RUcore: Rutgers University Community Repository
"The air we breathe"
Descriptive
TitleInfo
Title
"The air we breathe"
SubTitle
nineteenth-century Americans and the search for fresh air
Name
(type = personal)
NamePart
(type = family)
Kiechle
NamePart
(type = given)
Melanie A.
NamePart
(type = date)
1981-
DisplayForm
Melanie Kiechle
Role
RoleTerm
(authority = RULIB)
author
Name
(type = personal)
NamePart
(type = family)
Fabian
NamePart
(type = given)
Ann V
DisplayForm
Ann V Fabian
Affiliation
Advisory Committee
Role
RoleTerm
(authority = RULIB)
chair
Name
(type = personal)
NamePart
(type = family)
Isenberg
NamePart
(type = given)
Alison
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Alison Isenberg
Affiliation
Advisory Committee
Role
RoleTerm
(authority = RULIB)
internal member
Name
(type = personal)
NamePart
(type = family)
Lewis
NamePart
(type = given)
Jan Ellen
DisplayForm
Jan Ellen Lewis
Affiliation
Advisory Committee
Role
RoleTerm
(authority = RULIB)
internal member
Name
(type = personal)
NamePart
(type = family)
Wailoo
NamePart
(type = given)
Keith
DisplayForm
Keith Wailoo
Affiliation
Advisory Committee
Role
RoleTerm
(authority = RULIB)
internal member
Name
(type = personal)
NamePart
(type = family)
Melosi
NamePart
(type = given)
Martin
DisplayForm
Martin Melosi
Affiliation
Advisory Committee
Role
RoleTerm
(authority = RULIB)
outside member
Name
(type = corporate)
NamePart
Rutgers University
Role
RoleTerm
(authority = RULIB)
degree grantor
Name
(type = corporate)
NamePart
Graduate School - New Brunswick
Role
RoleTerm
(authority = RULIB)
school
TypeOfResource
Text
Genre
(authority = marcgt)
theses
OriginInfo
DateCreated
(qualifier = exact)
2012
DateOther
(qualifier = exact);
(type = degree)
2012-10
CopyrightDate
(qualifier = exact)
2012
Place
PlaceTerm
(type = code)
xx
Language
LanguageTerm
(authority = ISO639-2b);
(type = code)
eng
Abstract
(type = abstract)
This dissertation studies how Americans came to value and protect "fresh air" in the rapidly changing industrial cities of the nineteenth century, and explains how and why old-fashioned sensory knowledge sparked environmental campaigns. Drawing from government documents, scientific reports, personal files, political cartoons, novels, and periodicals, this cultural history of fresh air recreates the common sense of the nineteenth century, when people believed that invisible miasmas governed their bodies. To eliminate odors, chemists recommended condensers and chemical neutralizers, lawyers and politicians created new nuisance regulations, and engineers designed complicated systems of ventilation and sewerage. While specialists claimed that they could control odors, lay people pursued their own time-tested solutions: the wealthy took summer vacations, the working classes spent their evenings on tenement roofs, and women planted fragrant plants in on the borders of their homes. With the introduction of public health boards and new industrial processes, urban odors changed dramatically, though people’s perception of and reaction to these odors remained largely the same. This study tracks the changing smellscapes of New York City and Chicago, focusing on the materiality of the physical city, and it uses complaints about "bad" odors and celebrations of "good" smells to assess the role of sensory experience in late nineteenth-century environmental movements. Because people associated bad odors with illness, the olfactory history of urban experience illustrates how Americans enlisted science, technology, law and common practices to mitigate health dangers and ultimately accept environmental risk. Through investigating the public ramifications of personal experiences of odor, this project contributes to the histories of the senses, urban environment, public health, science, urban governance, and cleanliness. The unusual melding between the individual, subjective experience of smelling and the emerging community of scientific experts in the late-nineteenth century formed a tenuous but persuasive foundation for articulating the necessity of change and resisting unchecked industrial development.
Subject
(authority = RUETD)
Topic
History
RelatedItem
(type = host)
TitleInfo
Title
Rutgers University Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Identifier
(type = RULIB)
ETD
Identifier
ETD_4334
PhysicalDescription
Form
(authority = gmd)
electronic resource
InternetMediaType
application/pdf
InternetMediaType
text/xml
Extent
x, 240 p. : ill., maps
Note
(type = degree)
Ph.D.
Note
(type = bibliography)
Includes bibliographical references
Note
(type = statement of responsibility)
by Melanie A. Kiechle
Subject
(authority = ETD-LCSH)
Topic
Air quality--United States--History--19th century
Subject
(authority = ETD-LCSH)
Topic
Odor control--United States--History--19th century
Subject
(authority = lcsh/lcnaf)
Geographic
United States--Civilization--19th century
Identifier
(type = hdl)
http://hdl.rutgers.edu/1782.1/rucore10001600001.ETD.000066843
RelatedItem
(type = host)
TitleInfo
Title
Graduate School - New Brunswick Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Identifier
(type = local)
rucore19991600001
Location
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(displayLabel = Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey)
NjNbRU
Identifier
(type = doi)
doi:10.7282/T3GB22VP
Genre
(authority = ExL-Esploro)
ETD doctoral
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Rights
RightsDeclaration
(ID = rulibRdec0006)
The author owns the copyright to this work.
RightsHolder
(type = personal)
Name
FamilyName
Kiechle
GivenName
Melanie
Role
Copyright Holder
RightsEvent
Type
Permission or license
DateTime
(encoding = w3cdtf);
(qualifier = exact);
(point = start)
2012-09-30 17:19:56
AssociatedEntity
Name
Melanie Kiechle
Role
Copyright holder
Affiliation
Rutgers University. Graduate School - New Brunswick
AssociatedObject
Type
License
Name
Author Agreement License
Detail
I hereby grant to the Rutgers University Libraries and to my school the non-exclusive right to archive, reproduce and distribute my thesis or dissertation, in whole or in part, and/or my abstract, in whole or in part, in and from an electronic format, subject to the release date subsequently stipulated in this submittal form and approved by my school. I represent and stipulate that the thesis or dissertation and its abstract are my original work, that they do not infringe or violate any rights of others, and that I make these grants as the sole owner of the rights to my thesis or dissertation and its abstract. I represent that I have obtained written permissions, when necessary, from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis or dissertation and will supply copies of such upon request by my school. I acknowledge that RU ETD and my school will not distribute my thesis or dissertation or its abstract if, in their reasonable judgment, they believe all such rights have not been secured. I acknowledge that I retain ownership rights to the copyright of my work. I also retain the right to use all or part of this thesis or dissertation in future works, such as articles or books.
RightsEvent
DateTime
(encoding = w3cdtf);
(qualifier = exact);
(point = start)
2012-10-31
DateTime
(encoding = w3cdtf);
(qualifier = exact);
(point = end)
2014-10-31
Type
Embargo
Detail
Access to this PDF has been restricted at the author's request. It will be publicly available after October 31st, 2014.
Copyright
Status
Copyright protected
Availability
Status
Open
Reason
Permission or license
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Technical
FileSize
(UNIT = bytes)
27230720
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windows xp
ContentModel
ETD
MimeType
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application/pdf
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application/x-tar
FileSize
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27238400
Checksum
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Statistical Profile