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."

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Source: http://www.suntimes.com