Minutes of the Organization Meeting of the Asbestos Textile Institute (1944)

Six pages of minutes of the organization meeting of the Asbestos Textile Institute, held at the University Club in New York on November 16, 1944, and kept by Arthur L. Fisk, Jr., Johns-Manville's attorney, as acting secretary. Representatives of eleven asbestos textile makers attended, including Johns-Manville, Raybestos-Manhattan, Keasbey & Mattison, Union Asbestos & Rubber, and Thomas Gatke's Asbestos Textile Company. The members adopted a constitution and by-laws, elected a board of governors and officers (C. H. Carlough of Carolina Asbestos as president), fixed an initial budget of $20,000, and set assessments by each member's production of roving, laps and wick.

What it shows

The minutes are organizational and do not discuss dust or disease. They are important for who was in the room: most of the companies that had paid for Gardner's asbestos experiments at the Saranac Laboratory since 1936 now formed a trade association of their own. In the years that followed, the Institute became a channel for the industry's dust and health work (see its 1947 dust investigation and Dr. Vestal's health program).

In Johns-Manville's chronology

Johns-Manville's own chronology of what the company knew describes this document as follows:

Asbestos Textile Institute formed 11/16/44. Includes sponsors of already ongoing Saranac research.