E. H. Jeffords to Sumner Simpson on the State Health Board's Second Dust Study at North Charleston (1937)

A two-page letter of November 12, 1937, from E. H. Jeffords, general manager of Raybestos-Manhattan's General Asbestos & Rubber Division at North Charleston, South Carolina, to Sumner Simpson, the company's president, with copies to Col. A. F. Townsend and Julian Mitchell. Jeffords recalled that in June he had shown Simpson the U.S. Public Health Service and South Carolina State Board of Health study, which found the plant's dust control "very effecient" and led the officials to treat it as "the Model Plant of these United States." Now that the equipment in the twisting and cop winding departments was finished, a state engineer had studied those departments and the ring spinning department in the first week of November. Jeffords enclosed the report of Robert M. Brown, the Board's chemical engineer, and wrote that "we are still occupying an enviable position as far as dust control is concerned."

What it shows

The letter shows the North Charleston plant inviting a second government dust study once its new equipment was in, and passing the favorable result straight to the company's president and its lawyer, Julian Mitchell. The earlier study had been sent to Simpson with Jeffords's letter of May 26, 1937; Brown's covering letter for the new report is November 10, 1937. Simpson's answer of November 19 drew from the reports that the plant was "way below any possibility of asbestosis."

In Johns-Manville's index

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

Transmittal letter for "Report of Dust Study in One Department of General Asbestos & Rubber Co. Plant at North Chas., S.C." Study performed by the S.C. State Board of Health. Gives brief history of USPHS and S.C. State Board of Health's interest in the Plant. Informs that report is very favorable.

Related documents

• Robert M. Brown of the South Carolina State Board of Health to E. H. Jeffords on a Dust Study of the Twisting Department (1937)
• E. H. Jeffords to Sumner Simpson on Cutting Statements from the Public Health Service Dust Study (1937)
• A. F. Townsend to Sumner Simpson Acknowledging the Charleston Dust Control Report (1937)
• Sumner Simpson to E. H. Jeffords on Being Below Any Possibility of Asbestosis (1937)
• E. H. Jeffords to Sumner Simpson on the Card Room Dust Report (1937)

About this copy

This is document 03375-03380 of the Sumner Simpson Papers, as numbered in the collection's index.