Smelters at night, Omaha, Neb.
Dublin Core
Title
Smelters at night, Omaha, Neb.
Subject
American Smelting & Refining Company
Description
This artifact is a color postcard (14 x 9 cm.) from sometime between 1907 and 1920. It displays an exterior nighttime view of the smelting works of the Omaha and Grant Smelting and Refining Company. This refining facility was founded and built in 1870, and it was the largest smelter in the country. It would eventually become named the American Smelting and Refining Company (ASARCO) in 1899 (ASARCO, n.d.). This facility in particular was located on the corner of 5th and Douglas Streets (200 South 5th Street) in Omaha, Nebraska. This postcard shows is a full moon, fire coming out of the smoke stacks, and rail cars in the foreground. The title "Smelters at Night, Omaha, Neb." is in the top left corner. The image is beautiful and showcases the impressive size of the facility. It symbolizes the economic benefit that lead refining facilities offered cities in the late 1800s in industrial cities like Omaha.
Lead was an important industrial and consumer material during the second industrial revolution (1850-1950). This was due to it's relatively affordable price and its versatility. By the 1870s, when this postcard was produced, it was already fully incorporated into the fabric of industrial production and everyday life. A variety of consumer products also contained lead or lead alloys. It was incorporated into, paints, foundry, printing, piping, canning, batteries, bullets, and a spectrum of other goods containing metals (USGS, n.d.).
Large industrial facilities for lead refining and smelting supplied the raw lead used in these products. These refineries, such as the Grant Smelting and Refining Company took raw ore and sediment deposits and filtered out the lead commodity from the rest of the material. This lead could then be distributed either directly or through intermediaries to whichever businesses desired to buy it (Goodwin & Ponikvar, 2013).
According to Leif Fredrickson in his dissertation the “Age of Lead,” local and national concern about lead hazards in the workplace did not prompt changes in regulation, compensation, insurance, and public health administration until the early 1900s (Fredrickson, 2017). Prior to the 1900s, the harmful impacts of lead, such as that contributed by the refinery shown above, were in no way accounted for by the government or industrial companies and regulated. This may have been due to overall obliviousness and a lack of understanding of the level of dangers brought by lead, industries unwilling to gain a better understanding of the potential harmful impacts due to profits, and governments too distracted by the capital and jobs infused into cities by the lead industry to bat an eye to any further imploring into lead dangers.
Lead industries such as the Grant Smelting and Refining Company employed many people. Just like other industries at this time, lead corporations too relied on immigrant labor because of their relatively low labor costs (Hirschman & Mogford, 2009) . These refineries and factories were primarily based in the cities and new immigrant neighborhoods developed around these factories. Housing in these industrial zones were cheaper and often far more polluted. (Hurley, 2009). Thus, lead industrialization also contributed heavily to the socioeconomic and environmental racial segregation that was still present for the decades to come.
CITATIONS-
Fredrickson, L. (May, 2017). The Age of Lead: Politics, Science and Urban Ecology in Twentieth-Century Baltimore. doi: 10.18130/v3sh44
ASARCO Company History | www.anchorwave.com. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.asarco.com/about-us/company-history/.
Goodwin, F. E., & Ponikvar, A. L. (2013, August 23). Lead Processing. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/technology/lead-processing/Refining.
Uses of Lead. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://geology.com/usgs/lead/.
Hirschman, C., & Mogford, E. (2009). Immigration and the American industrial revolution from 1880 to 1920. Social science research, 38(4), 897–920. doi:10.1016/j.ssresearch.2009.04.001
Hurley, A. (2009). Environmental inequalities: class, race, and industrial pollution in Gary, Indiana, 1945-1980. United States: The University of North Carolina Press.
Lead was an important industrial and consumer material during the second industrial revolution (1850-1950). This was due to it's relatively affordable price and its versatility. By the 1870s, when this postcard was produced, it was already fully incorporated into the fabric of industrial production and everyday life. A variety of consumer products also contained lead or lead alloys. It was incorporated into, paints, foundry, printing, piping, canning, batteries, bullets, and a spectrum of other goods containing metals (USGS, n.d.).
Large industrial facilities for lead refining and smelting supplied the raw lead used in these products. These refineries, such as the Grant Smelting and Refining Company took raw ore and sediment deposits and filtered out the lead commodity from the rest of the material. This lead could then be distributed either directly or through intermediaries to whichever businesses desired to buy it (Goodwin & Ponikvar, 2013).
According to Leif Fredrickson in his dissertation the “Age of Lead,” local and national concern about lead hazards in the workplace did not prompt changes in regulation, compensation, insurance, and public health administration until the early 1900s (Fredrickson, 2017). Prior to the 1900s, the harmful impacts of lead, such as that contributed by the refinery shown above, were in no way accounted for by the government or industrial companies and regulated. This may have been due to overall obliviousness and a lack of understanding of the level of dangers brought by lead, industries unwilling to gain a better understanding of the potential harmful impacts due to profits, and governments too distracted by the capital and jobs infused into cities by the lead industry to bat an eye to any further imploring into lead dangers.
Lead industries such as the Grant Smelting and Refining Company employed many people. Just like other industries at this time, lead corporations too relied on immigrant labor because of their relatively low labor costs (Hirschman & Mogford, 2009) . These refineries and factories were primarily based in the cities and new immigrant neighborhoods developed around these factories. Housing in these industrial zones were cheaper and often far more polluted. (Hurley, 2009). Thus, lead industrialization also contributed heavily to the socioeconomic and environmental racial segregation that was still present for the decades to come.
CITATIONS-
Fredrickson, L. (May, 2017). The Age of Lead: Politics, Science and Urban Ecology in Twentieth-Century Baltimore. doi: 10.18130/v3sh44
ASARCO Company History | www.anchorwave.com. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.asarco.com/about-us/company-history/.
Goodwin, F. E., & Ponikvar, A. L. (2013, August 23). Lead Processing. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/technology/lead-processing/Refining.
Uses of Lead. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://geology.com/usgs/lead/.
Hirschman, C., & Mogford, E. (2009). Immigration and the American industrial revolution from 1880 to 1920. Social science research, 38(4), 897–920. doi:10.1016/j.ssresearch.2009.04.001
Hurley, A. (2009). Environmental inequalities: class, race, and industrial pollution in Gary, Indiana, 1945-1980. United States: The University of North Carolina Press.
Creator
Wakeley, Arthur
Source
Wakeley, Arthur. Omaha: The Gate City and Douglas County Nebraska, Chicago: S. J. Clarke Publishing Company, c1917, p. 286-88 and Omaha World Herald/Proquest Newsstand database.
Publisher
Omaha Public Library
Date
1907-1920
Contributor
Rohit Akella
Betty Straub
Betty Straub
Rights
Omaha Public Library
Format
Color postcard (14 x 9 cm.)
Language
English
Type
Image
Identifier
Omaha: The Gate City and Douglas County Nebraska, Chicago: S. J. Clarke Publishing Company, c1917, p. 286-88
Coverage
Omaha, Nebraska
Collection
Citation
Wakeley, Arthur, “Smelters at night, Omaha, Neb.,” History of Environmental Inequalities, accessed May 2, 2024, https://steppingintothemap.com/inequalities/items/show/22.
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