Polluting Steamships: Technology and Environment in the European Maritime World (1830s-1920s)

The impact of technological advance on the environment has become an essential topic in academic research and contemporary discourse.

The maritime transport industry has attracted plenty of attention, yet, the link between technological innovation in shipping and the rise of environmental and health-related issues among its workers is still largely unexplored in historical terms.

PollSTEAM proposes an innovative approach to maritime studies by adopting an environmental perspective on the transition from sail to steam in shipping since the mid-19th century.

Rethinking technological change in terms of environment and labour will reframe and readdress a recent research object of maritime history from an original angle, sensitive to contemporary environmentalist and healthcare solicitations.PollSTEAMs objective is to examine how the advent of steam shipping altered European maritime societies from an environmental perspective.

Two specific research subjects will be targeted: waterfronts and seafarers in Genoa and Liverpool between 1830s and 1920.

Firstly, I will analyse how the adoption of steam technology affected the natural and anthropic environment of port cities, especially on the changing relationship between port and city, where a constant detachment is observed.

Port cities were materially transformed by the increasing presence of steamships, not only in terms of space but also of environmental impact.

I will investigate how the city-port relationships were modified, especially the role of institutions, public opinion and urban society. Secondly, steamships are regarded as working environments.

I intend to trace the emergence of environmentalist and health-related discourses among seafarers and to assess steam pollutions health impact on them, which can be confronted with data on mortality and morbidity in the age of sail to reconceptualise with medical data the notion of steamships as deadly workplaces.