Thick dark smoke billowing out of smokestacks several stories high proliferated across city skylines, heralding America's rise to world prominence and industrial supremacy.  After the Civil War, Americans embraced the smog and dirt of rapidly rising cities as a sign that America was fulfilling its destiny as a world power. Eager immigrants withstood the dangerous trip across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Traveling in crowded ships, they left all they knew behind them in the hope that America...