Consumption and Waste in American Environmental History

Martin V. Melosi is Cullen Professor Emeritus of History and Founding Director of the Center for Public History at the University of Houston, USA. He is the author or editor of twenty-three books and more than 100 articles and book chapters in the fields of environmental, urban, energy, and public history.

• Introduction Part 1: Precontact 1. Middens in Precontact America Part 2: Pre-Industrial America 2. The Great American Bison Extermination 3. Yankee Whaling in the 19th Century 4. Pigs and Horses in the Cities 5. African Slaves in Antebellum Plantations 6. Deforestation in Early Pennsylvania 7. Marshes as Wastelands in Early Louisiana Part 3: The Industrial Revolution and Urbanization 8. Immigrants and Garbage: Scow Trimmers, Rag Pickers, and the Juvenile Street Cleaning League 9. Municipal Housekeeping: Sanitary Reform and Gender Roles 10. The Goodwill and the Salvation Army: Recycling Goods and Saving Souls 11. The Great Gatsby and the Valley of Ashes Part 4: The Modern Consumer Culture 12. Slaughter of the Little Pigs: New Deal Planned Scarcity 13. The Fresno Sanitary Landfill 14. Salvaging, Recycling, and Rationing as Patriotism in World War II 15. The Berkeley Pit: On Butte’s Richest Hill on Earth 16. Consumerism and Planned Obsolescence 17. Garbage Grinders in Suburbia Part 5: Into the New Frontier 18. The 1968 New York City and Memphis Garbage Strikes 19. The Crying Indian and Greenwashing 20. Women, Civic Activism, and Love Canal 21. Warren County and Environmental Justice 22. The Mobro 4000: Barge to Nowhere Part 6: The 21st Century 23. Yucca Mountain and Nuclear Waste 24. E-Waste in the Electronics Age 25. Fresh Kills, 2001: From Landfill to Cemetery 26. Plastics in the Oceans 27. Space Junk Postscript: Zero Waste and the Circular Economy