Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Long-Term Impacts of Industrial Chemistry Innovation in the U.S.

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Innovations in industrial chemistry contributed significantly to American economic growth through much of the twentieth century. Cities such as Rochester, New York, were bolstered by the success of companies like Eastman-Kodak. While these industries no longer employ tens of thousands of workers as film has been obsolesced by digital imaging, their impact on these communities remains palpable and enduring. This project, which trains a graduate student in how to conduct rigorous empirically-grounded scientific fieldwork, explores how the chemical photography industry transformed these regions socially, economically, and environmentally. Ali Feser, under the supervision of Dr. Joseph Masco of the University of Chicago, will investigate how chemical photography has endured in social life, in the memories of workers, and in regional ecology. First, this project will examine how displaced workers discuss Kodak's impact on social life and the local landscape, and how they understand the changes in imaging technology and the global economy that contributed to Kodak's decline. Second, through engagement with workers, public health experts, and environmentalists, this project will explore the practices of industrial chemistry and waste management that transformed the regional ecology. The researcher will undertake twenty-four months of field research in Rochester, employing a variety of social science methodologies, including participant-observation, interviews, oral histories, genealogies, archival research, and collaborations with local scientists and other experts. This research engages with long-standing and emergent concerns in anthropology, such as large-scale economic transformations, the relationship between humans and their environments, and the study of media. The results of this research will contribute to qualitative understandings of deindustrialization in the U.S. By framing accounts of lower-level employees in detailed biographical and political histories, this study will highlight the consequences of market transformation for those individuals most vulnerable to such shifts. By presenting its scientific findings to the public in accessible visual and narrative form, this research will provide tools and data to engage environmental issues.