Scientist Alice Hamilton’s investigations into toxins in Chicago’s factories led to some of the first workplace safety laws in the country. She was known for her “shoe leather” epidemiology, wearing out the soles of her shoes from all the trips she made to Chicago homes, factories and even saloons to figure out what was making people sick.
How should we decide what happens to our bodies when we die? And what implications does that decision have for the living?
It’s common to think a burial at a cemetery is the final resting place for a loved one. But as we heard in our last episode, sometimes the need to progress as a society is in direct conflict with the desire to honor the dead.
Today, we talk to one of the leaders of the Green Burial Council, funeral director Samuel Perry. His organization advocates and sets standards for “natural” burials, which he calls “the full body burial of the person directly in the ground with only biodegradable materials.”
We talk about the practicality of natural burial in Chicago and the very personal and spiritual decisions that add complexity to this corner of the death care industry.
Chicago — like so many other frigid American cities — can’t seem to kick its dependence on road salt. Last episode, we talked about why chloride from salt is harmful to both our natural and built environments. So we spent some time looking around for a cold-weather community that avoids using it altogether.
And we found one! A little community way up north: Have you ever taken a ferry — or a plane — to Mackinac Island?
Today, we hear from Dominick Miller, chief of marketing at the Mackinac State Historic Parks, about how the island deals with snow and ice in the winter without laying down a single grain of salt. And it has a lot to do with the fact that cars have been banned on Mackinac Island for over a century.
Road salt helps us get around safely during snowy, Chicago winters. But salt is corrosive and harmful for the environment. Could the city ever go without road salt?
The Chicago area played a key role in Black aviation in the early 1900s. The founders of the first Black-owned airport learned to fly in Chicago and went on to teach thousands of others.
When Illinois legalized recreational use of marijuana five years ago, it came with a goal to right the wrongs of the war on drugs. “We’re addressing the past harms of discriminatory prosecution of drug laws,” Governor J.B. Pritzker said at the time. Many low level cannabis charges would automatically be expunged and legal aid would be made available.
Last episode, we looked at two areas where the state spent the largest share of its $500 million in marijuana sales tax revenue: the state budget and R3 funding, a program to invest in communities that have been harmed by violence, excessive incarceration and economic disinvestment.
Some of that sales tax revenue also goes toward social programs, like legal aid for cannabis record expungement. Today, we’re looking at how well Illinois’ expungement program is working. Advocates and people getting their records expunged tell us that “automatic” doesn’t apply to everything and the process itself is “too complicated.”
The state has made about $500 million in marijuana tax revenue since the state legalized recreational use. Social programs have benefited from those funds, but experts say it won’t last forever.
What does it take to get a wrongful conviction overturned?
Quite a lot, according to investigative reporter Alison Flowers, who says proving innocence is much more difficult than proving guilt. She has investigated the cases of many wrongfully convicted individuals, including that of Chicagoan Robert Johnson.
In our last episode, Invisible Institute reporter Erisa Apantaku explained how Johnson has spent nearly 30 years in prison for a murder almost everyone knows he did not commit.
What’s clear is that a lot must go right to overturn a wrongful conviction (and even more so before the exonerated can try to earn compensation from the state). Flowers explains what a wrongfully convicted person needs — “the three-legged stool of wrongful convictions” — an advocate on the outside, an attorney in your corner and media attention.
