Artifact Details

Title

Cleanrooms and Dirty Water : The Environmental Legacy of Silicon Valley

Catalog Number

102738189

Type

Moving image

Description

Silicon Valley, the world’s most dynamic center of digital innovation, has more Superfund sites than any other region in the United States. In this talk, Christophe Lécuyer, professor of the history of science and technology at the Université Pierre et Marie Curie-Paris, reconstructs the chemical handling and disposal practices of semiconductor firms that caused this environmental debacle and were the source of high illness rates among Silicon Valley workers.

Lecuyer also investigates the controversies that brought the region’s health and water contamination crises to light in the late 1970s and first half of the 1980s. These controversies were initiated by radical labor activists interested in unionizing Silicon Valley. In order to mobilize workers and build community support for the organizing of the semiconductor industry, they attacked corporate negligence regarding employee safety and health and the storage of toxic chemicals. Their campaign led to a revolution in safety in Silicon Valley and large-scale environmental remediation efforts supervised by the Federal government.

Date

2016-08-17

Participants

Lécuyer, Christophe [Lecuyer, Christophe], speaker

Publisher

Computer History Museum

Place of Publication

Mountain View, CA

Duration

01:12:44

Format

MOV

Category

Lecture

Series Title

CHM Live

Credit

Computer History Museum

Lot Number

X7937.2017