Water and Waste: A History Reluctant Policymaking in U.S. Cities

U.S. cities experienced a sanitary revolution during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The abandonment of cesspools, privy vaults for waste containment and cisterns, pumps, and shallow wells for water delivery brought about a large increase in living standards. While the gains are impressive, investments were often made reluctantly. Scientific advances clarifying the origins of waterborne illness improved, and filtration plants and universal access to water and safe sewerage offered a solution. Yet few cities made those investments. Only with chlorination, a low-cost purification solution, did rapid adoption occur. These delays came at a large human cost.