Power and Pollution: The Social History of Lead, Silica and Plastics in Post War America

SES 1999 -11127 - David Rosner（哥伦比亚大学）和Gerald Markowitz（纽约市立大学约翰杰伊学院）“电力与污染：战后美国铅、二氧化硅和塑料的社会史”。该奖项支持通过分析三种工业物质——二氧化硅、聚氯乙烯（一种塑料）和铅的近代史，研究文化、政治和科学关系“框架”我们对职业和环境健康的理解的PIs。这些材料在美国环境中无处不在，并且经常被认为是创造现代美国富裕的必要条件。然而，公共卫生官员、科学家、政府监管机构、保险公司、工业、劳工、环保活动人士、经济学家、政治学家和历史学家对如何衡量这些基本成分的“价值”都有不同的看法，特别是当它们作为疾病原因的作用被考虑在内时。对这些物质的社会、监管、科学和政治历史的仔细研究将澄清哲学思想、政治权力和经济现实之间的相互作用，这些现实是政策冲突的基础。ppi认为，这三种物质共同概括了战后时期职业健康与环境健康之间关系史的重要方面。在此期间，我们看到保守派和自由派、环保主义者和工会活动家、经济学家和政治学家都在争论解决地下污染和空气污染、水质、烟囱排放、烟雾等影响的最佳方法。本研究探讨了这些不同群体的观点，因为他们通过谈判和争论，塑造了疾病和风险责任的医学、科学和技术定义。虽然这是一段巨大而复杂的历史，但pi认为，通过关注这三种物质，他们将能够更好地理解环境和职业历史之间关系的广泛范围。通过观察他们的政治、公共卫生和监管历史，有可能开始理解环境和职业危险的传统定义之间的复杂关系。这种方法也挑战了传统观念，即在职业和环境问题之间有明确的“界限”。他们认为，对于科学家、工程师和学者来说，了解导致职业和环境危害交叉点的新概念的具体历史环境，以及美国文化定义、分类和处理工业生产造成的疾病的方式，是至关重要的。PIS计划为加利福尼亚大学出版社出版一本吸引公共政策史家、公共保健史家、劳动史家、政策制定者关注的书。

SES 99-11127 - David Rosner (Columbia University) & Gerald Markowitz (John Jay College, CUNY)"Power and Pollution: The Social History of Lead, Silica, and Plastics in Post War America"This award supports the PIs as they study the cultural, political, and scientific relationships that "frame" our understanding of occupational and environmental health through an analysis of the recent history of three industrial substances -- silica, polyvinyl chloride (a plastic) and lead. These materials are ubiquitous in the American environment and are often presented as essential to the creation of modern American affluence. Yet, public health officials, scientists, government regulators, insurance companies, industry, labor, environmental activists, economists, political scientists and historians all have different perspectives about how to measure the "value" of these basic ingredients, especially when their role as causes of disease are factored in. A close examination of the social, regulatory, scientific and political histories of these substances will clarify the interplay among the philosophical ideas, political power and economic realities that underlie the conflicts over policy.Together, the PIs argue, these three substances encapsulate important aspects of the history of the relationship between occupational and environmental health in the post-war period. During this period, we have seen conservatives and liberals, environmentalists and union activists, economists and political scientists contend over the best ways to address the impact of underground and air pollution, water quality, smokestack emissions, smog, and the like. This study explores these different groups' perspectives as they have shaped, through negotiation and contention, the medical, scientific and technical definitions of disease and responsibility for risk. While clearly an immense and complex history, the PIs argue that by focusing on these three substances, they will be better able to understand the broad scope of the relationship between environmental and occupational history. By looking at their political, public health, and regulatory histories, it is possible to begin to understand the complex relationship between traditional definitions of environmental and occupational danger. Such an approach also challenges traditional conceptions that there are defined "boundaries" between occupational and environmental concerns. They maintain that it is critical for scientists, engineers, and scholars to understand the specific historical circumstances that led to new conceptualizations of the intersections of occupational and environmental hazards and the ways that American culture defined, categorized, and negotiated illnesses created by industrial production. The PIS plan to complete a book for the University of California Press that will attract the attention of historians of public policy, historians of public health, labor historians, and policy makers.