S. A. Williams Memos on Metropolitan Life's Survey of the Gretna Plant (1934)

Three pages of J-M correspondence from October 1934. On October 13, S. A. Williams, J-M vice president, told J. P. Kottcamp, manager of the Waukegan factory, that a recent survey of the Gretna, Louisiana, plant by the Industrial Health Section of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company had found "a rather heavy dust count at the shingle mixers" and recommended improvement, and asked him to send Gretna the blueprints of Waukegan's mixer dust collecting equipment, which Williams had seen doing "a most excellent job." Gretna's superintendent, R. B. Murphy, got a quotation of $107 to equip three machines (only one was then running), and on October 27 Williams told him to go ahead.

What it shows

Williams added that "Mr. Binder is going to be continuously checking our various Plants" and would visit Gretna again. Otto L. Binder was the man J-M and Raybestos-Manhattan had hired that year to take dust counts (letters on Binder).

In Johns-Manville's chronology

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

On 10/13/34, Metropolitan Life conducts an industrial hygiene survey at the Gretna plant. The survey shows heavy dust counts at the shingle machine mixers (asbestos and cement). Approval is given by S.A. Williams to improve the dust collection system there, and he suggests that it be modeled after a successful system at Waukegan.

Editor's note: J-M's description says Metropolitan Life made the survey on October 13, 1934. That is the date of Williams's memo, which refers to a "recent" survey.