rome’s writing though, is as I mentioned; The reliance on

suburban development and the way this development transpired made more of a foothold for the

environmental movement on a national scale as opposed to creating the need for one. In other

words, suburban mass production and the causes and effects of which added to the

environmentalism movement, it didn’t start it. This being said Rome does a terrific job of

cataloguing the origins of environmentalism while relating it to something most of us find much

closer to home.

The Search for the Ultimate Sink

Joel Tarr is presently working as the Richard S. Caliguiri Professor of Urban and

Environmental History and Policy at Carnegie Mellon University, though he taught at both

California State University as well as the University of California, Santa Barbara previously.

11

This is exhibited in his evidence presented about the shift the Dept. of Agriculture made after World War II.

Ibid, 189.

8

Tarr concentrates his studies to the history of urban environment and development of urban

infrastructure, or urban technology systems. Having numerous applauded publications on the

subject of environmental history Tarr is now seen as a important opinion in the field.12

In his book The Search for the Ultimate Sink Tarr takes a long look at the issue of

pollution in American cities, a task not uncommon to researchers of similar interests. Where

Tarr makes this book stand out is the completeness of his discussion on technology and what it

has done to, for, and because of urban pollution within the processes of urban infrastructure

building and industrial production. He spends time inspecting the reasons for proposed and

supported technology changes that have turned out to be detrimental as well as the shift to a

stage in development where self awareness of qualities and ignorances plays a major role. As he

examines these issues Tarr makes evident how different wastes are shifted to different sinks,

(water, land, and air pollution), because of the public opinion, public servants, and changing

technology.13

Throughout this compilation Tarr re-introduces edited versions of his previous works,

many already popularly accepted, in an attempt to create a broad understanding of themes

supported by specific and comprehensive examples over a long period of time. The post-

modernist thought process is evident in much of his writing as he tries to understand the

reasoning behind monumentally bad decisions and technological advances as a whole while

applying the modern knowledge available now to the past.14

The application of this process, as

Tarr explains, is a mark of accomplishing only half the battle to modern environmental theories.

12

Joel Tarr, The Search for the Ultimate Sink: Urban Pollution in Historical Perspective (Ohio: The

University of Akron Press), 1996. Xxi. 13

Tarr Ultimate Sink. Xxix-1. 14

Tarr has an enthralling essay on the shift from horse to automobile and how the transition took place with

environmental improvement in mind. He explains how the ignorance of the time can create false impressions

about the expectations of new technology.

Ibid, 323.

9

The hard part is realizing how easy it is to not know that you’re ignorant. In other words,

recognizing that in the past people made mistakes in choosing technology because they failed to

predict their shortcomings can help you at the least by being more cautious of costly change.

Another concept that Tarr revisits is the different reasons for shifts in technology and changes in

which ‘sink’ was being used.15

Overall, the broad array of essays that contributes to Tarr’s

fundamental concern attempt to address technological change as a history of what was

technically, practically, and affordably the right decision based information presented at the time.

He stresses that this is the formula for technological evolution to this day and the only way of

safely increasing the chance of it being a positive technologic change is to gather as much info as

possible before making a decision of what is technical, practical, and affordable.

Although Tarr re-edits the past essays and articles he recycled for this book it would still

be more convenient to have a more specific look at some of his theories that could easily make-

up stand alone studies. The objects of his essays are all relatively close in regard to location;

almost all of his writings concentrate on the northeast United States. Although included in his

work, I would have liked to see more of an emphasis on the changes in civic and professional

values as influences to changes in technology or use of ‘sinks’. While admittedly failing to

encompass all facets of the environmental movement (as every essay does) Tarr does a good job

of giving a unique and well developed selection of work discussing reasons for technology

changes, why these changes happened, and what the effects were in the history of urban

American culture.

15

Tarr takes a look at two issues in the same area, the Pittsburgh Smoke Control essay and the article on

Railroad smoke control. Both involved fuel shifts but the residential change involved evolving a technology

rather than completely changing it, giving the consumers something more objective to embrace as well as the

chance to save money.

Ibid, 219- 262.

10

Having considered the different approaches to the environmental movement it would be

impossible to credit any one event or history as the conception of modern environmentalism.

Just as all three of the historians mentioned above alluded to, a lot had to happen to get us where

we are today, and the same massive amount of information could be interpreted in several

different ways. This being said, the works that I discussed above make up three predominantly

stand alone histories of environmentalism. However, as an interdisciplinary approach was

necessary to accomplish the goals of these authors the same combination of theories about

different perspectives among historians may be just as helpful in finding contentment in a

comprehensive evaluation of the past.

The questions then still remain: Why did clean air start in Donora Pennsylvania as the

smog museum so eloquently quotes, and what does that really mean? As I have attempted to

show by examining the stand alone accounts presented by these authors, the histories of

environmentalism and conservation are many and often. In other words there are countless

methods and events to examine that contribute to the growth or expansion of environmentalism

as we know it today. What the Smog incident of Donora Pennsylvania does is completes the

spectrum of air, water, and land as the three fronts of environmentalism while at the same time

creates a cause that hails enough support to bring environmentalism as a concern to the national

level with the creation of the Clean Air act of 1970 and the establishment of the Environmental

Protection Agency that same year.

Donora and the U.S. before 1948

So how did it all happen, how did the pollution in the air get so bad that it actually

attributed to the death of several people, and the illness of thousands in just a few days?16

16

Thought to be somewhere in the thousands. Tarr, Joel A. Devastation and Renewal: An Environmental

History of Pittsburgh and its Region., (Pennsylvania: University of Pittsburgh Press), 2003. 137.

11

Several variables had to come together in order to produce the levels of smog needed to kill a

person. Before arguing this point I must concede that there is much more than meets the eye

when it comes to before and after historically significant events, especially one as important as

Donora. For now however I want concentrate on some of the more physical and scientific

factors involved.

At the onset of my research I aimed to answer the biggest (though not most important)

question, how did the smog get so bad in so short a time? Directly attacked this question

becomes relatively simple in that it all comes back to technology, the economic basis of the

times, and a common weather event that acted like a catalyst for it all. In broader historic

significance the progress of the city and country, as well as the paradoxical progress that resulted

actually created another opportunity for progress, or at least the illumination of shortcomings.17

This may seem like a difficult theme to accept but hopefully things will soon become clearer.

Although the actual founding of the town comes much earlier, as with many cities in the

area, Donora saw its first success with the interests of Steel and Coal projects that were

becoming more and more prevalent within the rust belt of America.18

This discovery of vast

amounts of natural resources in addition to prime location regarding manufacturing and shipping

was more than enough to cause the industrial boom that carried the country through the next half

century and two world wars. Investments going beyond much of anything before them were put

into the new technologies in hopes of striking it big in the era of American industrialization.19

17

This is a popular theme among modern historians when faced with the question of whether or not to

denote progress as such, or at least when faced with progress that includes repercussion. Examples such

as Carol Sheriff, The Artificial River: The Erie Canal and the Paradox of Progress, 1817-1862. (Canada:

Haper Collins Canada LTD), 1996. 18

Richard B. Drake, A History of Appalachia. (Kentucky: University of Kentucky Press), 2001. 119. 19

Tarr. Devastation and Renewal.

12

Out of this the multi faceted corporation known then as U.S. Steel would emerge on the forefront

of both efficiency and profit.20

The proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back came in the form of a thermal inversion,

a simple meteorological happening common to several and nearly all valley dwelling cities in

America. This particular type of inversion, the same kind that is most common in the United

States, is caused by air rushing down the mountain slopes and developing a bubble of cooler air

over a thick fog in the valley that becomes subsequently trapped. Weather reports from

Allegheny County and corresponding accounts in Cambria County during the week of the smog

disaster show increased fog levels and a reduction in visibility from over five miles to around a

half mile and then back to over eight after the winds changed and rain helped lift the inversion.21

A Pittsburgh-Post Gazette article about the smog describes the anomaly of “dusk at noon” in its

October 29th

paper attesting to the severity of the pollution when combined with the thermal

inversion.22

All this being said, arguably the most important cause of the smog disaster was the

precedence, or lack of precedence, when it came to ideals on air pollution. This is another

concept that must be tackled from several angles at once in order to properly grasp its

significance. In very general terms, people didn’t really think about it.23

Of course the Donora

incident wasn’t the first thing to make people realize at least some of the unseen effects of air

pollution, on the contrary this idea has been around for some time, mostly in urban areas but at

20

U.S. Steel invested an unprecedented amount of money on the creation of zinc and steel mills in

Donora alone. CONSOL Energy. “Consol Energy.” http://www.consolenergy.com, Accessed 18 March

2009. 21

National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service. “NCDC: National Climatic Data

Center.” http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/ncdc.html, Accessed 15 March 2009. 22

The Article accompanied a picture of the “dusk at noon” phenomenon. “Dusk at Noon,” Pittsburgh

Post-Gazette. 29 October 1948. 23

Andrew Hurley. Environmental Inequalities: Class, Race, and Industrial Pollution in Gary,

Indiana, 1945-1980. (University of North Carolina Press), 1995. 47.

13

least since the first coal furnaces created billowing smoke plumes.24

The ideas of unwanted but

consciously created air pollution had even already found a home in many minds in southwest

Pennsylvania at this point. Unlike the clean air concept at this time the majority of people had

reconciled with the idea of water and land pollution and the detrimental effects of such. The fact

that the masses hadn’t caught on, and thus the government wasn’t exactly prompted to impose

regulations allowed for massive legislative loopholes when it came to air pollution as a

byproduct of industry. 25

All these factors play pivotal roles in the smog incident but they were however not

entirely the cause behind the ‘ignorance’ in the Donora area. The fact is Donora was, during its

heyday, a working class town. A town filled with working class people, many of which were

immigrants themselves or just generations removed from immigrants.26

This was a group of

people characterized by their firm belief in the idea that working is life, and your life is work.27

Although this concept might seem fleeting to someone in modern day America, it’s really not

hard to imagine how much differently your priorities can become with a family in addition to

deep concerns about being able to provide for them. In other words, the people of Donora and

similar working class towns got used to the smoke, maybe even grew fond of it over time as a

symbol of the perseverance of a way of life, or at least the means to it.28

24

Lubove, Roy. Twentieth Century Pittsburgh. (Pennsylvania: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.), 1969, 147. 25

Joel A. Tarr. The Search for the Ultimate Sink: Urban Pollution in Historical Perspective. (Ohio:

Akron University Press), 1996, 219. 26

Roger Daniels. Coming to America: A History of Immigration and Ethnicity in American Life. (New

York: Harper Perennial), 2002. 122. 27

This is a theme revisited by several historians in regard to the immigrant and non-immigrant working

class populations of the early twentieth century alike. Bell goes far in his novel based on true accounts to

describe the struggle to make enough money let alone that for federal support in living standards.

Thomas Bell. Out of This Furnace. (Pennsylvania: University of Pittsburgh Press) 1976. 28

A final factor in the smog incident is inherent in the planning of the city and that of the mills in relation

to the lie of the land or the natural geology. Tarr and Ed Muller touch on this idea in their essay in

Devastation and Renewal. 11.

14

The combination of several variables including new technology, working class ideals,

industrial production standards, and some seriously unfortunate weather created a devastating

situation that took the lives of close to two dozen and made thousands more ill. Attempting the

most objective of views can almost allow someone to be blind to the knowledge of what was to

come in the small Monongahela community. The fact that many of the residents continued this

train of thought after being faced with tragedy is beyond almost any amount of objective

reasoning, other than the same that explained their response before the disaster. However, the

implications that were brought to face on a more national level resound the importance, in the

opposite fashion, that one may attribute to the deaths caused by the incident.

Donora and the U.S. After 1948

The social and political upheaval caused by the Donora smog tragedy were far reaching

and extremely important on a national and political level spurred on by the ever increasing

interest and support at the local/regional levels. Simply put, this event was the main catalyst for

the creation of several interest groups that lobbied for more legislation at the state level and

became watchdogs for the implementation of national legislature as the environmental

movement grew.29

To add to this new popular surge programs dedicated to consistently

spreading awareness on air pollution continuously increased the numbers of supporters willing to

voice their opinion on the subject.30

But, as this new cause gained momentum the ‘paradox of

progress’ again reared its ugly head and once more the detriment fell heaviest on the small steel

producing cities of the American industrial northeast.

29

One of the first groups formed in the name of air quality was the Webster Society for Better Living, but

It was very local and mainly focused on the awareness of the Donora accident. However the Division of

Air Pollution Control was formed with success in 1949. Allegheny County, Pennsylvania Health

Department, Bureau of Air Pollution Control. Material on Smoke Control and Air Pollution (80:7) 1941-

1978, Archives of Industrial Society at the University of Pittsburgh. 30

Lubove, Twentieth Century Pittsburgh. 106.

15

After several years of gaining strength and support the main proponents of Air quality

control were awarded their first reward from the federal government in the form of the Air

Pollution Control Act of 1955. Unfortunately for the supports of more regulation the 1955 Act

was primarily concerned with spreading awareness along with funding further research on the

subject. 31

In the long run this ambitious appetite would spark faster more consecutive increases

in regulation and federal involvement proceeded only by local regional and state reforms.32

At about the same time the very reasoning that enabled so many of the inhabitants of

these mill towns to be apathetic towards the amount of pollution they were faced with grew

concerned about what would happen as the smoke plumes disappeared. As alluded to previously,

some residents in these towns feared new regulation would stop the economic machine that

provided them with jobs and a way of life. As it turns out, the fear of economic downturn in

industrial towns was well founded but remains less noteworthy in the face of larger more

thematic movements.33

In the wake of an explosive growth of the environmentalist movement a

renaissance of sorts has been undertaken to cleanup and rearm these communities to again be a

part of the economy.34

Again local community involvement along with newer methodology and technology

helped propel the turnaround of environmental legislature that was being considered. The Clean

31

Although in existence before the legislature formally titled the Clean Air Act and the Formation of the

PA the Air Pollution Act of 1955 Marks an important milestone in National Air Pollution

acknowledgement. United States Environmental Protection Agency. “Clean Air Act/US EPA.”

http://www.epa.gov/air/caa, Accessed 18 March 2009. 32

Allegheny, Bureau of Air Pollution and Control (BAPC). 33

Within twenty years U.S. Steel closed all Donora operations costing thousands of jobs, Donora Smog

Museum. Digital Collection. 34

Having my father live in Donora (presently, but in the area for almost two decades), I’ve been able to

personally see Donora, Monessen, Charleroi, and Pittsburgh several dozen times. My personal opinion is

that Pittsburgh has come a long way in cleaning up and creating new jobs whereas the smaller

Monongahela valley towns are dismal and crime ridden. If the residents were indeed worried about this

kind of economic fallout on a community level, their worries have been justified.

16

Air Act of 1963 held much more promise than its predecessor of 1955. This act dealt directly

with reducing pollution through emissions testing and new standards on stationary polluters.35

Again however the efforts of those involved and the democratic power of petitions saw

amendments added in 1965, 1966, and 1967 all focused on strengthening and expanding the

abilities of the act.36

The momentum that was created by the environmental disaster in Donora during 1948, as

a catalyst for national and popular opinion concerning pollution carried through all the way to

the Clean Air Act of 1970, and some would say continues on today. This time marks a crucially

important point in the history of the United States through both the social political relationship as

well as the federal expansion to concerns regarding the environment. Along with the creation of

the Pennsylvania Environmental Bill of Rights guaranteeing the right to clean air and water, the

conception of the Environmental Protection Agency took place giving the government a

department with which to, on all fronts, enforce and monitor its environmental policies. Possibly

the most widely known milestone in the environmentalism surge was the declaration of a Federal

Earth Day with the idea of spreading awareness and information on the Environment.37

The Donora smog incident in 1948 was not the reason that the EPA was formed, nor was

it the sole propulsion of the government to legislate environmental reforms. The reason this

particular event stands out so definitively among causes for environmentalism is that it brought

the movement so far, so fast while incorporating an entirely new facet that is integral to

environmentalism as a whole. That is, the incident in Donora is almost exclusively responsible

35

EPA- Clean Air Act of 1963. Information taken from a copy of the 1963 Act. 36

The amendments dealt heavily with timetables and standards of compliance for stationary polluters.

These amendments also included for the first time regulations on automobile pollution. Samuel and

Barbara Hays Environmental Collection (91:9) 1960-2000, Archives of Industrial Society at the

University of Pittsburgh. 37

BAPC, Material on Smoke Control and Air Pollution.

17

for thrusting air pollution into the forefront of ecological worries and unfortunately for those that

perished, their deaths were necessary in order for the tragedy to grab enough national attention to

demand action in the way of preventing the same from ever happening again. “Clean Air Started

Here” is the nice way of saying the air in Donora was so dirty that it caused a social uproar big

enough to make an impact at a national level. Clean air may not have started in Donora

Pennsylvania, but the origins of modern environmentalism as we know it today may have.

Bibliography

Secondary Sources Bell, Thomas. Out of This Furnace. Pennsylvania: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1976.

18

This book is the accounts of three generations of immigrants set in the steel town of Braddock

just south of Pittsburgh. It is based on Bell’s own family and serves as an example of some

of the themes from the immigrant/working class perspective.

Daniels, Roger. Coming to America: A History of Immigration and Ethnicity in American Life.

New York: Harper Perennial, 2002.

This is a history and analysis of immigration to the area of the United States before and after it

was the United States. It includes extensive primary sources and is useful as a reference to

immigration history.

Drake, Richard B. A History of Appalachia. Kentucky: University of Kentucky Press, 2001.

Drake attempts to cover the history of the Appalachian region from settlement to the present in a

specifically social direction. I’ll use this as a reference for some of the social themes in the

culture of Appalachia.

Forrest, Earle R. A History of Washington County, Pennsylvania. Chicago, Illonois: The S. J.

Clark Publishing Company, 1926.

This is a history up to 1926 of most towns in the Monongahela valley. It includes oral accounts

and other data about Charleroi and Donora among others and serves as an early look at the state

of the area.

Grove, Richard. Green Imperialism: Colonial Expansion, Tropical Islands Edens and the

Origins of Environmentalism, 1600-1860. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995.

This book examines the island colonies of colonial Europe from 1600-1860 in an attempt to

Pinpoint some of the main origins of the conservation and environmentalism movements. Used

as a main part of my comparative section on approaches to the history of Environmentalism.

Gugliotta, Angela. “’Hell with the lid taken off’: A cultural history of air pollution- Pittsburgh,”

(Ph.D. diss., University of Notre Dame, 2005).

This is the dissertation of Angela Gugliotta and serves as a recent examination in both

environmental and cultural history of Pittsburgh Pennsylvania.

Hays, Samuel P. Explorations In Environmental History. Pennsylvania: University of Pittsburgh

Press. 1998.

This collection of essays by Samuel Hays goes far in explaining some of the broader themes

present in environmental history. Additionally he looks at combinations of environmental

history and other disciplines.

19

Hurley, Andrew. Environmental Inequalities: Class, Race, and Industrial Pollution in Gary,

Indiana, 1945-1980. University of North Carolina Press, 1995.

This is as Hurley puts it a marriage of environmental and social history with Gary, Indiana as a

case study. This book emulates the situation and themes present in the Pittsburgh area to

exemplify the broader themes.

Lubove, Roy. Twentieth Century Pittsburgh. Pennsylvania: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 1969.

Lubove writs a concise history of the city of Pittsburgh from the beginning of the twentieth

century into the late 1960’s. This I’ll be using as a reference to some of the changes and ideals

that were emerging in the post WWII era.

Rome, Adam. The Bulldozer in the Countryside: Suburban Sprawl and the Rise of American

Environmentalism. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001.

Rome examines suburban sprawl as a case study while making sense of the several perspectives

involving environmentalist evolution as a movement in America.

Sheriff, Carol. The Artificial River: The Erie Canal and the Paradox of Progress, 1817-1862.

Canada: Harper Collins Canada LTD., 1996.

This is an examination of the process of building the Erie Canal in the early to mid nineteenth

century and the set backs and detrimental effects of such an undertaking.

Tarr, Joel A. The Search for the Ultimate Sink: Urban Pollution in Historical Perspective. Ohio:

Akron University Press, 1996.

In this book Tarr describes the changes in technology and what is has done to, for, and because

of urban pollution within the processes of urban infrastructure building and industrial production.

Devastation and Renewal: An Environmental History of Pittsburgh and its Region.

Pennsylvania: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2003.

In this book Tarr closely examines industrial production and the result of urban pollution in the

case of Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. This is an environmental history of Pittsburgh and its region.

Internet Sources California University. “The Donora Digital Collection: From Origins to the case for clean air.”

California University of Pennsylvania. http://www.cup.edu/education/aam/artexh

ibit.jsp?pageId=1580830010421224903422510, Accessed 20 March 2009.

This is the internet-catalogued resources of the Donora smog museum in Donora Pennsylvania.

The webpage includes oral histories, pictures, and other information related to Donora and the

Smog incident of 1948.

20

CONSOL Energy. “Consol Energy.” http://www.consolenergy.com, Accessed 18 March 2009.

This is the webpage of Consol Energy, or what was once known as U.S. Steel. Consol has

information on the origins of their production facilities among other data.

National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service. “NCDC: National Climatic

Data Center.” http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/ncdc.html, Accessed 15 March 2009.

This website allowed me access to the weather conditions reported in 1948 in several cities

around Pittsburgh.

United States Environmental Protection Agency. “Clean Air Act/US EPA.”

http://www.epa.gov/air/caa, Accessed 18 March 2009.

This site contains information on the history of the Clean Air Act as well as what was included in

each stage of the Act at various years.

Primary Sources Allegheny County, Pennsylvania Health Department, Bureau of Air Pollution Control. Material

on Smoke Control and Air Pollution (80:7) 1941-1978, Archives of Industrial Society at

the University of Pittsburgh.

This is documented information concerning the Pennsylvania Health Department and the Bureau

of Air Pollution Control.

Group Against Smog and Pollution (GASP) (70:21) 1972-1975, Archives of Industrial Society at

the University of Pittsburgh.

This collection examines the efforts and documents of the lobbying organization known as

GASP. Included are petitions, correspondence, and other Pittsburgh specific environmental

documentation.

Samuel and Barbara Hays Environmental Collection (91:9) 1960-2000, Archives of Industrial

Society at the University of Pittsburgh.

This collection contains records, papers, correspondence, and periodicals covering the

environmental issues from the local and regional level to the international.

“Dusk at Noon,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. 29 October 1948.

This is a newspaper article I found that discussed the unusually thick amount of Smog in Donora

later October 1948.

Mitchell Burrows

Self Assessment

April 30, 2009

For the purposes of a self assessment or historiography involving the work I’ve done as a

history major at Shippensburg University I chose a film review from my selected topics: Central

Asia class, the final paper from my Theory and Practice class and most recently the seminar

paper from the Capstone class in comparative environmental history. The reasoning behind

choosing these particular papers to discuss is, in the case of the Central Asia paper, it was one of

the first papers I felt I went far enough to be confident with my historical analysis. For the other

two papers the reasoning is much simpler, these were the best two papers I wrote while at

Shippensburg and they both took place in the core classes that actually taught us how to be

historians.

In the case of the film review for my class on Central Asia I examined a movie titled The

Nomad. It was a representation of the culture and history of Kazakhstan, a country that

relatively recently became independent of the Soviet Union and was in search of a national

identity. Doing a review on the movie was and would have been simple enough, however the

important part of the paper was a comparative element between what was represented by the

movie and the actual historical accounts they were meant to represent. After finding a couple

pieces of information I was able to discern the differences in what was just misrepresentations

and what was purposefully changed to be more widely acceptable as a blockbuster movie. The

result of these comparisons left me intrigued by the writing process behind the movie. Many of

the changes that were made to the stories about the Kazakh past went too far in removing the

historical aspects of the identity of the nation. An example of this is a dramatic one on one

sword fight to decide the fate of a group of people, an event that as far as I found never took

place in the Kazakh culture. This coupled with the stretching of an epic narrative into a action

movie made for a gross mismatch in what actually resulted and what was intended. A movie

designed to make money while instilling a sense of identity in a nation fell short of both tasks.

Overall the analysis I preformed in this paper was good but completely based on other secondary

sources.

For my theory and practice class I found myself in the situation of a real historian for the

first time in my career. We were given files from the national archives of local African-

Americans that participated in the Civil War. This project specifically went far in compelling me

to understanding the purpose of most historians. With these files then we were meant to create a

narrative of ‘our’ particular soldier and connect it to overlying themes that many or all African-

Americans experienced. For my particular case I concentrated on identity mistakes due to

several reasons including illiteracy on the part of the soldiers and apathy (or carelessness) on the

part of cataloguers. This was only the case however after I found discrepancies between the

name on the file and the tombstone that the cemetery plot claimed the individual was buried in.

After a decent amount of census analysis and looking at newspaper articles from the time period

I was able to figure out the problem lied within the fact that the soldier had no family at the time

of his death and went by his middle name, Lewis instead of Phillip. The tombstone mystery I

fell upon had finally become visible. The information I found on the individual however was not

the most important part of the paper but instead the connections from primary sources to a

narrative and connections between these and other overlying themes was. As I mentioned above

this was the first primary source work I had done and although most of the information was

given to us as part of the project the connections and any further work were left to us so this was

a significant step in becoming a historian.

The last paper I’ll discuss is that of my comparative environmental history class or the

history capstone. This was a semester long project that involved historiographic essays as well

as individual archival research project and then tying the two together. The most important

aspect and possibly the most significant is the fact that it was so open-ended. From the subject

matter to the secondary sources for the historiography and even the amount and location of

primary or archival information we were to use. This same fact was the one that made the

project so demanding and rewarding at the same time. For the historiography portion of the

paper we were asked to analyze three or more environmental histories as a standalone paper.

This was something new to me in and of itself but in hindsight I really see the significance of the

historiography. The next step was to create a standalone history of an event or group of events

using primary source information that we were expected to collect on our own. This was

important because it was really the first time we were set loose to do what historians actually do,

go out and collect information from the past and create a narrative from it. Finally we were

asked to combine the two projects into and informative argument. The project turned out well

and after an entire semester of hard (and sometimes frantic) work it came together very nicely.

In essence the papers I have conducted throughout my time at Shippensburg so far have

been mostly secondary resources and the creation of narratives from them. This ability as a skill

itself is used a lot by historians but was lacking in actual research. Ultimately though the history

program in its two upper level core classes, Theory & Practice and the Comparative Capstone,

taught us how to use archival research methods and trained us to be real world historians.