Date of Award

Fall 2025

Project Type

Thesis

Program or Major

History

Degree Name

Master of Arts

First Advisor

Kurk Dorsey

Second Advisor

Lucy Salyer

Third Advisor

Jessica Lepler

Abstract

Lead was essential to the creation and coalescence of industrial hygiene as a discipline in the United States from its early days in the 1910s through the 1930s when the first professional associations of industrial hygiene were formed. In the early years, Alice Hamilton was central to the burgeoning field, and her seminal study on lead poisoning in Illinois industries thrust both her and her methods into the spotlight. Industrial hygienists of her generation followed her methods and came away with similar conclusions: that occupational diseases were rampant in the US, even if few people were studying them. In the 1920s, a widely publicized lead poisoning event in New Jersey gave momentum to the industrial hygiene community, acting as a “focusing event” to bring attention to the dangers of working with organic lead compounds in gasoline. Finally, in the 1930s, industrial hygiene moved to the private halls of universities, where scientists relied on lead studies to formalize their study methods. While lead was far from the only chemical of interest in these formative years, it did play a central role in all three decades. Even today, lead remains an important environmental toxicant both within and outside of the workplace.

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