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Donora’s Legacy Still Felt Today
How has the Donora smog tragedy affected the way we live today?
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Secrets of Donora’s Forgotten Cemetery
We tred carefully through the brambles, weeds, and bushes devouring a hillside cemetery in the north end of Donora, Pa. We step from one small monument to another, making our way as close as we can, without a machete, to the largest monument, the one marking the grave of Capt. John Gilmore. Gilmore was a […]
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The Curious Case of Stanley Sawa
This post was updated Feb. 14, 2020, based on information obtained from Stanley Sawa’s son. One of the first stories I heard about the Donora smog of 1948 concerned the football game between the Donora Dragons and the Monongahela Wildcats on Saturday October 31. Donora lost the game 27–7, a disheartening loss to be sure. […]
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I Have a Publisher!
I am delighted and honored to join this prestigious university press. Now, to write the book!
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I Have an Agent!
I am thrilled to announce that I have signed with Bookends Literary Agency for Silver Lining: Clean Air and the Tragedy of a Pennsylvania Mill Town.
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Why I Don’t Read Books Anymore (But Still Love Them)
I’m a word guy. I read, I write, I edit. I’ve grown up with books. I loved The Hardy Boy books, and read a flock of them. (Flock of books? Bevy? Gaggle?) But I don’t read books anymore, because …
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Where Did the Smog Victims Live and Die?
Knowing where each victim lived — and died — can be instructive for several reasons. Consider how many of those victims and their families must have known each other.
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When Did Death Fog Victims Perish?
Ceh and Kirkwood were the first Donorans to die in the Donora Death Fog of 1948. At least 18 more followed, most of them the same night. Ceh died from sudden heart failure, Jeanie of asthma. Both of their death certificates indicate they died at 2:00 AM on the deadliest day of the smog, Saturday, October 30, 1948.
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The Acceptable Boundaries of Racism in 1940s Donora
Stacey is right, race relations in the town were indeed strange, but it didn’t seem to bother anyone much, apparently not even black residents.
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Social Life in 1940s Donora
For decades during the mid-1900s a Chamber of Commerce sign at the Donora town line read, “NEXT TO YOURS THE BEST TOWN IN THE USA.” Donorans found an odd pride in being a second-best town, no matter where a visitor came from. Perhaps that was to be expected. The town didn’t originate naturally, as a place people moved to because they liked the area or as a natural outgrowth of an urban area. No, it originated because industrialists in Pittsburgh thought it would make the best spot to build steel and zinc mills.
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