Donora Death Fog: Clean Air and the Tragedy of a Pennsylvania Mill Town

Longlist, 2025 WCoNA Book of the Year

With a foreword by Jennifer Richmond-Bryant

In October 1948, a seemingly average fog descended on the tiny mill town of Donora, Pennsylvania. With a population of fewer than fifteen thousand, the town’s main industry was steel and zinc mills—mills that continually emitted pollutants into the air. The six-day smog event left twenty-one people dead and thousands sick. Even after the fog lifted, hundreds more died or were left with lingering health problems...