Acknowledgments

It is a pleasure to acknowledge those who have helped to bring this project to completion. I obviously could not have produced this work without the help of numerous individuals and institutions. It is gratifying to note that many of these creditors have seen fit to provide similar aid to my previous studies over the course of decades. It is less pleasant to acknowledge that I am surely failing to remember to thank some others worthy of recognition.

Penn State University has consistently supported my research, both during my thirty years of employment and even in retirement. I am especially indebted to Paul Clark and my other colleagues in the School of Labor and Employment Relations for various contributions. At the Penn State Libraries, the staffs of the Historical Collections and Labor Archives and the Interlibrary Loan Service were unfailingly and patiently helpful on countless occasions.

Archivists and librarians elsewhere came to my assistance in ways that often went well beyond the call of duty. I appreciate the efforts of the conscientious staff members at the Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation, Cornell University; the Manuscripts and Archives Department, Hagley Museum and Library; the National Archives II; the Pennsylvania State Archives; the Farmworker Documentation Project, University of California, San Diego; the Schlesinger Library, Harvard University; the Detre Library and Archives, Heinz History Center; the Archives and Modern Manuscripts Program, National Library of Medicine; the Kislak Center for Special Collections, University of Pennsylvania; the Archives and Special Collections, University of Montana; the Archives and Services Center, University of Pittsburgh; the Manuscripts Division, Chicago History Museum; the University Archives and Special Collections, University of Massachusetts, Boston; the Archives and Special Collections, University of California, San Francisco (UCSF); the Archives, Youngstown Historical Center of Industry and Labor; the Manuscripts Division, Rhode Island Historical Society; the Special Collections and University Archives, Rutgers University; and the Technical Data Center, Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Jim Quigel at Penn State, Erin Hurley at UCSF, Robb Turnage at OSHA, and Tamar Brown and Zoe Hill at Harvard were especially helpful in my archival expeditions.

To the Toxic Docs online database, created by David Rosner, Gerald Markowitz, and Merlin Chowkwanyun and based at Columbia University and the City University of New York, I owe a particular debt of gratitude. For a project like this one, whose central question is problematic access to information about toxic chemicals, the ready availability of such a resource that so strikingly embodies the principle of transparency is truly exemplary.

Generous encouragement, advice, and good humor came from friends and colleagues. I am glad to have the chance to thank Peter Agree, Dan Berman, Barry Castleman, Brian Derickson, Rick Engler, Abby Ginzberg, Barbara Jenkins, Chuck Levenstein, and Josiah Rector. The endnotes in this volume make clear my indebtedness to and respect for many historians and other scholars whose work has guided me. At Cornell University Press, I benefited from the expertise of Jim Lance, Bethany Wasik, and others behind the scenes. I very much profited from the copyediting delivered by Kalie Hyatt and her colleagues at KnowledgeWorks Global. Besides the mysterious anonymous reviewers for the press, various incarnations and portions of the work in progress benefited from critical readings by Ted Brown, David Rosner, Jim Weeks, and Nan Woodruff. Useful criticism also came from participants in discussions at meetings of the Labor and Working-Class History Association and the Working Class Studies Association. These colleagues’ insights unquestionably strengthened my analysis and saved me from errors of all sorts.

As always, my immediate family delivered the most sustained and sustaining support for this endeavor. My daughters Katherine and Elizabeth have continued to be stalwart (and seemingly uncritical) supporters of my work. I am happy to dedicate this book to their children. In myriad ways large and small, my wife Margaret Ellen has kept me going on this trek. She offered many astute editing suggestions and much else of great value. I am very grateful for her commitment to this part of our partnership.