Sanitarians, Public Good, and Power: Generating Tolerance for Garbage Disposal Plants, 1896-1910

The passage of municipal garbage collection ordinances across the United States in the 1890s promoted public health, but garbage disposal plants themselves generated noxious odors that presented a nuisance to nearby residents. This article relies on Pittsburgh’s and Columbus’s experiences with garbage collection to identify the power that local governments—whether machine or reform—wielded in responding to challenges to their municipal garbage collection programs. By comparing a machine and reform government, we show that even reform governments needed to exercise state power, which could be distributed unequally.