Garbage in the Cities: Refuse, Reform, and the Environment : 1880-1980 - Hardcover

Melosi, Martin V.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0890961190 ISBN 13: 9780890961193

Publisher: Texas A & M Univ Pr, 1982

Synopsis

As recently as the 1880s, most American cities had no effective means of collecting and removing the mountains of garbage, refuse, and manure - over a thousand tons a day in New York City alone - that clogged streets and overwhelmed the senses of residents. In his landmark study, Garbage in the Cities, Martin Melosi offered the first history of efforts begun in the Progressive Era to clean up this mess. Since it was first published, Garbage in the Cities has remained one of the best historical treatments of the subject. This thoroughly revised and updated edition includes two new chapters that expand the discussion of developments since World War I. It also offers a discussion of the reception of the first edition, and an examination of the ways solid waste management has become more federally regulated in the last quarter of the twentieth century. Melosi traces the rise of sanitation engineering, accurately describes the scope and changing nature of the refuse problem in U.S. cities, reveals the sometimes hidden connections between industrialization and pollution, and discusses the social agendas behind many early cleanliness programs. Absolutely essential reading for historians, policy analysts, and sociologists, Garbage in the Cities offers a vibrant and insightful analysis of this fascinating topic.

About this title

Review

A seminal examination of a too often neglected by-product of the technical and economic revolutions of the twentieth century. - Technology and Culture; ""Tells us much about American consumption, treatment of natural resources, social organization, and public spirit."" - Journal of American History; ""An important book on a vexing, critical problem.... This is an issue on which history has much to say, and we can benefit by learning from the littered path we have trod."" - Journal of Economic History; ""Whether a sign of poverty (then) or of abundance (now), trash has been and remains a primary by-product of urban life. With this reprint edition, a new generation of scholars will have ready access to a foundational study of solid waste management in American cities, a book that set out lines of inquiry on equity and environmental justice, on women and municipal housekeeping, on urban ecology that redefined urban studies. This is a classic."" - Greg Hise, University of Southern California

About the Author

Martin V. Melosi, Distinguished University Professor of History at the University of Houston and coeditor of the History of the Urban Environment series, is the author of Effluent America: Cities, Industry, Energy, and the Environment.

Edition details

• Publisher: Texas A & M Univ Pr
• Publication date: 1982
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0890961190
• ISBN 13: 9780890961193
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1