reasons.2 These new sewer systems, however, like the
older sewer systems in Boston and New York, were
designed simply to dump raw sewage into nearby riv-
ers, streams, or harbors.
Rapidly increasing populations greatly strained
city water supplies, while the growth in industriali-
zation placed added demands on municipal water
supply systems. Prior to the 1840s, most city resi-
dents depended on local communal wells, cisterns,
springs, streams, and transported water for their
water needs, but by the 1840s, local water supplies
were beginning to prove inadequate. Even munici-
palities that for years had supplemented their well
water with local reservoirs found it necessary to
draw on more distant water sources. In 1842, for
example, New York City built the Croton Aque-
duct to carry water from a reservoir in Westchester
County, forty-one miles north of the city.3 As indoor
running water and flush toilets became common-
place in urban areas, and as the nation became more
industrial, the per capita usage of water increased,
placing ever greater demands on municipal water
supplies.
Keeping the water supply clean proved very
difficult. During periods of heavy rain, there was
the constant danger of contamination of munici-
pal wells by runoff from the slop pits and manure-
laden streets. Microbial diseases such as typhoid
fever spread quickly when wells became contami-
nated.Railroads and Westward Expansion
One of the major spurs to industrial develop-
ment was the spread of the railroads. The completion
of the New York—Chicago rail link in 1853 and the
first transcontinental rail route in 1869 gave impe-
tus not only to industrialization but also to resource
exploitation and the settlement of the West. Peo-
ple and manufactured goods could be transported
across the country quickly and easily, and timber,
coal, iron, and, later, oil could be carried to mills,
factories, and refineries. The discovery of iron near
Lake Superior in 1844 and of gold in Sutter’s Mill,
California, in 1848 and at Pikes Peak, Colorado, in
1859 hastened the westward movement of settlers
and entrepreneurs.among the tens of thousands of immigrants pouring
into the United States every year.
The large-scale mining of coal (which had inten-
sified with industrialization in England around the
beginning of the nineteenth century) and drilling
for oil (initiated when the world’s first oil well was
drilled in 1859 in Titusville, Pennsylvania, at the site
of a natural oil seepage) marked the beginning of the
“systematic exploitation of the earth’s supply of fos-
sil fuels” and provided people, for the first time in his-
tory, with “a huge supply of concentrated energy by
means of which the energy commanded by one per-
son could be greatly increased.”^1
Urban Sanitation and Infrastructure
Problems
Industrial and urban expansion were accompa-
nied by a host of problems: smoke and soot, noise,
garbage, poor sanitation and raw sewage, poor
drainage, inadequate and unclean water supplies,
and droppings from horses [see Documents 40, 41,
and 46]. Doctors and others concerned about human
health and well-being pressed for improved garbage
collection and sanitation, the regulation of quaran-
tines during epidemics, more widespread vaccination
against smallpox, and the collection of accurate data
concerning births and deaths. Their efforts marked
the beginning of the sanitary movement, which led to
the formation of public health regulatory organiza-
tions and raised the consciousness of both the public
and local governments about the need for better sani-
tation and health record keeping.
At midcentury, few cities other than Boston,
New York and Philadelphia had public sewage sys-
tems. (Boston’s system actually dated from the sev-
enteenth century.) Except in these few cities, indoor
plumbing was to be found mainly in the homes of
the wealthy. In cities and towns that lacked sewer
systems, drain pipes from indoor plumbing emptied
into pits beneath people’s homes or yards. Those
who were without indoor plumbing also emptied
their chamber pots and wastewater pans into pits in
their yards or beneath their outhouses. By the 1850s,
though, municipalities with booming populations,
such as Brooklyn and Chicago, were forced to draw
up plans for sewer systems, both to eliminate the
stench emanating from the slop holes and for health
38 The Environmental Debate