Raybestos-Manhattan Letters on Hiring Otto L. Binder to Take Dust Counts (1934)

Three pages of Raybestos-Manhattan correspondence from June 1934. In a letter of June 7, 1934 (two copies), M. F. Judd, R-M's general manager, sent W. H. Dunn of the Manhattan Rubber Manufacturing Division in Passaic, New Jersey, a letter from Vandiver Brown of Johns-Manville about Otto L. Binder, with invoices for one-half of Binder's salary and expenses, to be borne by R-M's General Office: "Mr. Binder is the man who has been hired to take dust counts." In a letter to Brown dated June 9 (typed "May 9" and corrected by hand), Judd was pleased J-M had found Binder, "whom you intend to employ in the capacity of taking Dust counts at yours and our Plant," and asked what X-ray machine J-M had put in and what it had cost.

What it shows

By mid-1934 the two companies were sharing the cost of one man to take dust counts at both companies' plants, with J-M employing him. Judd's question shows R-M deciding whether to buy its own X-ray machine "or have the Negatives and readings made by local talent." In October S. A. Williams told the Gretna plant that "Mr. Binder is going to be continuously checking our various Plants" (Gretna survey memos).

In Johns-Manville's chronology

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

M.F. Judd writes V. Brown on 6/9/34 re Binder (Metropolitan hygienist) hired first by R-M and J-M jointly, then by J-M alone to perform dust studies.

Editor's note: J-M's description calls Binder a Metropolitan hygienist who was hired first by R-M and J-M jointly and then by J-M alone. The letters do not say Binder came from Metropolitan Life, and they show only the shared arrangement.