Introduction and Methods

Introduction

This project is intended to investigate the businesses using industrial lead for lithography, batteries, smelting, soldering, and coating products in Omaha between 1950 and 2000. Clicking through the tabs will bring you to a page with maps of these businesses throughout the five decades, as well as subsequent pages with historical images and in-depth analyses of particular businesses that highly contributed to Omaha's industrial lead problem.

Methods

Mapping was done through the QGIS to obtain static maps of businesses using lead in Omaha in 1950, 1960, 1970, 1980, 1990, and 2000. The data for these maps were obtained by EPA reports of businesses confirmed to having been using lead during these time periods in Omaha. A spreadsheet was created for mapping containing business locations, years of operation, and for what reasons lead were used.

Historical images of businesses were collected from The Durham Museum online photo archives. Clicking on a specific image will reveal its metadata, such as the photographer, location, and original format of the document.