Students in the new intersection course “History of Environmental Inequalities” produced the first contributions to a multi-year student project on the history of lead exposure in Omaha.
This project used a combination of geographical and historical methods to determine who was exposed to toxic and why. These are spatial historical questions that require digging deep in the metropolitan history of Omaha. It doesn’t pretend to offer a complete set of answers, rather, it is intended to open new avenues of inquiry into the relationship between inequality and environmental vulnerability in Omaha. It does this by exploring six themes relevant to the story of lead pollution in Omaha: exposure to leaded gasoline (tetraethyl lead), residential exposure to lead paint, industrial exposure to lead particulates, the history of public health, the history of the Superfund site, and the history of metropolitan development in Omaha.
You can access the site here.
