Cash For Your Trash: Scrap Recycling in America

Acknowledgments

A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S ix Acknowledgments ix I am fortunate to have had the support of several people in the seven years I have worked on this project. At Rutgers University Press, Audra Wolfe was an able and helpful editor who provided excellent suggestions . Also at the Press, Marilyn Campbell, Adi Hovav, and two anonymous reviewers provided logistical help and advice that clarified my thinking. Monica Phillips carefully copyedited the manuscript. The book is based on a dissertation I wrote at Carnegie Mellon, which provided an outstanding setting to research industrial and environmental history. Words fail to convey how valuable Joel Tarr’s guidance on this project has been to me; I cannot imagine pursuing this topic without his advice, kindness, rigor, and support. R. J. Freuhan and Scott Sandage joined Joel in making a diverse committee of readers whose comments enabled me to best articulate my ideas. I thank Scott as well for suggesting the Fats Waller song for the title of this book. I have been fortunate to receive critiques, probing questions, advice , and assistance from faculty and students at Carnegie Mellon, where Glen Asner, Jared Day, Gerard Fitzgerald, David Hounshell, John Jensen, Eugene Levy, Jim Longhurst, Jason Martinek, Judith Modell, Steve Schlossman, Peter Stearns, and Joe Trotter all made suggestions that have found their way into these pages. Special thanks to Trent Alexander, whose statistical mastery of IPUMS data proved indispensable when writing my second chapter. x A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S Much of this manuscript was revised during a year teaching at Michigan Technological University. I thank Bruce Seely, no stranger to the history of iron and steel, for providing me the opportunity and resources to have a most productive year as I tromped through the snow. My colleagues and students at Oberlin College kept my mind sharp in the advanced stages of revision. Many industry figures shared their time and memories, and I thank William Breman, Greg Crawford at the Steel Recycling Institute, and the people of the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI). ISRI has a great interest in its members’ history, and it provided invaluable information, access to publications, and contacts. I am particularly grateful to Dr. Herschel Cutler and Si Wakesberg, both living archives of information on the industry’s past and present, for sharing their time and resources with me. This research would not have been possible without the financial assistance of several institutions. First and foremost, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Science to Achieve Results (STAR) fellowship program provided two years of support. Thanks especially to STAR program officer Jason Edwards for making sure everything went smoothly for me. In addition, the Hagley Museum and Library, the Baird Society resident scholar program at the Smithsonian Institution Libraries , Carnegie Mellon’s Center for Iron and Steelmaking Research, and Department of History provided generous support. Portions of several chapters were presented as papers delivered at meetings of the American Society of Environmental Historians, the German Historical Institute, the Great Lakes History Conference, the Social Science History Association, and the Urban Historical Association . Feedback from these presentations, especially from commentators Charles Hyde, Martin Melosi, Philip Scranton, and Christine Rosen, influenced the present form of this research. I am also indebted to feedback , comments, and questions from Steve Corey, Kenneth Durr, Paul Gilmore, Ann Greene, James Lide, John Maher, Tom McCarthy, Bill McGowan, Tony Penna, and Tom Zeller at conferences and online. Chapter 3 borrows ideas from an article I wrote for Environmental History , and I thank editor Adam Rome and the journal’s referees for their suggestions on that piece. Gail Dickey, Natalie Taylor, Janet Walsh, and the staff of Carnegie Mellon’s history department all provided help in the dissertation stage. Carnegie Mellon’s Interlibrary Loan Office, under the able watch of A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S xi Gerri Kruglak, provided me with scores of materials. The staff, including research librarian Sue Collins, saved me untold troubles. At the Hagley, Barb Hall, Roger Horowitz, Carol Lockman, Marge McNinch, Michael Nash, Philip Scranton, and Susan Strasser provided a vigorous intellectual climate and guidance through rich archival holdings . Bill Baxter, Ron Brashear, Bonnie Sousa, and Jeffery Stine made my stay at the Smithsonian Institution a productive one. The Photoduplication...