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A white woman tests an African American girl for lead poisoning while another white woman looks on

A medical technician tests a child for lead poisoning in Flint, Michigan in 2015

Courtesy Jake May/The Flint Journal-MLive.com/AP

When people, especially children, ingest small amounts of lead over a period of time—by drinking contaminated water, breathing contaminated air, or accidently eating leaded paint chips—they can become very sick.

A white woman speaks to a roomful of people

Dr. Dorothy Trice conducts a seminar sponsored by the Brooklyn Subcommittee on Lead Poisoning, New York Amsterdam News, May 9, 1970

Courtesy Division of Rare Manuscript Collection, Cornell University Library

The Brooklyn Subcommittee on Lead Poisoning was one of many local groups that worked to educate citizens on the dangers of lead. About 100 community workers from various anti-poverty agencies and community organizations in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood attended this lead poisoning seminar.

A sign saying that motor fuel contains lead

Sign from a gasoline pump, mid-20th century

Courtesy Library of Congress

Tetraethyl lead was introduced into automobile gasoline in the 1920s. Leaded gasoline was common until the late 1980s.

A portrait of a white woman

Alice Hamilton, early 1900s

Courtesy U.S. National Library of Medicine

Physician and industrial health pioneer, Alice Hamilton, became interested in lead poisoning and the health of workers while living at Hull-House, a settlement house in Chicago that provided social services to the city’s immigrant community. She published investigative reports about the dangers of lead poisoning faced by workers in several industries.

A page of book text

Industrial Poisons in the United States, Alice Hamilton, 1925

Courtesy U.S. National Library of Medicine

Alice Hamilton’s landmark study on workplace hazards included lead poisoning. Her medical background as a pathologist provided the expertise to critique the “dangerous trades.”

Two white men in a factory

Workers operating a linotype machine, Hygiene of the Printing Trades, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1917

Courtesy U.S. National Library of Medicine

Industrial health pioneer Alice Hamilton published investigative reports about the dangers of lead poisoning faced by workers in several industries. Among the dangerous trades highlighted was printing.

Printers used lead-based metal type. With bare hands, workers manipulated individual “slugs” or pieces of metal used for spacing. Workers were exposed to lead dust and fumes created by the printing machines.

Four white men work in a factory

Pottery factory in Trenton, New Jersey, ca. early 1900s

Courtesy KGPA Ltd/Alamy Stock Photo

The glazes used to coat ceramics contained lead. When workers fired the pottery, lead fumes entered the air in the factory. Workers inhaled the toxic vapors, which caused severe respiratory issues.

Portrait of a white man

Yandell Henderson, 1935

Courtesy Smithsonian Institution Archive. Image # SIA2008-2804

Cardiovascular physiologist Yandell Henderson was a director of the Yale Laboratory of Applied Physiology and a leading expert on poison gases and automotive exhaust. Yandell Henderson recognized the dangers of and opposed the use of tetraethyl lead in gasoline in the 1920s. He asserted leaded gas was “worse than tuberculosis,” one of the leading causes of death at the time. Throughout the 1920s, newspapers reported on serious, and sometimes fatal, cases of lead poisoning in oil refinery workers.

Portrait of a white man

Clair Patterson, ca. 1960s

Courtesy The Archives, California Institute of Technology

Clair Patterson, a pioneering geochemist at the California Institute of Technology, helped develop a technique used to calculate the age of the earth using lead isotopes. After encountering lead contamination in his research, he spent years collecting data and pushing for legislation to reduce lead in the environment.

A white man does an experiment outdoors

On a mountain in a corner of Yosemite National Park, Clair Patterson measures the accumulation of lead from gasoline exhausts from neighboring cities, Engineering and Science Magazine, February-March 1975

Courtesy The Archives, California Institute of Technology

In the 1960s and 1970s, geochemist Clair Patterson gathered evidence that proved the pervasiveness of lead contamination. Patterson’s rigorous data collection and advocacy led to life-saving reductions in environmental lead.

Three gas pumps

Texaco gas pumps in Milford, Illinois, 1977

Courtesy Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Amendments to the 1970 Clean Air Act resulted in the elimination of leaded gasoline in the U.S. by the late 1980s. Once a common sight to drivers, leaded gasoline pumps would fade into history.

Three white children play with toys while a white woman looks on

Children playing with toys, ca. 1950s

Courtesy U.S. National Library of Medicine

Manufacturers added leaded pigments to paint to improve durability and drying time. Toys like the ones shown here were toxic because of the lead used in the paint. Children could easily ingest lead by putting toys in their mouth.

An illustration of a white boy riding a wooden horse with the word “lead” on it and holding a paintbrush

Cover of The Dutch Boy’s Hobby: A Paint Book for Girls and Boys, National Lead Company, 1926

Courtesy The Winterthur Library

For over 50 years, the National Lead Company used the image of a happy, healthy, and fictional Dutch Boy to market lead paints as safe and wholesome. Dutch Boy ads targeted children with friendly coloring paint books. Here, the Dutch Boy is having fun riding a toy “lead” horse and is ready to be helpful with chores by carrying a paint brush.

An illustration of a white woman, boy, and man

Ad placed by the National Lead Company, Los Angeles Times, April 4, 1928

Courtesy Los Angeles Times

Dutch Boy ads from the National Lead Company promoted lead paint products to families. This image shows a painter prescribing pure lead for all household painting using a medical reference—the Dutch Boy by his side.

All illustration of lead-based items and text

Ad placed by the National Lead Company, The National Geographic Magazine, November 1923

Courtesy U.S. National Library of Medicine

This advertisement falsely reassured parents that leaded paint was safe for children and families. The message “lead helps to guard your health” responded to growing public concern over lead’s toxicity in industrial trades and paint products, as described by industrial health pioneer Alice Hamilton.

An advertisement with an image of a battery and text

Ad placed by the Electric Storage Battery Company, Horseless Age, January 15, 1918

Courtesy Princeton University Library

Storage batteries provide a rechargeable source of energy for passenger cars, trains, streetcars, and lamps. In the past, manufacturers often removed the lead plates in the batteries and discarded empty casings in poor neighborhoods to minimize disposal costs. These self-contained casings, which were made of hard rubber, emitted intense heat when burned.

Exide batteries were similar to those dumped by the Bruco Company in a Chicago neighborhood in 1959.

A page of book text

Lead Poisoning in the Manufacture of Storage Batteries, Alice Hamilton and the U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1914

Courtesy U.S. National Library of Medicine

Physician activist Alice Hamilton called battery manufacturing a very dangerous trade for workers. The absence of safety regulations and adequate worker protections against lead poisoning was a serious public health threat.

A newspaper page with a picture of an African American boy and another picture of African American children.

Chicago Defender (Daily Edition), December 22, 1959

Courtesy Chicago Defender

Newspapers reported stories about the deadly results of the illegally dumped battery casings. Children died or were poisoned from breathing toxic lead sulphate. Officials retrieved over 2,000 casings.

A group portrait of African Americans.

Chicago Defender (National Edition), March 26, 1966

Courtesy Chicago Defender

The Student Organization for Urban Leadership formed in 1964 to combat lead poisoning. Members distributed pamphlets, gathered paint samples, and collected urine of children for testing.

A roomful of people listens to an African American man sing and play guitar

Folksinger Jimmy Collier leads Southern Christian Leadership Conference Chicago campaign staff in song, 1966

Courtesy Bob Fitch photography archive, © Stanford University Libraries

In response to the lead housing crisis, activist folk musician Jimmy Collier raised awareness of the dangers of lead poisoning with his song “Lead Poison on the Wall,” recorded in 1966.

An African American man tests a child for lead poisoning.

Chicago Defender (National Edition), December 11, 1974

Courtesy Chicago Defender

Kenneth Calhoun, a medical technician for the Chicago Board of Health, tests a child for lead.

An African American woman holds a child.

A mother holds her daughter who is poisoned by lead paint from Chicago’s Cabrini Green housing projects, 1965

Courtesy Getty Images, photographer Paul Sequeira

Formed in 1965, the local Citizens Committee to End Lead Poisoning protested the Chicago public housing complex where this child became poisoned by lead paint.

A book cover with a house and text

Lead Paint Poisoning in Children--a Problem in Your Community?, U.S. Dept. of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1973

Courtesy U.S. National Library of Medicine

Movements in Chicago and other cities led to increased governmental action, including publications that warned parents of lead in homes.

A book cover with text and an anthropomorphized wall with a sinister expression

The Flake and His Secret Plan, U.S. Dept. of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1973

Courtesy U.S. National Library of Medicine

The Flake and His Secret Plan was distributed by the government to warn the public about the danger of household lead paint. This comic book told a story about an evil flake of paint and included a short list of ways to reduce the threat of lead paint.

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