The asbestos industry's own papers, the medical research, the court decisions and the products, in one place. Read what the companies made, sold and knew, in their own memos, minutes, magazines and catalogs. Read the documents asbestos lawsuits brought to light, and the studies and rulings that followed.
Every person and company named in the documents has a page that lists every document they appear in, so you can follow one executive, doctor or supplier across collections. Every document has a permanent ACL Doc number, and you can search all of it, including the full text of the scanned pages.
- 5,373 library documents
- 5,577 litigation documents
- 12,881 medical studies
- 3,442 court decisions
- 3,229 asbestos products
- 351 product plants
- 559 asbestos mines
Start here
- What the industry knew
The history of asbestos and disease, decade by decade, told through Johns-Manville's and its partners' own papers, with the documents to read.
- Find an asbestos product
Look up a product by maker or brand name: when it was made, how much asbestos it held, and the trust that pays claims.
3,229 products - The industry's own films
Johns-Manville's films from the 1940s to the 1970s and the British industry's television advertisements, with our notes.
19 films
In the companies' own words
Letters, memos, minutes, magazines and sales material the asbestos companies and their trade groups wrote for themselves, many of them brought to light in asbestos lawsuits.
- Company and court documents
Letters, memos and meeting minutes, from Johns-Manville's files to the Sumner Simpson Papers, and the court papers that brought them to light.
1,850 documents - Union Carbide documents
Memos, letters, sales call reports, price lists and test reports on Calidria, the chrysotile asbestos Union Carbide mined at King City and Coalinga, California, from the early 1960s. Lawyers for asbestos victims gathered them for trial, and they show what the company sold, to whom, and what it knew.
5,238 documents - Asbestos Information Association documents
Minutes, bulletins, press releases and testimony of the industry's trade association, formed in 1970.
118 documents - Asbestos Textile Institute documents
Minutes, committee reports and dust studies of the textile makers' trade association, 1940s to 1970s.
221 documents - Industrial Hygiene Digest
The industry health foundation's monthly abstracts of the medical and legal literature on occupational disease, sent to its member companies, Johns-Manville, Flintkote and Owens-Corning among them. What the science said about asbestos, as the industry was told it: 12 issues, 1939 to 1968.
- Industry magazines
1,071 issues of six magazines: Asbestos, the trade monthly from 1919 to 1981, Johns-Manville's two employee magazines, Turner Brothers' Asbestos, The Asbestos Worker, and the Industrial Hygiene Digest.
- Trade catalogs and brochures
What the manufacturers sold, by name, in their own catalogs and product guides.
173 catalogs - Advertisements
Asbestos products as the companies presented them to buyers.
84 advertisements
Products, plants and mines
Where asbestos came from, where it was made into products, and what those products were, each from the documents.
- Asbestos product directory
Every asbestos product in our documents, by company and by kind, with the years made and asbestos content.
3,229 products - Product pictures
Labels, bags, product photographs and catalog pages, by kind of product.
724 pictures - Product plants by state
Factories that made asbestos products, by state and city: who ran each plant, when, and what it made.
351 plants - Asbestos mines
Mines and quarries in the United States and worldwide: who ran each, the years it worked, its fiber and output.
559 mines - Patents
United States patents for asbestos products and processes, linked to the companies that held them.
2,242 patents - Artifacts
Asbestos products, labels, minerals and promotional pieces from our own collection, photographed by us.
94 items
Medicine, government and the courts
- Medical research
Published studies on asbestos and asbestos disease, by journal and type of article, with abstracts and links to PubMed.
12,881 studies - Government reports
Reports from the Bureau of Mines, the Public Health Service, NIOSH, the EPA and agencies abroad, by agency.
89 reports - Laws and regulations
Federal Register notices, OSHA and EPA rules, and other government regulation of asbestos, as published.
22 documents - Case law
Asbestos court decisions with plain-English summaries and full opinions, by state, court and issue.
3,442 decisions
Find your way
Follow one person, company or term across every collection.
- People
Executives, doctors, scientists, lawyers and officials, each with every document they appear in.
1,811 people - Companies and organizations
Companies, trade associations, agencies and laboratories, each with every document it appears in.
2,380 organizations - Lexicon
Plain-English definitions of asbestos terms, from the diseases and the law to the minerals, products and lab methods.
1,661 terms - Timeline
Asbestos and disease year by year, linked to the documents.
- Reading Castleman
A reader's guide to the notes in Barry Castleman's history of asbestos, linked to our documents.
Books, articles and videos
- Books
Books about asbestos from the 1600s onward, from early accounts of the mineral to the industry handbooks.
40 books - Articles
Journal and magazine articles about asbestos, its geology and its industry.
66 articles - Reviews
Our commentary on books and articles about asbestos, with links to where you can read them.
- Our videos
Videos from our YouTube channel on mesothelioma, claims, jobs and exposure, and asbestos history.
322 videos
About the library
- About the Library
How to cite our documents, what we leave out to protect privacy, and how to ask us to correct or remove something.
- WARD
How we build this free public library with our own tools and AI models, checked by a lawyer, and how you can help.
“I started this firm after learning that the cancers that killed my father and grandparents were caused by asbestos, something we did not realize until it was too late to hold anyone accountable. That experience is why we built this site: so that no other family misses their chance to ask the questions, hear the options, and decide for themselves what to do.”
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Start with what you remember, and we'll take it from there.
This page is provided for general informational purposes and does not constitute legal advice. Every asbestos case turns on its own facts, exposure history, diagnosis, deadlines, available evidence, and applicable law. Reviewing this page does not create an attorney-client relationship. For advice about your specific situation, call 833-4-ASBESTOS for a free case review.