Mothers of Invention: Women in the Postwar Battle for Air Pollution Control and the Emergence of Citizen Activism in Environmental Policy, 1945-1970

Abstract

In answer to longstanding criticism from the Left as well as the Right that environmentalism has always been essentially white, middle-class, and male, this paper shows that many significant early postwar anti-air pollution activists were women, some of them clearly not middle class, some perhaps also not white. Such women helped to invent the new environmental movement of the 1970s as the new environmentalism moved away from traditional outdoor recreation, wilderness preservation, and resource conservation concerns characteristic of the first half of the 20th century and toward concern with pollution and public health. In so doing, the women activists took action in keeping with traditional feminine roles associated with the cleanliness and health of the home, neighborhood, and community - sometimes described as municipal housekeeping or civic motherhood and a feminine reform model dating back to before the beginning of the 20th century - but also explored women's mobilization in ways that helped to lead to feminism and the women's movement. This paper focuses on examples from Los Angeles, New York City, and Florida, among others.