Dr. R. R. Sayers of the Public Health Service to E. H. Jeffords on Publishing the North Charleston Dust Study (1937)

A one-page copy of a letter of May 20, 1937, from Dr. R. R. Sayers, senior surgeon and chief of the Division of Industrial Hygiene at the U.S. Public Health Service's National Institute of Health, to E. H. Jeffords, general manager of Raybestos-Manhattan's General Asbestos and Rubber plant at North Charleston, South Carolina. Sayers enclosed a paper on the study made at the plant earlier that year, which he called "an excellent example of what may be accomplished by the application of scientific methods of dust control," and said the Service wished to publish it in Public Health Reports. He asked for Jeffords's comments, noted that "there is no way of identifying the plant nor the locality," and asked whether the company would agree to an acknowledgment of its help and that of the South Carolina State Department of Health, "since you may not deem it desirable to identify your plant."

What it shows

The Public Health Service had surveyed the North Charleston plant early in 1937, after Raybestos-Manhattan agreed to the study in the fall of 1936 (Dr. Lanza's assurance that the plant would not be named; Jeffords to Simpson, January 8, 1937). Sayers's letter put the decision on publication and on naming the company in the company's hands. Jeffords sent it to Sumner Simpson with a list of passages he wanted cut (Jeffords to Simpson, May 26, 1937).

In Johns-Manville's index

Johns-Manville's attorneys indexed the Sumner Simpson Papers. Their index describes this document as follows:

Transmittal for paper containing results of study conducted at Charleston plant in April 1937 "A Study of Dust Control Methods in an Asbestos Fabricating Plant." Requests permission to publish the paper in the Public Health Journal. Also requests permission to include acknowledgement to S.C. State Department of Health and R-M in paper.

Related documents

• E. H. Jeffords to Sumner Simpson on Cutting Statements from the Public Health Service Dust Study (1937)
• E. H. Jeffords to Sumner Simpson on the Public Health Service Dust Survey at North Charleston (1937)
• Dr. A. J. Lanza to Julian Mitchell on the Public Health Service Survey of the Charleston Plant (1936)

About this copy

This is document 03251 of the Sumner Simpson Papers, as numbered in the collection's index.