Disappointment about a poetic conspiracy probably not being the case aside, I really have to wonder about the 公害の概念史 or the like. There were Meiji-era suits about mucking around with water supplies, but admittedly that's not necessarily 公害--although it is "pollution" by some definitions. (Of course, 穢 is "ritual pollution" in religious studies, and you certainly did have contagion theory.) Maybe there's something on 煙突 in imagery out there--there's stuff on the electric light in hanga, after all.

I should probably start with Strong on Tanaka Shozo and what I can find on Minamata, and go from there.

When I read the "not really a concept of 'pollution'" thing I immediately thought of the Ashio Copper Mine case, but I guess like MMS says that's 水質汚染 and might not be considered 公害, and of course Meiji rather than postwar.

googling to check brought me to this, which suggests that "before the Ashio copper-mine problem became a celebrated case, the problem [of pollution] was understood only in terms of its ecological consequences, that is, the deleterious effects on farming and fishing." Air quality's effect on human life seems to have only become an issue after the Miike coal-mine explosion (focus on an individual incident rather than gradual long-term damage) and thereafter the Yokkaichi asthma case, which was... mid-sixties?

I remember seeing an archived old NHK reportage from the 70's or 80's on 川崎公害病 (kawasaki-kougai-byou) and how the citizens were mounting a stand against the industrialists and their kombinats. This and 水俣病 (minamata-byou) were landmark cases in terms of class-action litigation.

I'm guessing that before this time, there were issues of people polluting each other's spaces--heck, it is almost a running gag in Kurosawa's 'Ikiru'--but perhaps it wasn't as easy for the average citizen to get litigious, and thus it was easier for the polluting party to dismiss their case.

Japan has come a long way.

I am too lazy to research and see if this sentiment was widespread in Japan in those times, but in the West, belching smokestacks were often seen as a sign of vigorous economic activity, smoke equalled prosperity. I suspect this was the intent of the card.
Looking at it from a more modern deconstructivist point of view, the content is clear. This is an image of two smokestacks, Fujisan is dormant not belching smoke, but the man-made stack is erupting. This is a symbol of man's domination over nature, a symbol of human industry. Fujisan as a symbol of Japan itself, has been superseded by a symbol of Japanese industry.

What's that horrible, choking smell, daddy?

That's industry, m'boy!

Yeah, I'd vaguely heard of the whole "in the bad old days, people thought diesel fumes and factory smoke was a good symbol" thing, but I guess I just didn't realize how seriously it was taken -- that is, seriously enough to be combined with ancient natural beauty like this.

Are there any non-critical works of art (or postcards...) from the European Industrial Revolution showing factories coughing up black clouds over placid lakes and the like?

My own points of reference are the good parts of Dogs and Demons and the writings of economist Yukio Noguchi.

It's not that Japan of the 50s was alone in tragicomically failing to recognize what we know in hindsight (there is a reason those American educational films from the 50s are parodied to the point of cliche). I see this particular relic of history as just a part of the postwar history of relentlessly promoted economic development, at a time when for one reason or another the population's mindset allowed this kind of thing to be produced (of course I am just taking its legitimacy for granted).

I would say that the difference between Shozo Tanaka's action against farm pollution and the 1970 "kougai gannen" declaration is 1) the popular memory of Tanaka was lost since he operated more than a century ago and more importantly in the foggy pre-war era; and 2) the presence of the media to set the national tone. There were newspapers in the Meiji era but literacy rates were much lower back then plus there was no TV. In 1970 the media infrastructure in Japan we have today was already in place, along with the full force of their power to set the tone. Especially recently, Showa retrospectives have been very common, giving the media a chance to define living memory as a series of big headlines and consumer fads.

It's hard to find European or North American Industrial Revolution postcards of the same sort, because at that time they tended to be either soft-focus black & white photographs or artistic renderings. While it doesn't have the composition or background of your Fuji card, I was struck by this postcard. (Pueblo is now probably most famous for being the home of the US government's Federal Citizen Information Center, which distributes informational pamphlets. Its lasting prosperity apparently came in a different way.)

That stuff is still taken seriously even today. I live near an agricultural factory town full of "smokestack industry." They manufacture cereal and ethanol, the town just reeks of steamed grains from the five factories belching steam into the air. Sometimes in the winter the steam hangs low like fog and it's so dense they have to close the highways past the plants, the air is positively opaque.

The city's official slogan is "The City of Five Seasons" but the locals proudly call it "The City of Five Smells." They love the stench, I've heard more than one blue collar resident say, "It smells like money!"

Wow. I guess you can get used to anything. I do remember reading a story in the Atlantic or something about how living downwind of a modern industrial pig concern was a living hell, so there must be a line somewhere.

Brian, thanks for that. That is certainly a striking image to promote your city with. I like how up above it's hard to tell whether it's black smoke against a white sky or vice versa.

<i>the good parts of Dogs and Demons</i>

Must resist cheap shot...

It is a nice postcard. Sorry, I like it. And since we're discussing this as if it is an artifact from the past, here is a modern photo you can buy for US$40 from the Star Ledger, categorized under "Scenic NJ".
http://www.nj.com/starledger/photostore/scenicnj/19.ssf

Well, yeah, man, but that's Jersey.

No, I like it too (the Fuji one), to be honest. The colors and composition are very striking. I just hadn't ever seen anything in the old-postcard racks like it before.

That said, do you want to buy it?