Niche: Donora Smog Museum
Posted in Individualism, Internationalism on 27. Apr, 2009
The Museums of Niche series on this blog looks at the trend of museums dedicated to highly individualised topics.
This time, the Donora Smog Museum. A museum in Pennsylvania dedicated to the smog in 1948 that killed 20 people and initiated clean-air movements that lead to the Clean Air Act.
Here’s Dr. Devra Davis of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute giving the speech on the museum’s opening.
I like this. This museum is clearly niche; a single event in one town. But just as this event had much wider effects, this museum is looking at the wider issues such as international environmentalism. Too think, without this it would just be a series of historical evidence, rather like a book. The museum takes this individual topic is gives much greater context and, therefore, meaning.
