“An Ocean of Noise”: H.E. Reilley and the Making of a Legitimate Social Problem, 1911–45

Abstract

In the 1930s and early 1940s, McGill University physics professor H.E. Reilley led Montreal efforts to limit noise, evaluating the acoustics in buildings, giving speeches on the dangers of noise, and playing a part in writing the city’s first comprehensive anti-noise bylaw. Situating his noise abatement movement within the international rise of the field of applied acoustics, the advent of anti-noise campaigns in other countries, and previous state efforts to limit noise in Montreal, this article explores the numerous ways Reilley sought to make the dangers of noise a legitimate social issue in a culturally divided city. We argue that Reilley used his affiliation with McGill to overcome problems of professional legitimacy and that he sought powerful allies for his cause, deliberately bridging the French-English divide inherent to this industrial city. Reilley achieved less success in extending legal limitations on noise into the workplace and in having noise bylaws enforced. Ultimately, Reilley’s noise abatement campaigns represent particularly strong examples of reflexive modernity—a specifically modern response to problems brought about by modernity itself.