Mobile home syndrome: Engineered woods and the making of a new domestic ecology in the post-world war ii era

Technology and Culture

Volumn 52, Issue 2, 2011, Pages 260-286

  Ore, Janet ^a  

^a Department of Ecosystem Science and Sustainability   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ARCHITECTURE; ENGINEERING; ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH; HISTORY; NOTE; SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT;

ARCHITECTURE AS TOPIC; ENGINEERING; ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH; HISTORY, 20TH CENTURY; SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT;

EID: 80051542698     PISSN: 0040165X     EISSN: 10973729     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/tech.2011.0077     Document Type: Note

References (205)

1. Barbara and W. H. Alley v. Gubser Development Company, National Gypsum Corporation, Weyerhaeuser Company, Louisiana-Pacific Corporation, and Georgia-Pacific Corporation, 10th Circuit Court of Appeals Case nos. 83-2415, 83-2423, and 83-2424, located in Federal Records Center, Lakewood, Colorado (hereafter Alley Case), vol. 16, 662.
2. Ibid., vol. 14, 199.
3. Ibid., vol. 15, 470.
4. Ibid., vol. 16, 666.
5. Ibid., 665, 668; vol. 15, 547, 551.
6. Michelle Murphy's Sick Building Syndrome and the Problem of Uncertainty: Environmental Politics, Technoscience, and Women Workers (Durham, N.C., 2006) is the best current work on the connection between buildings and bodies.
7. See also Arthur F. McEvoy, "Working Environments: An Ecological Approach to Industrial Health and Safety," Technology and Culture 36 (1995): 145-72.
8. Linda Nash, Inescapable Ecologies: A History of Environment, Disease, and Knowledge (Berkeley, Calif., 2006).
9. I have borrowed Nash's definition of a modernist outlook that seeks to separate the human body from nature.
10. Adam Rome's The Bulldozer in the Countryside: Suburban Sprawl and the Rise of American Environmentalism (Cambridge, 2001) looks at the environmental changes accompanying post-World War II suburbanization, but not within houses themselves.
11. Samuel P. Hays, Beauty, Health, and Permanence: Environmental Politics in the United States, 1955-1985 (Cambridge, 1987) traces the rise of modern environmentalism to new, higher standards of health in the postwar era.
12. Hays; Thomas Hine, Populuxe (New York, 1987), 118, uses the term"technological positivism" and describes how the appearance of popular architecture between 1955 and 1965 reflected this attitude.
13. See also Carroll Pursell, Technology in Postwar America: A History (New York, 2007).
14. Paul Hirt, A Conspiracy of Optimism: Management of the National Forests since World War Two (Lincoln, Neb., 1994), xxxii.
15. On working-class environmental activism, two useful articles are Scott Dewey, "Working for the Environment: Organized Labor and the Origins of Environmentalism in the United States, 1948-1970," Environmental History 3 (1998): 45-63.
16. Celene Krauss, "Challenging Power: ToxicWaste Protests and the Politicization of White, Working-Class Women," in Community Activism and Feminist Politics: Organizing Across Race, Class, and Gender, ed. Nancy A. Naples (New York, 1998), 129-50.
17. I am also indebted to Greg Summers's current research on the environmental history of the home.
18. Thomas Jester, Twentieth-Century Building Materials: History and Conservation (New York, 1995).
19. Murphy; Nash; Pursell; Nancy Langston, "Gender Transformed: Endocrine Disrupters in the Environment," in Seeing Nature Through Gender, ed. Virginia J. Scharff (Lawrence, Kans., 2003), 129-66.
20. Working-class environmentalism is still scantily covered though it is addressed by Chad Montrie, Making a Living: Work and Environment in the United States (Chapel Hill, N.C., 2008).
21. Andrew Hurley, Environmental Inequalities: Class, Race, and Industrial Pollution in Gary, Indiana, 1945-1980 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1995)
22. Elizabeth D. Blum, Love Canal Revisited: Race, Class, and Gender in Environmental Activism (Lawrence, Kans., 2008).
23. John A. Guthrie and George R. Armstrong, Western Forest Industry: An Economic Outlook (Baltimore, 1961), 125-26.
24. Robert M. Cour, The Plywood Age: A History of the Fir Plywood Industry's First Fifty Years (Portland, Ore., 1955), 6-13, 30-31, 34, 36-39, 79.
25. E. Vernon Knight and Meinrad Wulpi, eds., Veneers and Plywood: Their Craftsmanship and Artistry, Modern Production Methods and Present-Day Utility (New York, 1927), 322-26.
26. Fred Peterson, Homes in the Heartland: Balloon Frame Farmhouses of the Upper Midwest, 1850-1920 (Lawrence, Kans., 1992), has a good description of the wood-frame residential construction.
27. Knight and Wulpi, 263-64, 268-70, 289
28. Cour, 30-31, 34, 36-39, 79.
29. Andrew DickWood and Thomas Gray Linn, Plywoods: Their Development, Manufacture, and Application (Brooklyn, N.Y., 1943), 78-79.
30. Cour, 14, 19, 83.
31. Wood and Linn, 79.
32. Knight andWulpi, 276.
33. Louis H. Meyer, Plywood: What It Is-What It Does (New York, 1947), 28, 33.
34. Meyer, 28-29, 32-33, 79-81, 84.
35. Knight andWulpi, 270-73.
36. Knight and Wulpi (n. 9 above), 265-68.
37. Cour (n. 9 above), 84-85.
38. Cour, 83-84.
39. Knight andWulpi, 138, 263-64.
40. Paul D. Blanc, How Everyday Products Make People Sick: Toxins at Home and in the Workplace (Berkeley, Calif., 2007), 21.
41. Gavin Townsend, "Airborne Toxins and the American House, 1865-1895,"Winterthur Portfolio 24 (1989): 29-42.
42. I do not intend to diminish the toxicity of asbestos and lead, which are serious problems in older structures. My point is that these materials were found in nature and did not constitute the structural components of a dwelling.
43. Jeffrey L. Meikle, American Plastic: A Cultural History (New Brunswick, N.J., 1997), 31-62, 64.
44. Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th ed., s.v. "Industrial Polymers";
45. Alfred D. Chandler Jr., Shaping the Industrial Century: The Remarkable Story of the Evolution of the Modern Chemical and Pharmaceutical Industries (Cambridge, Mass., 2005), 19-31, 54-59, quote on 22.
46. Fabarizio Cesaroni, Alfonso Gambardella, and Myeriam Mariani, "The Evolution of Networks in the Chemical Industry," in The Global Chemical Industry in the Age of the Petrochemical Revolution, ed. Louis Galambos, Takashi Hikino, and Vera Zamagni (Cambridge, 2007), 33.
47. John Kenly Smith Jr., "The American Chemical Industry since the Petrochemical Revolution," in The Global Chemical Industry in the Age of the Petrochemical Revolution, 175, 177.
48. Meikle, 31-62.
49. Wood and Linn, 83.
50. Donald Albrecht, ed., World War II and the American Dream: How Wartime Building Changed a Nation (Cambridge, Mass., 1995) includes some discussion of plywood in buildings during the war.
51. Knight and Wulpi, 263-64; Meyer (n. 13 above), 30.
52. Meyer, 41.
53. Wood and Linn (n. 10 above), 28.
54. Ibid., 77, 83-91.
55. Meyer, 29-31, 41-60.
56. Forest Products Laboratory, "Wood Handbook:Wood as an EngineeringMaterial,"Agriculture Handbook no. 72, Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture (Washington, D.C., 1974), 9-13.
57. Meyer, 31-32;Wood and Linn, 88-90.
58. Forest Products Laboratory, 9-3 to 9-6; Meyer, 31.
59. "Trends in Housing during theWar and Postwar Periods," Monthly Labor Review 64 (1947): 14.
60. Rome (n. 6 above), 35.
61. Guthrie and Armstrong (n. 9 above), 131, 145.
62. Mary Robinson Farris, "The Ve-neer and Plywood Industry: Above-Average Productivity Gains," Monthly Labor Review 101 (1978): 26.
63. Quote in "Plywood Industry Aims to Double Its Sales in Next 10 Years," American Lumberman and Building Products Merchandiser, 19 December 1960, 32.
64. In 1954, a peak year, a hundred plants produced over 3.9 billion feet of Douglas fir plywood.
65. see Cour (n. 9 above), 140.
66. In an average house built in 1950, lumber constituted 8.95 board feet of the finished floor area, while "structural panels" (i.e., softwood plywood) averaged 1.70 board feet. By 1992, as house sizes increased, single-family houses used an average of 8.09 board feet of lumber and 4.61 board feet of softwood plywood.
67. See David B. McKeever and Robert B. Phelps, "Wood Products Used in New Single-Family House Construction: 1950 to 1992," Forest Products Journal 44 (1994): 71-72, 73.
68. Meyer (n. 13 above), 76-80.
69. Mary Roche," Home Buyers Hear of Plywood Uses," New York Times, 1May 1945.
70. "Levittown, Pa., Gets New Type Plywood," New York Times, 1 December 1951.
71. United States Plywood Corporation, "Weldwood Sales Manual" (1952), A2, located in Duke University Library, Durham, North Carolina; Guthrie and Armstrong, 148-49.
72. "U.S. Plywood Claims Particle Board Output Lead," New York Times, 20 May 1961.
73. "New Plywood Offered," New York Times, 17 May 1953.
74. "Wood in a New Form," New York Times, 2 September 1956.
75. McKeever and Phelps, 73.
76. "Build Better for Less," House and Home,March 1962, 181.
77. "'58-'68:Wonders to Come," Harper's Bazaar, February 1958, 166.
78. "Industrialization," House and Home,March 1962, 189.
79. In 1949 trailers and mobile homes constituted 4.5 percent of all housing starts, while in 1958 this figure jumped to 11.1 percent. In 1969 48 percent of all new houses were mobile homes, making up 94 percent of dwellings under $15,000, 79 percent of those under $20,000, and 67 percent of those under $25,000.
80. See Alexander R. Hammer, "Americans Taking to Mobile Homes," New York Times, 24 July 1960.
81. Douglas E. Kneeland, "From 'Tin Can On Wheels' to the 'Mobile Home,"' New York Times, 9 May 1971.
82. Allan D. Wallis, Wheel Estate: The Rise and Decline of Mobile Homes (New York, 1991).
83. Gilbert Herbert, The Dream of the Factory-Made House: Walter Gropius and Konrad Wachsmann (Cambridge, Mass., 1984).
84. Frances Cerra, "Fire Perils Seen in Mobile Homes," New York Times, 17 November 1974.
85. Wallis, 6-9.
86. Martin E. Personick and Judy R. Daley, "Profiles in Safety and Health: Work Hazards of Mobile Homes," Monthly Labor Review 112 (1989), 16. Hammer.
87. "Trailers Become More Elaborate," New York Times, 2 February 1964.
88. Wallis, 114-16, 164.
89. Clyde A. Fasick, H. Edward Dickerhoff, and J. Dewel Lawrence, "Evaluation of the Use of Wood Products in Mobile Home Manufacture," Forest Products Journal 26 (1973): 6.
90. Kneeland.
91. The median price for a new single-family residence jumped from $18,900 in 1964 to over $21,000 in 1966, with few houses priced less than $12,500.
92. See Dorothy K. Newman, "The Low-Cost Housing Market," Monthly Labor Review 89 (1966): 1363.
93. Robert Mills French and Jeffrey K. Hadden, "Mobile Homes: Instant Suburbia or Transportable Slums?" Social Problems 16 (1968): 220.
94. Robert Mills French and Jeffrey K. Hadden, "An Analysis of the Distribution and Characteristics of Mobile Homes in America," Land Economics 41 (1965): 136.
95. Richard Harris, "Working-Class Home Ownership in the AmericanMetropolis," Journal of Urban History 17 (1990): 46-96.
96. Michael J. Doucet and John C. Weaver, Housing the American City (Montreal, 1996).
97. Richard F. Hamilton, "The Behavior and Values of Skilled Workers," in Blue-CollarWorld: Studies of the AmericanWorker, ed. Arthur B. Shostak and William Gomberg (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1964).
98. Kneeland (n. 35 above).
99. French and Hadden, "Mobile Homes," 222-23.
100. Alexander R. Hammer, "Sharp Gains Made by 'Mobile' Homes," New York Times, 11 October 1964.
101. Alley Case (n. 1 above), vol. 16, 655-69.
102. "Mobile-Home Regulation Backed," New York Times, 7 October 1979.
103. Stan Luxenberg, "Mobile Homes Growing Up," New York Times, 22 May 1977.
104. Wallis (n. 35 above), 14-16.
105. Hammer, "Sharp Gains Made by 'Mobile' Homes."
106. In the 1960s 60 percent of mobile home residents worked in blue-collar jobs, while only 13 percent held white-collar employment. The rest were retired or unemployed. Predominantly childless-being either young married couples or retirees-mobile home residents lived in suburban trailer parks mostly in the West and Sunbelt region.
107. See French and Hadden, "Analysis of the Distribution and Characteristics," 138.
108. French and Hadden,"Mobile Homes," 222-23.
109. Alley Case, vol. 16, 680.
110. Alley Case, vol. 14, 208, 223.
111. Alley Case, vol. 15, 438-45, 469.
112. Rome (n. 6 above).
113. Peter A. Breysse, "Chipboard-Formaldehyde," Occupational Health Newsletter, Environmental Research Laboratory, University of Washington, 10 (1961): 1-4.
114. Andersen, G. R. Lundqvist, and L. Molhave, "Indoor Air Pollution Due to Chipboard Used as a Construction Material," Atmospheric Environment 9 (1975): 1121-27.
115. Isadore Barmash," Health Agency in Study," New York Times, 10 August 1966.
116. Jane E. Brody, "Christmas Trees Vex the Allergic," New York Times, 25 December 1971.
117. Brody's was one of the earliest articles to describe the condition of being "allergic to modern living."
118. John C. Harris, Barry H. Rumack, and Franklin D. Aldrich, "Toxicology of Urea Formaldehyde and Polyurethane Foam Insulation," JAMA 245 (16 January 1981): 243-46.
119. Philip Shenon, "Formaldehyde: A Workhorse Chemical Faces Bans," New York Times, 4 October 1981.
120. Harris, Rumack, and Aldrich, 244.
121. Lester Levin and P. Walton Purdom, "A Review of the Health Effects of Energy Conserving Materials," American Journal of Public Health 73 (1983): 683-90.
122. "Formaldehyde: Review of Scientific Basis of EPA's Carcinogenic Risk Assessment," Hearing before the Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight of the Committee on Science and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives, 97th Cong., 2nd sess., 20 May 1982 (Washington, D.C., 1983), 88 (hereafter Hearing on Formaldehyde).
123. In 1982 the Consumer Product Safety Commission voted to ban UFFI. however, in the following year an appellate court overturned the ban, and the Reagan Justice Department prevented the commission from challenging the court's decision. Although the foam remained legal its notoriety killed the UFFI business.
124. See Michael de-Courcy Hinds, "Product Safety Agency Bans Use of Formaldehyde Foam Insulation," New York Times, 23 February 1982.
125. David Shribman, "Foam Insulation Is Cleared of Ban," New York Times, 26 August 1983.
126. For an in-depth look at the politics of formaldehyde, see Dan Fagin, Marianne Lavelle, and Center for Public Integrity, Toxic Deception: How the Chemical Industry Manipulates Science, Bends the Law, and Endangers Your Health (Monroe, Me., 1999).
127. Levin and Purdom, 687.
128. For instance, a National Cancer Institute study recently determined that workers in plants that manufactured formaldehyde and formaldehyde resins had a higher risk of developing blood and lymphatic cancers. The Formaldehyde Council, a trade group, denied that this proved that formaldehyde caused cancer and called for a "full scientific review of the health effects of formaldehyde".
129. see Roni Caryn Rabin, "Cancer Research Finds Risk in High Levels of Exposure to Formaldehyde," New York Times, 13 May 2009.
130. Andersen, Lundqvist, and Molhave," 1121-27.
131. Peter A. Breysse, "Formaldehyde in Conventional and Mobile Homes," Environmental Health and Safety 26 (1977): 1-17.
132. Vincent Garry, Laura Oatman, Richard Pleus, and David Gray, "Formaldehyde in the Home: Some Environmental Disease Perspectives," Minnesota Medicine 63 (1980): 107-11.
133. Kay Dally, Lawrence Hanrahan, and Mary Ann Woodbury, "Formaldehyde Exposure in Nonoccupational Environments," Archives of Environmental Health 36 (1981): 277-84.
134. S.W. Norsted, C. A. Kozinetz, and J. F. Annegers, "Formaldehyde Complaint Investigations in Mobile Homes by the Texas Department of Health," Environmental Research 37 (1985): 93-100.
135. Ingrid Ritchie and Robert Lehnen, "Formaldehyde-Related Health Complaints of Residents Living in Mobile and Conventional Homes," American Journal of Public Health 77 (1987): 323-28.
136. Thomas Kelly, Deborah Smith, and Jan Satola, "Emission Rates of Formaldehyde from Materials and Consumer Products Found in California Homes," Environmental Science and Technology 33 (1999): 81-88.
137. Peder Daugbjerg, "Is Particle Board in the Home Detrimental to Health?" Environmental Research 48 (1989): 161-62.
138. Garry, Oatman, Pleus, and Gray, 107, 109.
139. Richard Daniel Carbone, "Formaldehyde Exposure inMobile Homes" (M.S. thesis, University ofWashington, 1978), 109-12.
140. Alley Case (n. 1 above), vol. 15, 546.
141. Ibid., vol. 16, 668.
142. Ibid., vol. 14, 365, 367.
143. Ibid., vol. 15, 547.
144. Levin and Purdom (n. 49 above), 687.
145. Ritchie and Lehnen (n. 51 above), 324-27.
146. Kaye H. Kilburn, "Indoor Air Effects after Building Renovation and in Manufactured Homes," American Journal of the Medical Sciences 320 (2000): 253.
147. Ann Crittenden, "Built-in Fumes Plague Homes," New York Times, 7 May 1978.
148. Harris, Rumack, and Aldrich (n. 48 above), 244.
149. Daugbjerg (n. 52 above), 161.
150. Garry, Oatman, Pleus, and Gray (n. 51 above), 108-10.
151. Ritchie and Lehnen, 324-27
152. Kilburn, 253.
153. Geomet Inc. and Technology and Economics Inc., "An Evaluation of Formaldehyde Problems in Residential Mobile Homes," Office of Policy Development and Research, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (Washington, D.C., 1980), 45.
154. The symptoms experienced were that infants vomited and experienced diarrhea, and old people and babies developed rashes more than middle-aged occupants. Asthmatics reacted to formaldehyde at lower levels.
155. Peter Radetsky, Allergic to the Twentieth Century: The Explosion in Environmental Allergies-from Sick Buildings to Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (Boston, 1997), 152, 155.
156. Nicholas A. Ashford and Claudia S. Miller, Chemical Exposures: Low Levels and High Stakes (New York, 1991), 19.
157. For the report on infant deaths see Geomet Inc. and Technology and Economics Inc., 49.
158. Thomas L. Vaughan, Clifton Strader, Scott Davis, and Janet R. Daling, "Formaldehyde and Cancers of the Pharynx, Sinus and Nasal Cavity: I. Occupational Exposures," International Journal of Cancer 38 (1986): 681-83
159. Peter A. Breysse, "The Immediate and Long-Term Effects of Formaldehyde," Comments on Toxicology 3 (1988): 151.
160. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., 18May 1982, in Hearing on Formaldehyde (n. 49 above), 283-84.
161. A. G. Ulsamer, K. C. Gupta, M. S. Cohn, and P.W. Preuss, "Formaldehyde in Indoor Air: Toxicity and Risk," in Hearing on Formaldehyde, 392-99.
162. Thomas L. Vaughan, Clifton Strader, Scott Davis, and Janet R. Daling, "Formaldehyde and Cancers of the Pharynx, Sinus and Nasal Cavity: II. Residential Exposures," International Journal of Cancer 38 (1986): 687-88.
163. Geomet Inc. and Technology and Economics Inc., 45.
164. Philip Shabecoff, "Formaldehyde Found a Cancer Hazard," New York Times, 17 April 1987.
165. Vincent James Cogliano et al., "Meeting Report: Summary of IARCMonographs on Formaldehyde, 2-Butoxyethanol, and 1-tert-Butoxy-2-Propanol," Environmental Health Perspectives 113 (2005): 3.
166. For the best review of the research on formaldehyde's potential carcinogenicity as of 1982, see the entire testimony given at the Hearing on Formaldehyde. The hearing occurred in 1982 after the Reagan administration's EPA refused to consider the carcinogenicity of formaldehyde, which the Toxic Substances Act required it to do.
167. In 1974 a single-wide mobile home contained a 918-square-foot surface measure of particleboard and 1,997-square-foot surface measure of hardwood plywood.
168. see William J. Groah, Gary D. Gramp, Scott B. Garrison, and Richard J. Walcott, "Factors that Influence Formaldehyde Air Levels in Mobile Homes," Forest Products Journal 35 (1985): 11.
169. Fasick, Dickerhoff, and Lawrence (n. 38 above), 11.
170. Norsted, Kozinetz, and Annegers (n. 51 above), 99.
171. Studies showed that people could perceive formaldehyde in amounts as low as 0.05-0.1 ppm; at 20 ppm, humans reached their maximum tolerance to the gas. In 1980 OSHA set a standard of 3 ppm for workplaces, but the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) recommended a limit of 0.1 ppm. Thus an internal environment of 8 ppm was potentially very harmful.
172. See Garry, Oatman, Pleus, and Gray (n. 51 above), 108.
173. John D. Spengler and Ken Sexton, "Indoor Air Pollution: A Public Health Perspective," Science 221 (1 July 1983): 13.
174. Levin and Purdom (n. 49 above), 324.
175. Geomet Inc. and Technology and Economics Inc. (n. 59 above), viii.
176. Garry, Oatman, Pleus, and Gray, 107.
177. David Ranii, "Formaldehyde Suits Erupt," National Law Journal 4 (10 May 1982): 31.
178. Geomet Inc. and Technology and Economics Inc., 49.
179. Ann Crittenden, "Built-In Fumes Plague Homes," New York Times, 7 May 1978.
180. Tamar Lewin, "Insulation Lawsuits Abound," New York Times, 25 May 1982.
181. Michael deCourcy Hinds, "Pressed-Wood Products: New Target for Safety Commission," New York Times, 23 January 1983.
182. Fagin, Lavelle, and Center for Public Integrity (n. 50 above), 151-55, 159.
183. Fagin, Lavelle, and Center for Public Integrity note that the courts shut down a New York class-action suit that included 70,000 people (89).
184. See also Norsted, Kozinetz, and Howard Pankratz, "Formaldehyde Damages Won," Denver Post, 1 September 1982.
185. Nervous defendants began to settle with plaintiffs out of court, giving up about $1 million in awards, but confidentiality agreements and few jury trials ensured that individuals fought the same battle with formaldehyde purveyors over and over again.
186. I gleaned the Alleys' story from scattered testimony from the couple, their daughters, and friends.
187. see testimony throughout Alley Case (n. 1 above). "Denver Couple Gets $560,000 in Formaldehyde Fumes Case," New York Times, 3 September 1982.
188. Pankratz.
189. Alley Case, vol. 14, 214.
190. Ibid., vol. 16, 724.
191. "Alley v. Gubser Development Co.," 785 Federal Reporter, 2d series, 849-57 (United States Court of Appeals, 10th Circuit, 3 March 1986).
192. See Fagin, Lavelle, and Center for Public Integrity for more information about the politics of formaldehyde warnings on plywood and particleboard.
193. Alley Case, vol. 16, 765, 793.
194. "Alley v. Gubser Development Co.," 856.
195. Fagin, Lavelle, and Center for Public Integrity, 163.
196. deCourcy Hinds, "Pressed-Wood Products".
197. Spengler and Sexton (n. 66 above), 13.
198. William F. Lehmann, "Effect of Ventilation and Loading Rates in Large Chamber Testing of Formaldehyde Emissions from Composite Panels," Forest Products Journal 37 (1987): 31.
199. R. Margosian, "Initial Formaldehyde Emission Levels for Particleboard Manufactured in the United States," Forest Products Journal 40 (1990): 15.
200. Plywood Emissions: Problem Continues, "New York Times, 21 October 1982.
201. See also Jacqueline Palank, "FEMA Faulted on Response to Risks in Storm Trailers," New York Times, 20 July 2007.
202. FEMA Runs for Cover," New York Times, 22 July 2007.
203. Ralph Blumenthal, Stalled Health Tests Leave Storm Trailers in Limbo," New York Times, 18 October 2007.
204. Gulf Coast: Report Issued on FEMA Trailers," New York Times, 4 March 2008.
205. William Cronon, The Trouble with Wilderness; or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature," in Uncommon Ground: Toward Reinventing Nature, ed. William Cronon (New York, 1996), 84-90, quote on 89.