Hagley History Hangout

Hagley Museum and Library

4.6 (10)
Education
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Podcast by Hagley Museum and Library

4d ago

Divided Environment: The Splitting of Workplace and Environmental Regulation with Jasper Cattell

Let’s say that poison gas leaks from a manufacturing plant, sickening workers and local residents. Should OSHA investigate, or the EPA? Who is responsible when both agencies have a claim to jurisdiction? The American federal government regulates the workplace and the non-workplace environments separately, despite their material inseparability; the workplace is part of the environment and vice versa. How and why did the American regulatory landscape come to have this awkward and contradictory split? Jasper Cattell, PhD candidate at Brown University, formulated this novel question and seeks an answer in his dissertation project. Cattell conducted research in the archives of labor organizations, environmental groups, federal agencies, and the business community. To get at the latter, Cattell visited the Hagley Library to examine the archives of the National Association of Manufacturers, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and other private business organizations. The messily drawn boundary between workplace and environmental regulation served the interest of the various outside groups who could play one agency against the other to gain favorable outcomes. In support of his work Cattell received funding from the Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society at the Hagley Museum and Library. For more information, and more Hagley History Hangouts, visit us online at hagley.org. To make a donation underwriting this program and others like it please visit our donations page: https://host.nxt.blackbaud.com/donor-form/?svcid=tcs&formId=c2f4e3f6-2d8a-4251-9a8b-cfdea1fe0e4a&envid=p-wYaPX570-EiMzBCsCu8rSg&zone=usa
Aug 2

Supplying Extraction: DuPont and the Chemistry of Mining in Chile with Ángela Vergara

Twentieth-century Chile relied heavily on its copper mining industry, which was vulnerable to disruption due to its dependance on foreign supplies of blasting powder. It was to address this strategic weakness that Chilean leaders formulated a plan to lure a powder manufacturer from the Global North to open a plant in Chile. In her latest research, Dr. Ángela Vergara, professor at California State University at Los Angeles, uncovers the story of DuPont in Chile, including its plant built to supply the domestic copper mining industry, and other business ventures like licensing DuPont synthetic textile technology to Chilean manufacturers. DuPont promoted its plant as a safe workplace with reduced risk of harm, but Dr. Vergara found evidence that workers suffered from respiratory and dermatological conditions, and blamed the plant environment. In support of her research, Dr. Vergara received funding from the Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society at the Hagley Museum and Library. For more information, and more Hagley History Hangouts, visit us online at hagley.org.
Jul 19

Susquehanna Steam: Three Centuries of Speculation in Northeastern Pennsylvania with Nancy Campbell

From the 1750s to the present day, Salem Township in northeastern Pennsylvania has been a site of financial speculation and the social changes it sets in motion. In her latest book project, Dr. Nancy Campbell, professor of Science and Technology Studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, uncovers the many superimposed layers of speculation and extraction that have left Salem Township with a complex series of social legacies and infrastructures. From land wars and coal mines, to nuclear plants and data centers, Campbell traces three centuries of speculation in one small location. In support of her research Dr. Campbell received funding from the Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society at the Hagley Museum and Library. For more information, and more Hagley History Hangouts, visit us online at hagley.org.
Jul 6

Credit to the Nation: Jewish Immigrant Bankers in American Finance 1873-1930 with Rebecca Kobrin

In this episode of the Hagley History Hangout, Roger Horowitz interviews Rebecca Kobrin about her new book, Credit to the Nation: Eastern European Jewish Immigrant Bankers and American Finance 1873-1930. From the publisher: "What are immigrants to do when business opportunities abound in their new home, but banks refuse essential financial support? How could they make the journey in the first place without helping hands? In this lively history, Rebecca Kobrin chronicles the turn-of-the-twentieth-century Jewish immigrants who stepped up by doing the lending themselves. Arriving from the Russian Empire and settling primarily in New York, they made livelihoods by assisting fellow Jews so they could purchase passage to the United States and, after arriving, obtain credit that other lenders would not dare provide. "Credit to the Nation traces the novel practices of bankers who not only enabled the flourishing of American Jewry but also revolutionized the US financial industry. Drawing on previously unexamined archival materials in Russian, Yiddish, German, and English, Kobrin tells a story that is also crucial to the history of New York, as immigrant bankers’ financing of real estate transformed wide swathes of the city. Lenders drove a boom in the prices of tenement buildings, but heavy speculation eventually precipitated the downfall of immigrant banking. Kobrin notes in particular the case of the Bank of United States—a private lender catering primarily to Jewish businessmen—which the Federal Reserve refused to bail out from bankruptcy in 1930. "Immigrants’ grasping for credit, and the rise and fall of immigrant banks, gave way to a contemporary banking industry that, ironically, refuses credit to today’s immigrants. Kobrin reminds us that now, as before, the denial of credit pushes entrepreneurial Americans into unregulated money-lending and the trap of endless debt." For more Hagley History Hangouts, and information on the Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society at the Hagley Museum and Library, visit us online at hagley.org. To make a donation underwriting this program and others like it please visit our donations page: https://host.nxt.blackbaud.com/donor-form/?svcid=tcs&formId=c2f4e3f6-2d8a-4251-9a8b-cfdea1fe0e4a&envid=p-wYaPX570-EiMzBCsCu8rSg&zone=usa
Jun 20

Awash: Sensation, Infiltration, and the Bather in Queer and Trans Art with Jay Buchanan

Images of bathers have recurred in art through the ages, and their depictions tell us something about attitudes toward human bodies, sex, gender, cleanliness, and much more. In his dissertation research, art historian Jay Buchanan, PhD candidate at Washington University in St. Louis, analyses images of bathers in bathtubs, swimming pools, beaches, and bathhouses to understand the changing cultural valence of bathing relevant to its sensual and sexual dimensions. Buchanan used several collections in the Hagley Library, including Ernst Dichter, Fingerman, William Pahlmann, and more, to recreate the material culture of bathing and swimming in the nineteenth- and twentieth-century United States. In support of his research, Buchanan received funding from the Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society at the Hagley Museum and Library. For more information, and more Hagley History Hangouts, please visit us at hagley.org.
Jun 8

Menace of Prosperity: NYC's Struggle for Economic Development 1865-1981 with Daniel Wortel-London

Does a strong economy serve the interests of the few or the many? The policy pendulum has swung in either direction over the long term. In his new book, The Menace of Prosperity: New York City and the Struggle for Economic Development, 1865-1981, Dr. Daniel Wortel-London, visiting assistant professor at Bard College, explores the debates over economic development strategies that raged in New York City over more than a century. Punctuated by fiscal crises, the history is one of competing claims on city resources, and more keenly, competing ideas of what policies best serve the city and its people. In support of his work, Wortel-London received funding from the Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society at the Hagley Museum and Library. For more information, and more Hagley History Hangouts, visit us online at hagley.org. To make a donation underwriting this program and others like it please visit our Eventbrite page: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/underwriting-donation-tickets-1470779985529?aff=oddtdtcreator
May 25

International Geophysics in the Interwar Period, 1919-1939 with Erik Isberg

Geophysics, or the study of Earth using the tools and methods of physics, is often understood to have begun in the post-WWII period. However, the period between the world wars saw ferment and innovation in the field, and the emergence of the term geophysics itself. In his latest research, Dr. Erik Isberg, postdoctoral researcher at the KTH Institute of Technology and the University of Copenhagen, uncovers the emergence of geophysics as a science and an international industry during the interwar period. Using the Sun oil collection held in the Hagley Library, Isberg found that intense basic research between the wars laid the foundation for the postwar revolutions in how we view and govern our world. In support of his work, Isberg received funding from the Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society at the Hagley Museum and Library. For more information, and more Hagley History Hangouts, visit us online at hagley.org. To make a donation underwriting this program and others like it please visit our Eventbrite page: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/underwriting-donation-tickets-1470779985529?aff=oddtdtcreator
May 10

Postindustrial Heritagization: Serra do Navio, Brazil and Bethlehem, PA with Julia Silva de Medeiros

What happens when industrial towns lose their defining industries? How do the remaining communities and infrastructures find meaning and a future among the postindustrial remains. The key often lies in heritagization, the process by which certain aspects of the past are identified, preserved, and presented as heritage. In her dissertation research, Julia Silva de Medeiros, associate researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Geoanthropology, compares the postindustrial heritagization processes in Serra do Navio, Brazil and Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, both of which once had major metallurgical industries, mining manganese and making steel respectively. Silva de Medeiros shows that the values prevailing among decision makers get embedded in the heritage passed down to future generations. In support of her work Silva de Medeiros received funding from the Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society at the Hagley Museum and Library. For more information, and more Hagley History Hangouts, visit us online at hagley.org. To make a donation underwriting this program and others like it please visit our Eventbrite page: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/underwriting-donation-tickets-1470779985529?aff=oddtdtcreator

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Deep Archive of Episodes

10/01/2021

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So many fascinating subjects covered by experts in a very accessible style.

Podcast by Hagley Museum and Library

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Hagley Museum and Library
Years Active

2016 - 2026
Episodes

227
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