Osvaldo-The effects on the residents and progress made dealing with the Lead-base paint threat to the city of South LA.
For this ten week research project, I decided to look into the lawsuit against Sherwan Williams and other paint companies in the year 2000, which has been finally settled in 2019. Local governments decided to take legal actions against these companies for allegedly marketing lead-based paint for indoor and outdoor home use in the early 1900s even though the companies were aware of the immense dangers of lead poisoning. Although lead-based paints were banned in 1978 this was an issue that affected many areas of California which ultimately became hazardous for children’s health and it is still a very heavy concern as there are still many homes that have not been remediated. This event is historically relevant because most of the homes built in South Los Angeles were painted with lead-based paint, consequently endangering the health of the LA population, specifically on the children who grew up in this area. Therefore, making this an environmental issue in which policies had to allow the retailing of said paint. Although my project will discuss how is it that lead-base paint retailing came to fruition, I will shift the direction towards what has been done in order to remediate this lead poisoning humanitarian issue by means of lead-based paint. By taking into account local and federal policies, acts, health, and environmental data I will highlight how is that lead-based paint turned out to be a silent agonizing enemy on the people of South LA.
This article Potential for Atmospheric-Driven Lead Paint Degradation in the South Coast Air Basin of California as a form of study on the potential dangers of lead-based paint degradation is helpful to this research topic as it displays very important data like the image above to help understand in a quantifiable manner the threat of being poisoned with lead. This source will mainly be used for its data to convey how dangerous this chemical has been through the 1900s.
The Legislative History of Lead-Based Paint document provided by the Housing and Urban development governmental website has been helpful to my research. Although it is only two pages it is still something that helped me understand the process of banning lead-based paint for residential use.
As I kept researching this topic, I found public documents on THE SHERWIN-WILLIAMS COMPANY, Petitioner, v. THE PEOPLE OF CALIFORNIA, Respondent. case in which the paint company requested the supreme court to take the case to a federal level because the case would shift to the companies’ favor. In doing so these paint companies were able to ease their liability because the use and retailing of lead-based paint was legal on a federal level. For this reason, this court documents serve to give context and a better grasp on the this legal battle between the people of California and paint companies.
Twenty Years of Life by Suzanne Bohan was written by this author in order to let people know about the dangers the people of Los Angeles have to endure as residents of this area. Suzanne Bohan spoke on three major issues that threaten and have taken the lives of many people in LA, like work related stress, gang violence, and the environmental health hazards that have caused so much damage to the community. This book will help me portray how the residents of Los Angeles have become victims to lead poisoning.
Robert Gottlieb wrote Global Cities, a book that solely focuses on the development and growth of multiple industrial cities which compete on a global scale. His book serves as a secondary source and describes how the development of industrial cities within Los Angeles has been intertwined with race, political, and environmental factors which resulted in a human health crisis that is still being dealt with today. Therefore, I will use this to guide me in telling a story that entails how and what has made this lead poisoning a it danger to society.
In order to show how this lead-based paint problem relates to us on a human level, yet it is also part of the 30000 foot perspective. I have incorporated a book that noted the whole congressional session taken place in 1989 which discusses the overall actions taking place to handle the growing issue of toxic substances being released into the environment on a national level. Needless to say, lead was one of the most important topics in this session with a more special attention on the county of Los Angeles because of the intense racial violence created by this environmental crisis in the 1900s. The stories told relating to every day struggles of the common people is what led me to incorporate this document because it really gives insight on how the people had to adjust to this environmental threat.
Bibliography
Bohan, Suzanne. Twenty Years of Life Why the Poor Die Earlier and How to Challenge Inequity 1st ed. 2018. Washington, DC: Island Press/Center for Resource Economics, 2018.
Gottlieb, Robert, and Simon Ka-Wing Ng. Global Cities : Urban Environments in Los Angeles, Hong Kong, and China Cambridge, Massachussetts: The MIT Press, 2017.
Issues Related to the Use of, and Exposure to, Various Chemicals : Hearings before the Subcommittee on Toxic Substances, Environmental Oversight, Research and Development of the Committee on Environment and Public Works, United States Senate, One Hundred First Congress, First Session, March 6, 1989; July 5, 1989--Los Angeles, CA. Washington: U.S. G.P.O., 1989.
Lead-Based Paint Poisoning : State and Local Responses : Hearing before the Subcommittee on Housing and Transportation of the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, United States Senate, One Hundred Seventh Congress, First Session, on Ensuring That Children with Dangerous Levels of Lead in Their Blood Are Identified and Receive Care as Early as Possible, and to Introduce Programs to Properly Screen and Treat Children for Lead Poisoning, November 13, 2001. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2002.
Cohan, Alexander J. “Potential for Atmospheric-Driven Lead Paint Degradation in the South Coast Air Basin of California.” Environmental science & technology 43, no. 23 (December 1, 2009): 8881–8887.
https://www.hud.gov/sites/documents/20258_LEGISLATIVEHISTORY.PDF
(Antonios Theodosis) Osvaldo this is a very interesting and specific topic, I think this is a great idea with what you have going on so far. Is there a specific area of LA that used these paints on homes? If you haven't already thought of incorporating it perhaps you could look into the types of paints used on homes and buildings in another part of LA in the same time period to see if this was a concentrated area/event. I think your argument is clear and will provide some clarity and insight into something that has happened in our lifetime when we were children in the 2000's. If you need any other areas for sources I would try to look at local LA times news paper archives online. There us a database of old newspapers that you can type in a key word such as "lead paint" and it will find all of the newspapers with the subject you are looking for. I think the environmental aspect of this project is also clear in that your sources and the ideas you mention gravitate toward the toxic properties of lead based paint.
ReplyDeleteHere is a website that has archived newspapers: https://www.newspapers.com
I am really impressed with your work so far on your project and how specific and focused it is. Also this is a topic that most likely has affected a large amount of people in Los Angeles throughout the 20th century, so I definitely think that this topic is a historically driven argument. Not only can you talk about the history of lead poisoning from paint and how that has affected people as well as the environment, but you can also get into the history of the city of Los Angeles to give context to the project and describe how real people and places within the city have been affected by the lead-based paint.
ReplyDeleteWhat is most impressive about your work so far on this project is the amount of great research you have already done. You provided some great strong sources that will address different aspects of this issue such as the public documents on how Sherwin-Williams Company tried to get the upper hand in the legal case as well as the sources on the city and development of Los Angeles. Looks really good so far!
Something to keep in mind is in what ways did this issue engage with the environmental relationships that existed within Los Angeles. Although I do believe that as you continue your research, the sources you provided will most likely provide you with this environmental perspective.
I looked through JSTOR and found this little journal article on lead regulations on paint which could be of use to your project. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41293647?Search=yes&resultItemClick=true&searchText=lead-based+paint&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dlead-based%2Bpaint&ab_segments=0%2Fbasic_search_aggregated%2Ftest&refreqid=fastly-default%3A32920fc8f8c4d1eb396df3e0f0e71aa8&seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents
I think this topic will make for an interesting history argument. It may need a little specificity, but it sounds like there is a lot of good background information to work with. The way it affected the public sounds like a good idea for something to base your history around. You said that lead based paint began to be used in the early 1900s, so there's surely several long term effects that lasted well up until the 2000 lawsuit. As for your sources, I like how you got the “Potential for Atmospheric…” article to gather some more scientific data in regards to the danger of the lead. It will help to flesh out your argument by highlighting the more concrete factors of the negative effects lead based paint had caused in California as a whole. However, I’m most interested in learning about what you learned in your research regarding the way this had an affect on urban communities. Especially in Southern California in the 1990s, when tensions were extremely high. I think those sources will give a really good background in the lead up to the 2000 lawsuit. For some further research, I am still a bit confused as to what exactly the negative effects of lead were. I’m sure you’ve looked into it already, but it’s definitely something that will help out your argument. Another thing I’d like to learn more about is the 90s, leading up to the lawsuit, especially regarding how it affected communities.
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