Joel A. Tarr

Joel A. Tarr (born 1934) is an American historian and a University Professor Emeritus in the at Carnegie Mellon University. A History Department member since 1967, in 1990 he became the Richard S. Caliguiri University Professor of Urban and Environmental History and Policy, a position he still holds as Professor Emeritus. His research includes environmental and urban development and systems and their effects.

Tarr was born and raised in Jersey City, New Jersey. He received both a bachelor's and master's degree from Rutgers University, and continued on to receive his Ph.D. from Northwestern University in 1963.

Tarr co-authored a book in 2007 with Clay McShane titled, Horse in the City: Living Machines in the Nineteenth Century. In 1989, Tarr received the Abel Wolman award from the American Public Works Association for his book titled Technology and the Networked City in Europe and America (co-edited with Gabriel DuPuy).

Selected works

Books

DuPuy, Gabriel, and Joel A. Tarr (editors). Technology and the Rise of the Networked City in Europe and America. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988. McShane, Clay, and Joel A. Tarr. The Horse in the City: Living Machines in the Nineteenth Century. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007. Muller, Edward K., and Joel A. Tarr. Making Industrial Pittsburgh Modern: Environment, Landscape, Transportation, Energy, and Planning. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2019. Tarr, Joel A. (editor). Devastation and Renewal: An Environmental History of Pittsburgh and Its Region. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2004. Tarr, Joel A. Transportation Innovation and Changing Spatial Patterns in Pittsburgh, 1850-1934. Chicago: Public Works Historical Society, 1978. Tarr, Joel A. The Search for the Ultimate Sink: Urban Pollution in Historical Perspective. Akron: University of Akron Press, 1996. Tarr, Joel A. A Study in Boss Politics: William Lorimer of Chicago. University of Illinois Press, 1971.

Articles Nicholas Muller and Joel A. Tarr, “The McKeesport Natural Gas Boom, 1919-1921,” Journal of Energy History (September 22, 2020). . Tarr, Joel A., and Karen Clay. "Boom and Bust in Pittsburgh Natural Gas History: Development, Policy, and Environmental Effects, 1878–1920." Pennsylvania Magazine of History & Biography, (October, 2015). Tarr, Joel A., and David Stradling. “Cities and the Mobility of Nature: Landslide Hazards in Cincinnati and Pittsburgh.” Environmental History 29, no. 1 (January 1, 2024): 118–49. . Tarr, Joel A. “Illuminating the Streets, Alleys, Parks and Suburbs of the American City: Non-Networked Technologies, 1870-1920.” History and Technology 36, no. 1 (January 2, 2020): 105–28. . Tarr, Joel A. "Industrial Waste Disposal in the United States as a Historical Problem,” Ambix: The Journal of the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry 49 (Mar. 2002), 4-20. Tarr, Joel A. “The Metabolism of the Industrial City: The Case of Pittsburgh,” Journal of Urban History 28 (July 2002), 511-545. Tarr, Joel A. “Toxic Legacy: The Environmental Impact of the Manufactured Gas Industry in the United States.” Technology and Culture 55, no. 1 (2014): 107–47. .