Paris Sewers and Sewermen: Realities and Representations

The expansion of the Paris sewer system during the Second Empire and Third Republic was both a technological and a political triumph. The sewers themselves were an important cultural phenomenon, and the men who worked in them a source of fascination. Donald Reid shows that observing how such labourers as cesspool cleaners and sewermen present themselves and are represented by others is a way to reflect on the material and cultural foundations of everyday life. The author has been awarded the Dexter Prize of the Society for the History of Technology, and has also been accorded an Honourable Mention by the 1992 Abel Wolman Award Committee of the Public Works Historical Society.