ABSTRACT
O n the morning of March 15, 1907, the citizens of Lewiston, Maine, awoke to find immense banks of foam billowing out of the mill canals and drifting through their streets. The surging 20-foot drifts delighted the city's children, who tossed the creamy substance into the air and watched it blow away. Older residents turned their thoughts to the huge textile and pulp mills on the river and wondered about the safety of their drinking water. Over the next three decades, these mills dumped approximately 100 million gallons of organic and inorganic waste into the Androscoggin River each day, and the resulting caustic, foul-smelling hydrogen sulphide fumes blackened house paint and afflicted hundreds of valley residents with irritated eyes, sore throats, and nausea. In 1941 the former children of 1907, now disgusted rather than intrigued by the unnatural conditions of the city's most prominent natural feature, gathered in “indignation meetings” and prepared to challenge the industrial powers that made their river a stinking hell. 1
