This Day in History: 1943-07-26

LA’s first smog episode occurs on this day in 1943. At the time, air pollution was well known in US and European cities with heavy industries fueled by coal, but it was surprising that cities like Los Angeles had high levels of air pollution from automobiles and oil refineries. Over the next decade, as Los Angeles began struggling with frequent smog problems, protests emerged. In this photo from Oct. 15, 1954, members of the LA suburban Highland Park Optimist Club wear gas masks at their lunch meeting to protest Southern California’s eighth straight day of severe smog. The sign in background reads: “Why wait till 1955? We might not even be alive.” It referred to assertions by then-governor Goodwin Knight that the smog problem would be solved in 1955. For more on the LA smog problem, see Wikipedia’s History of Smog, and Science History’s “Fighting Smog in Los Angeles.