Description
Book SynopsisJanet Greenlees examines the working environments of the heartlands of the British and American cotton textile industries from the nineteenth to the late twentieth centuries. She contends that the air quality within these pioneering workplaces was a key contributor to the health of the wider communities of which they were a part.
Trade Review"This is a promising, important, and long-awaited project—the first comparative history of industry-related hazards in the United States and Britain. The author has synthesized a vast body of research, much of it her own original work. At once comprehensive and selective,
When the Air Became Important is illuminating scholarship."
-- Chris Sellers * Stony Brook University *
"In this truly comparative social and environmental history of air pollution, Greenlees deftly weaves public health, regulatory politics and labor relations into a prescient reminder that protecting workers from hazardous workplaces remains a pressing issue on a global scale." -- Graham Mooney * Johns Hopkins University, and author of Instrusive Interventions: Public Health, Domestic Space, and *
Table of ContentsContents
List of Illustrations
List of Tables
List of Abbreviations
1 Introduction – When does the air in the workplace become important?
2 Textile town and mill environments
3 Tuberculosis in the factory
4 “I used to feel ill with it:” Heat, humidity and fatigue
5 Dust: A New Socio-Environmental Relationship
6 “The noise were horrendous:” The ignored industrial hazard
7 Conclusion: When does the air become important?
Acknowledgements
Notes
Bibliography
Index
