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The Sanitary City: Environmental Services in Urban America from Colonial Times to the Present

by Martin V. Melosi

University of Pittsburgh Press, 2008
eISBN: 978-0-8229-7337-9 | Paper: 978-0-8229-5983-0
Library of Congress Classification TD223.M45 2008
Dewey Decimal Classification 363.610973

ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE

ABOUT THIS BOOK

Immersed in their on-demand, highly consumptive, and disposable lifestyles, most urban Americans take for granted the technologies that provide them with potable water, remove their trash, and process their wastewater. These vital services, however, are the byproduct of many decades of development by engineers, sanitarians, and civic planners.

In The Sanitary City, Martin V. Melosi assembles a comprehensive, thoroughly researched and referenced history of sanitary services in urban America. He examines the evolution of water supply, sewage systems, and solid waste disposal during three distinct eras: The Age of Miasmas (pre-1880); The Bacteriological Revolution (1880-1945); and The New Ecology (1945 to present-day).

Originally published in 2000, this abridged edition includes updated text and bibliographic materials. The Sanitary City is an essential resource for those interested in environmental history, environmental engineering, science and technology, urban studies, and public health.

Winner of:
George Perkins Marsh Prize from the American Society for Environmental History Urban History Association Prize for the best book in North American Urban History
Abel Wolman Prize from the Public Works Historical Society
Sidney Edelstein Prize from the Society for the History of Technology

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Martin V. Melosi is Hugh Roy and Lillie Cranz Cullen University Professor of History and director of the Center for Public History at the University of Houston. He is the author or editor of fourteen books, including Garbage in the Cities: Refuse, Reform and the Environment, and Effluent America: Cities, Industry, Energy, and the Environment.

REVIEWS

“Melosi has written an intellectual and technologically oriented account of the efforts of urban leaders to foster control of the built environment and enhance the health of citizens. Scholars in urban and environmental history will begin their future work with Melosi's book, and they will consult it regularly. Here is a book that practitioners will read, assign, and debate.”
—Journal of Urban History

“A substantial work of scholarship that provides a highly useful history of the development and consequences of urban water, sewer, and solid waste infrastructure in the United States. Extensively referenced, heavily illustrated, and well written, it should be a standard on the subject for many years.”
—Technology and Culture

“A monumental work, the outcome of well over a decade of research by an important scholar. A milestone in public works history. It is likely to become the first work to which future scholars interested in the sanitary technologies in America will turn.”
—ISIS

TABLE OF CONTENTS

<Melosi, Contents>
<p. vii, no folio, p. viii, cont'd or blank>
Contents
Preface	000
Acknowledgments	000
Introduction	000
Part I. The Age of Miasmas: From Colonial Times to 1880
1. Sanitation Practices in Pre-Chadwickian America	000
2. Bringing the Serpent's Tail into the Serpent's Mouth: Edwin Chadwick and the "Sanitary Idea" in England	000
3. The "Sanitary Idea" Crosses the Atlantic	000
4. Pure and Plentiful: From Protosystems to Modern Waterworks, 18301880	000
5. Subterranean Networks: Wastewater Systems as Works in Progress, 18301880 	000
Part II. The Bacteriological Revolution, 18801945
6. On the Cusp of the New Public Health: Bacteriology, Environmental Sanitation, and the Quest for Permanence, 18801920	000
7. Water Supply as a Municipal Enterprise, 18801920	000
8. Battles at Both Ends of the Pipe: Sewerage Systems and the New Health Paradigm, 18801920	000
9. The Third Pillar of Sanitary Services: The Rise of Public Refuse Management, 18801920	000
10. The Great Depression, World War II, and Public Works, 19201945	000
11. Water Supply as a National Issue: The Federal Government, Expansion of Service, and the Threat of Pollution, 19201945	000
12. Sewerage, Treatment, and the "Broadening Viewpoint," 19201945	000
13. The "Orphan Child of Sanitary Engineering": Refuse Collection and Disposal, 19201945	000
Part III. The New Ecology, 19452000s
14. The Challenge of Suburban Sprawl and the "Urban Crisis" in the Age of Ecology, 19451970	000
15. A Time of Unease: The "Water Crisis" in an Effluent Society, 19451970	000
16. Beyond Their Limits: Decaying Sewers, Overflows, and Foaming Plants, 19451970	000
17. Solid Waste as "Third Pollution," 19451970	000
18. From Earth Day to Infrastructure Crisis: Forces Shaping the New Sanitary City	000
19. Beyond Broken Pipes and Tired Treatment Plants: Water Supply, Wastewater, and Pollution since 1970	000
20. Out of State, Out of Mind: The Garbage Crisis in America	000
Epilogue	000
Abbreviations	000
Notes	000
Bibliographic Essay	000
Index	000

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