Joel A. Tarr

The Search for the Ultimate Sink: Urban Pollution in Historical Perspective

Whether it comes by air, by land, or by water, pollution has long plagued the American city. And for just as long, the question of how to deal with urban wastes has taxed the minds of scientists, engineers, and public officials - and the pocketbooks of ordinary citizens. For over twenty years, Joel A Tarr has written about the issues of urban pollution. In this collection of his essays, Professor Tarr surveys what technology has done to, and for, the environment of the American city since 1850. In studies ranging from the horse to the railroad, from infrastructure development to industrial and domestic pollution, from the Hudson River to the smokestacks of Pittsburgh, his constant theme is the tension between the production of wastes and the attempts to dispose of them or control them with minimal costs. This book stands alone in its scholarly depth and scope. These essays explore not only the technical solutions to waste disposal, but also the policy issues involved in the trade-offs among public health, environmental quality, and the difficulties and costs of pollution control, and all this against the broader background of changes in civic and professional values. Any reader concerned with the interactive history of technology, the environment, and the American city will find this to be an informative and compelling account of pollution problems from the past and a serious guide to urban policies for the future.

Historical Perspectives On Hazardous Wastes in the United States

This paper traces changing attitudes and practices regarding municipal and industrial waste disposal from the middle of the 19th century to the present. It examines the interaction between various theories of health and waste disposal in water and on land. The concluding section explores the increasing use of industrial and sanitary landfills since World War II and the development of legislation to deal with negative effects.

Environmental Activism, Locomotive Smoke, and the Corporate Response: The Case of the Pennsylvania Railroad and Chicago Smoke Control

In the early 1900s, a powerful antismoke movement in Chicago forced the Pennsylvania Railroad to develop strategies for reducing public protest against the company, limiting fines, and blocking legislation forcing railroads to electrify. The company pursued a policy of least steps, by retrofitting locomotives with ameliorative technology, through fuel substitutions, and by training firemen and engineers in efficient combustion methods. By 1909, however, pressure for electrification in Chicago intensified, and Pennsylvania managers worked to retain control over the pace of technological change. In coordination with other railroads, management attempted to obey smoke ordinances without interfering with railroad operations and profitability. Company archives reveal an earnest learning process and differences among railroad managers regarding appropriate responses to antismoke regulations.

Curriculum in Applied History: Toward the Future

Peter N. Stearns and Joel A. Tarr, two of the most prolific scholars of the public history movement, report on the past decade of their pioneering history and public policy program at Carnegie-Mellon University. This is an example of a sophisticated single-focus program primarily for Ph.D. students but which has been adapted to the needs of undergraduates and M.A. candidates. Here students quickly learn to direct their research and writing efforts to policymakers rather than to the general public. At the same time, CarnegieMellons undergraduate offerings in applied history have attracted more students than the conventional history program. Stearns and Tarr are also frank about the problems they have experienced-food for thoughtfor those developing new programs.

Industrial waste disposal in the united states as a historical problem

Abstract 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 subjects 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 gained this knowledge. These issues are important not only to clarify the historical record but also to inform public policy.

The Horse as an Urban Technology

Freight and passengers have always needed to be transported in urban areas, even before the advent of motor vehicles. This paper describes the role that horses played in 19th century urban transportation. Although the railroad was efficient at transporting goods and people over long distances, much intracity transport was done through the use of horses. Cities depended on horse for internal freight movement, public transportation, private travel and emergency services. Horses were seen primarily as machines, and their efficiency was closely monitored. However, the emotional and intellectual attributes of horses were somewhat recognized. Horses that did not become nervous from sensory overload were valued, as were horses that could learn routes. Horses had many insurmountable limitations as efficient machines, including externalities such as manure, noise, and short lifespan. When electric streetcars and later motor trucks and cars were developed, the horse quickly became obsolete as a form of urban transportation.

THE DECLINE OF THE URBAN HORSE IN AMERICAN CITIES

In the U.S., urban horses were phased out gradually, function by function, over the course of a century. Between 1850-80, the number of urban horses grew dramatically, since most freight on the new railroad network required local delivery and rapidly growing cities required more passenger service. The displacement of the horse was slow: for stationary purposes beginning around 1830, for street railways from 1885-95, for light passenger use from 1895-1915, and for heavy freight from 1915-30. Equine technology, supposedly made obsolescent by the steam engine, showed remarkable resilience, persisting for more than a century after its supposed replacement.

A Note on the Horse as an Urban Power Source

One way to think about cities is to conceptualize them as energy sys tems—as entities that require flows of energy for a wide range of pur poses including heat, light, and power. Over time, the sources of these energy flows have changed from human to animal power, and then to steam, electricity, and gas. Yet, these transitions, which in retrospect often seem inevitable, were never uniform, or even certain. At any moment in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries, a variety of energy forms coexisted, fulfilling different functions within the society. This generalization also applies to energy in the city and to a full range of energy-related urban functions including city building, construction and maintenance, commerce and manufacturing, and transportation. 1

Introduction: Technology, Politics, and the Structuring of the City

The writing of history, somewhat like the realm of fashion, often seems to cycle back and forth between different areas of focus. These cycles are clearly reflected in the manner in which historians have shaped and reshaped their approach to the study of technology and the city during the past quarter century as is seen in four special issues on this subject. In May 1979, when Joel Tarr edited the first special issue focusing on technology and the city, he used the introduction to talk about the neglect of technology in the study of urban history and the “impact of technology on society and the environment.” Although the previous decade and a half had seen considerable attention paid to urban politics, in that first issue, politics, politicians, and especially public policy were largely absent. Thus, the approach taken in that issue, however driven to correct the neglect of technology in urban history, smacked of a type of technological determinism. In November 1987, with publication of the second special issue, Tarr and coeditor Mark Rose described a newfound “vitality” in the area of technology and the city as reflected in the writings of historians such as Martin Melosi, Clay McShane, Christine M. Rosen, and Harold L. Platt. In that special issue, only a little more than a decade after the formal coming together of practitioners in the field of urban and technological history, Rose and Tarr found that the field had “matured to the point” that essays in that special issue “primarily fill gaps.” Social and cultural, as well as technological factors, now marked several of the essays as they explored the development of lighting, telegraphy, and elite suburbs between about 1880 and 1920. Politics, however, continued to be relatively neglected, as only one article, that by Paul Barrett on airport planning, included politics and politicians as a major part of the analysis. With publication in March 1999 of the third special issue, however, more than half the authors included politics and political choice among the factors

PATTERNS AND POLICY CHOICES IN INFRASTRUCTURE HISTORY: THE UNITED STATES, FRANCE, AND GREAT BRITAIN

The United States, England, and France have used a variety of forms to deliver urban services and infrastructures over time. Historically, government has been the dominant factor in the delivery of infrastructures for which no user fee is charged, whereas a variety of forms have been followed when there are user fees. This article examines changing forms of service delivery systems in the areas of water supply, mass transportation, and electrical supply in the three nations. Alterations in the form of delivery have been shaped by institutional and cultural factors and unique national styles. All three nations have moved in the direction of privatization of service delivery, but their experience shows that although privatization can reduce governments role in areas where it is poorly suited, proper oversight and maintenance of competition are vital functions.