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Brown Bag Lecture: James Alsop, "The Introduction of 'Cellucotton' and the Perception of Health Risk, 1915-1925”
Date: 14 April 2009
Time: 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m.
Location: Chemical Heritage Foundation
6th Floor Conference Room
315 Chestnut Street
Philadelphia, PA 19106
Free and open to the public.
Description:
Alsop’s research examines the expansion of wood-pulp consumer goods in the opening decades of the 20th century from newsprint to intimate human contact in the form of surgical bandages and personal hygiene products. Wood pulp was created through the extensive use of industrial chemicals in the fiber separation and bleaching processes. The question arose at the time: did this pose a health risk to the consumers? Alsop explores this topic of the perception of health risk in America, 1915-25, as posed through industrial chemicals by addressing the questions: how was this issue raised, by whom, and with what results?

James Alsop was educated at the Universities of Winnipeg, Western Ontario, and Cambridge. He is interested in the social histories of health and medicine, with a concern for “history from below.” In 2001 Alsop presented a Brown Bag Lecture at CHF on the theme of chemical experimentation on servicemen in the United States and Britain, 1700-1850.

Learn more about CHF's Brown Bag Lecture series.
Contact Information:
For more information, please call 215-873-8289, or e-mail bbl@chemheritage.org

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