Giuseppe Giacosa was a playwright who turned to writing opera librettos, penning three Puccini classics — La Boheme, Madam Butterfly and Tosca — before he died at age 49. He also traveled and wrote a book, "Impressioni d'America," visiting Chicago just before the World's Columbian Exhibition . He was taken, as all visitors were, by the industry, "enormous factories, interminable streets, amazing shops, deafening sounds."
And by the smoke.
"I did not see in Chicago anything but darkness: smoke, clouds, dirt," he wrote, noticing something unusual for sale, "in many shop windows certain apparatus for covering the nose, a kind of nasal protector, or false nostrils."
Source: http://www.suntimes.com
