Martin V. Melosi

Martin Victor Melosi (born 1947) is Hugh Roy and Lillie Cranz Cullen University Professor and the director of the Center for Public History at the University of Houston in Houston, Texas. His research specialty is environmental and urban history. Prior to his tenure at the University of Houston, Melosi was a member of the history faculty of Texas A&M University in College Station.

Background

A native of San Jose, California, Melosi holds Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees from the University of Montana at Missoula, Montana. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin.

In addition to environmental and urban history, Melosi also specializes in recent United States and diplomatic history. He teaches courses entitled "Environmental Politics in the United States," "The History of the American City," "The City, Technology, and the Environment," "Energy and Environment in Industrial Ameria," "Atomic Age America," Historiography, "Readings in Public History," and "Research in Public History".

From 2000-2001, Melosi held the Fulbright Scholarship Chair in American Studies at the University of Southern Denmark in Odense, Denmark. He has been a visiting faculty professor at the University of Paris, University of Helsinki, Peking University, and Shanghai University. In 2005, Melosi received the Ester Farfel Award at the University of Houston in recognition of career achievement. He has been president of the American Society for Environmental History, The Public Works Historical Society, and the National Council on Public History. He also recently has served as president of the Urban History Association.

Research

Melosi has researched pollution problems and energy sources and how they have impacted urban growth and development. He is a lecturer for the Organization of American Historians.

His book The Sanitary City (2000, re-released in 2008 in abridged form) examines the development of water supply, wastewater, and solid waste systems in the United States since colonial times. He is working on a companion volume, The Networked City, which will examine energy, transportation, and communication systems in the United States. In recent years, Melosi has devoted greater attention to global environmental issues in Europe, Canada, and Mexico.

Other publications

In 1977, Melosi completed The Shadow of Pearl Harbor: Political Controversy of the Surprise Attack, 1941-1946, through Texas A&M University Press. The central focus of this book is partisanship during the war years which delayed disclosure of the details of the attack on Pearl Harbor on the military base in Hawaii.

Melosi authored the article "The Automobile and the Environment in American History," listed on the Internet under "The Automobile in American Life and Society". Melosi examines the vehicle process from the factory to the junkyard, noting that while essential to the economy, cars also "consume resources; pollute the air, land, and water; and transform space."

Melosi has also written the following:

• Coping with Abundance: Energy and Environment in Industrial America
• Thomas A. Edison and the Modernization of America
• Effluent America: Cities, Industry, Energy, and the Environment
• Urban Public Policy: Historical Modes and Methods
• Garbage in the Cities: Refuse, Reform and the Environment, 1880-1980
• Pollution and Reform in American Cities, 1870-1930

Melosi resides in Houston with his wife, the former Carolyn Ronchetto (born 1949). They have two daughters, Gina M. Melosi (born 1976) and Adria M. Melosi McDonald (born 1980).