When the Air Became Important – A Social History of the New England and Lancash…

When the Air Became ImportantA Social History of the New England and Lancashire Textile Industries\nAuthor(s): Janet Greenlees\nFormat: Hardback\nPublisher: Rutgers University Press, United States\nImprint: Rutgers University Press\nISBN-13: 9780813587967, 978-0813587967\nSynopsis\nIn When the Air Became Important, medical historian Janet Greenlees examines the working environments of the heartlands of the British and American cotton textile industries from the nineteenth to the late twentieth centuries. Greenlees contends that the air quality within these pioneering workplaces was a key contributor to the health of the wider communities of which they were a part. Such enclosed environments, where large numbers of people labored in close quarters, were ideal settings for the rapid spread of diseases including tuberculosis, bronchitis and pneumonia. When workers left the factories for home, these diseases were transmitted throughout the local population, yet operatives also brought di.