Smell Detectives

"Smell Detectives is a brilliant, entertaining book informed by careful archival research. Supplemented by fascinating illustrations, the book navigates a rich and eclectic archive that is frequently obscured when historians overemphasize the perspectives of health experts and government officials. . . . Kiechle's remarkable study opens up productive new questions and lines of inquiry."—Hsuan L. Hsu, Journal of Historical Geography, 11/23/2017

"Kiechle's addition to sensory history provides many points to discuss about the people who made the smells that they did not like."—Alexandra Kindell, H-Net Reviews (H-Socialisms), February 2018

"This book is a highly creative and unusual glimpse into a realm of environmental history that is rarely accessible to modern observers."—Sean Munger, New Books Network podcast

"An attractive edition . . . beautifully written, with a flair for the attention-grabbing turn of phrase that is compulsory in sensory studies. The work is also finely illustrated, offering prints from the nineteenth century that are at no occasion superfluous. As environmental history, Smell Detectives is an essential read, offering new contexts for a field in search of freshly radical tones to combat environmental degradation."—Andrew J. Kettler, University of Toronto, Journal of Social History

"Smell Detectives draws insights from the rapidly developing literature in sensory history and applies them to the nineteenth-century urban environment. The results are illuminating and extend the field of environmental history in new and fascinating directions."—Michael Rawson, author of Eden on the Charles: The Making of Boston

"Phew! The nineteenth century was smelly! From stockyards to battlefields, Smell Detectives shows us why stench mattered. Chemists, reformers, mothers, cartoonists, politicians, physicians, generals, bureaucrats, and industrialists struggled to trace and abate stink to keep Americans healthy. With grace and verve, Kiechle explains their reasoning and their legacy."—Conevery Bolton Valencius, Boston College

"The manner in which individuals, governments, scientists, and various groups dealt and reacted to smells and fresh air issues provide great insight into our culture—what has value, what does not, what makes us sick, what keeps us well. Smell Detectives is a bottom-up history that is necessary to truly grasp the evolution of cities."—Martin V. Melosi, author of The Sanitary City: Urban Infrastructure in America from Colonial Times to the Present