From the age of Thomas Jefferson to the Memphis Public Workers strike of 1968 through the present day, ideas about race-- whites are "clean" and non-whites are "dirty"-- have shaped where people have lived, where people have worked, and how American society's wastes have been managed. Zimring draws on historical evidence from statesmen, scholars, sanitarians, novelists, activists, advertisements, and the United States Census of Population to reveal changing constructions of environmental racism, focusing on constructions of race and hygiene. The bigoted idea that non-whites are "dirty" remains deeply ingrained in the national psyche, continuing to shape social and environmental inequalities.

Introduction:The biopolitics of waste -- pt. I. Antebellum roots : Thomas Jefferson's ideal ; The decay of the old -- pt. II. New constructions : Searching for order ; "How do you make them so clean and white?" -- pt. III. Material consequences : Dirty work, dirty workers ; Waste and space reordered -- pt. IV. Assimilation and resistance : Out of waste into whiteness ; "We are tired of being at the bottom" -- Conclusion: A dirty history.