Bruce MacDonaldSmoglandia is a four-part series on L.A.’s historic battle with smog.
"It took a lot to bestir Angelenos from their bungalows and Buicks, but their throats felt like sandpaper, and their chests hurt like the blazes. L.A.’s sense of outrage was aroused. In the especially nasty autumn of 1954, women in June Cleaver dresses and gas masks protested outside the Pasadena Civic Auditorium. Three-year-old Agatha Acker, in a cute gingham outfit and gas mask, brought along her doll, Betty Lou, also tricked out in a pretty dress, and a gas mask."
