Aluminium smelters and industrial hazards in the Maurienne Valley. Experts, reformers and local resistance (1892-1939) Authors Olivier Chatterji Université Grenoble Alpes Keywords: Pollution, health, environment, aluminium. Abstract This article offers a historical perspective on the interplay between pollutants, environment and health in the Alps of Savoy during the Second Industrial Revolution. At the turn of the 19th century, Savoy’s Alpine valleys were radically transformed by a large-scale gold rush to exploit its hydroelectric potential for use by a growing electrochemical industry. More particularly, we look at the Maurienne Valley where six aluminium production factories built between 1892 and 1906 were among the earliest implementations of a newly discovered electrochemical process to manufacture large quantities of the metal. We show how, along with modernity narratives, hitherto unknown pollution effects raised unprecedented questions about the toxicity of air emissions. We then discuss how the impacts of industrial pollution on the agricultural economy fuelled a growing mobilisation of farmer unions led by a prominent pharmacist in the region. We show how the latter single-handedly attempted to merge the grievances of disaffected local communities throughout Savoy into a transregional reform movement to campaign for legislative change and tighter control of polluting industries. We also look at the large range of issues it brought up, such as worker and public health along with the longterm impacts of pollutants on the valley’s ecology. In parallel, we explore the ambivalent work of administrative experts and their role in enforcing the view that air emissions were innocuous. Lastly, we look at the role of firms after the war in providing social amenities and easing the transition from a predominantly rural to anindustrial society.Keywords: Pollution, health, environment, aluminium. Author Biography Olivier Chatterji, Université Grenoble Alpes Aluminium smelters and industrial hazards in the Maurienne Valley. Experts, reformers and local resistance (1892-1939) Downloads PDF (Català) Issue Vol. 9 (2016) Section Dossier: Living in a Toxic World (1800-2000) License The intellectual property of articles belongs to the respective authors.On submitting articles for publication to the journal Actes d’Història de la Ciència i de la Tècnica, authors accept the following terms:Authors assign to Societat Catalana d’Història de la Ciència i de la Tècnica (a subsidiary of Institut d’Estudis Catalans) the rights of reproduction, communication to the public and distribution of the articles submitted for publication to Actes d’Història de la Ciència i de la Tècnica.Authors answer to Societat Catalana d’Història de la Ciència i de la Tècnica (SCHCT) for the authorship and originality of submitted articles.Authors are responsible for obtaining permission for the reproduction of all graphic material included in articles.SCHCT declines all liability for the possible infringement of intellectual property rights by authors.The contents published in the journal, unless otherwise stated in the text or in the graphic material, are subject to a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs (by-nc-nd) 3.0 Spain licence, the complete text of which may be found at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/es/deed.en. Consequently, the general public is authorised to reproduce, distribute and communicate the work, provided that its authorship and the body publishing it are acknowledged, and that no commercial use and no derivative works are made of it.Actes d’Història de la Ciència i de la Tècnica is not responsible for the ideas and opinions expressed by the authors of the published articles.