  This paper aims to assess the effects of industrial pollution on infant
mortality between the years 1850-1940 using full count decennial censuses. In
this period, US economy experienced a tremendous rise in industrial activity
with significant variation among different counties in absorbing manufacturing
industries. Since manufacturing industries are shown to be the main source of
pollution, we use the share of employment at the county level in this industry
to proxy for space-time variation in industrial pollution. Since male embryos
are more vulnerable to external stressors like pollution during prenatal
development, they will face higher likelihood of fetal death. Therefore, we
proxy infant mortality with different measures of gender ratio. We show that
the upswing in industrial pollution during late nineteenth century and early
twentieth century has led to an increase in infant mortality. The results are
consistent and robust across different scenarios, measures for our proxies, and
aggregation levels. We find that infants and more specifically male infants had
paid the price of pollution during upswing in industrial growth at the dawn of
the 20th century. Contemporary datasets are used to verify the validity of the
proxies. Some policy implications are discussed.
