Packing Them in : An Archaeology of Environmental Racism in Chicago, 1865?1954

Sylvia Hood Washington’s Packing Them In provides strong and often startling evidence of the depths and complexities of environmental racism in Chicago, and offers an innovative historical explanation for how this social ill developed in nineteenth and twentieth century America. Drawing from Michel Foucault’s concept of power/knowledge and from theories of racial formation, Washington also demonstrates how the process through which some European immigrant groups were reclassified from non-white to white over time, allowed them to move out of spaces where they faced environmental injustice into spaces of environmental privilege. This argument represents a significant contribution to environmental justice studies and suggests a comparative and relational ethnic studies approach to future treatments of the subject. Packing Them In is a path breaking book and a welcome addition to the fields of environmental history and environmental justice studies.

-David Naguib Pellow, Dehlsen Professor of Environmental Studies, University of California Santa Barbara and author of Garbage Wars: The Struggle for Environmental Justice in Chicago

 

A pathbreaking book. Sylvia Hood Washington uses Chicago as a case study of how human health inequalities in urban environments change over time. In showing the ways white identity shaped exposure to environmental pollutants in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, she provides historical context to the environmental racism identified in the United States in the late twentieth century. Packing Them In is instructive for those seeking to understand the structural origins of the present struggle for environmental justice, and a model for undertaking studies of urban environmental history that address the struggle. This model remains as important today as it was when Packing Them In was first published.

Carl Zimring, Associate Professor and Coordinator of the Sustainability Studies, Pratt Institute and author of Clean and White: A History of Environmental Racism

 

acking Them In is a path-breaking book that is a must-read for anyone interested in understanding how the social, political, and economic dimensions of urban environmental issues evolve over time. Packing Them In makes a significant contribution to the environmental justice literature as it challenges the notion that racism and inequalities arise solely from black-white dynamics. By using history to understand the evolution of racial and spatial dynamics and by embedding the work in Michel Foucault theoretical framework of power and knowledge, Washington demonstrates the importance of expanding traditional environmental justice frameworks in the analysis of case studies such as these.

Dorceta E. Taylor, James E. Crowfoot Collegiate Professor University of Michigan, School of Natural Resources and Environment

With "Packing Them In" Sylvia Washington has made a significant contribution to American environmental history by demonstrating the centrality of race, racism, and resistance to any adequate understanding of the processes of environmental degradation and 'protection.' Her close empirical studies are informed by theoretical sophistication and animated by a passionate commitment to social justice.--David Delaney

Sylvia Hood Washington's "Packing Them In" is an intriguing overview of the intersection of race, ethnicity, and environmentalism. The book confronts orthodox views about environmental justice and environmental racism, calling upon all of us to take a deeper, more historically informed look at an important contemporary subject.--Martin V. Melosi

"Packing Them In" offers the most cogent explanation to date of how environmental injustices are rooted in historic patterns of racial segregation in the housing market. Vivid in its portrayal of urban pollution and disease, this book nonetheless inspires and uplifts as it captures the resilience of a community determined to improve and beautify its environmental surroundings.--Andrew Hurley

Sylvia Hood Washington's Packing Them In is an intriguing overview of the intersection of race, ethnicity, and environmentalism. The book confronts orthodox views about environmental justice and environmental racism, calling upon all of us to take a deeper, more historically informed look at an important contemporary subject.--Martin V. Melosi, University of Houston

This unique work offers a balance of wisdom from careful historical analysis with the political passions aroused by environmental racism. While her historical focus is on Chicago, Dr. Washington's creative synthesis of empirical detail and social-historical theories are applied to a broader American canvas.--Allan Schnaiberg, Northwestern University

No issue better defines the ways that white supremacy damages lives across the color line, even as it concentrates misery among poor people defines as not white, than that of environmental racism. No study of environmental racism is more rooted in a rich local history, more steeped in engineering expertise, more conversant with the critical study of whiteness, more theoretically informed, or more politically engaged than this seminal and provocative book.--David Roediger, University of Illinois

Sylvia Washington's investigation of the pathologies of environmental racism in Chicago is a welcome addition to a field in need of urban case studies. Her fine history of African-American and immigrant groups' assiduous efforts to secure environmental justice, and to simply live safely, is instructive for contemporary struggles against similar forces of injustice.--Paul C. Rosier, Villanova University

Professor Washington has done the study of both urban development and environmental justice a great service. In her insightful and well argued book, she has shown how racism, sexism, and classism impacted on the life chances of African Americans when they moved to urban areas. Drawing on a wide range of historical, scientific, and political sources, she has provided a well documented overview of the role of racism in urban development. This book is a must read for American Studies Scholars, urban planners, environmentalists, and anyone interested in the history of the development of public policies regarding cities.--Bill E. Lawson, Michigan State University

With Packing Them In Sylvia Washington has made a significant contribution to American environmental history by demonstrating the centrality of race, racism, and resistance to any adequate understanding of the processes of environmental degradation and 'protection.' Her close empirical studies are informed by theoretical sophistication and animated by a passionate commitment to social justice.--David Delaney, Amherst College

Packing Them In offers the most cogent explanation to date of how environmental injustices are rooted in historic patterns of racial segregation in the housing market. Vivid in its portrayal of urban pollution and disease, this book nonetheless inspires and uplifts as it captures the resilience of a community determined to improve and beautify its environmental surroundings.--Andrew Hurley, University of Missouri, St. Louis