Hell with the Lid Taken Off

During the first half of the twentieth century, coal burning at power plants, factories, and homes filled the air over the Midwestern U.S. with pollution. “Smoke”—as air pollution was usually called—used to occasionally block so much sunlight that people were forced to carry lamps in the middle of the day. In some eastern cities, particulate levels likely exceeded 1,000 micrograms per cubic meter—about twice as high as they are on a bad air quality day in modern Beijing, now one of the most polluted cities in the world.

The problem was especially bad in Pittsburgh. The hills surrounding the city were filled with bitumen, a type of soft coal that released large quantities of sulfate-producing gases, soot, and other pollutants when burned. In 1866, an Atlantic Monthly writer visited Pittsburgh and reported: “The town lies low, as at the bottom of an excavation, just visible through the mingled smoke and mist, and every object in it is black. Smoke, smoke, smoke—everywhere smoke.” It was, he wrote, “like looking over into hell with the lid taken off.”

The photograph immediately above, taken in 1906, shows a view of Pittsburgh’s Strip District neighborhood looking northwest from the roof of Union Station. The Fort Wayne Railroad Bridge spanning the Allegheny River is partially visible on the left. The photograph at the bottom of the page is a smoky street-level view of the corner of Liberty and Fifth Avenues in Pittsburgh taken in 1940. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured the view at the top of the page. It shows heavy pollution heading toward Beijing on December 12, 2013.

Read A Clearer View of Hazy Skies to learn more about air quality and how it has changed over time.

• References and Further Reading

• Chow, J. et al. (2007, October) Will the Circle Be Unbroken: A History of the U.S. National Ambient Air Quality Standards. Journal of the Air & Waste Management Association, 57 (10).
• Daily Mail (2012, June 7) ‘Hell with the lid taken off’: The pictures of bygone Pittsburgh and its residents choking under clouds of thick smog. Accessed June 18, 2014.
• Davidson, C. (2012, March 13) Air Pollution in Pittsburgh: A Historical Perspective. Journal of the Air Pollution Control Association, 29 (10), 1035-1041.
• Peterman, E. (2009, Spring) A Cloud with a Silver Lining: The Killer Smog in Donora, 1948. Accessed March 25, 2014.
• The Atlantic (2013, January 16) Aghast Over Beijing’s Air Pollution? This Was Pittsburgh Not That Long Ago. Accessed June 18, 2014.
• The Washington Post (2013, October 25) U.S. once had air pollution to match China’s today. Accessed March 25, 2014.

NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, LANCE/EOSDIS MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC. Ground photographs courtesy of the University of Pittsburgh Smoke Control Lantern Slide Collection and the Carnegie Museum of Art. Caption by Adam Voiland.

Instrument(s): 

Terra - MODIS - NASA