O. H. Cilley to Sumner Simpson Enclosing the Pennsylvania Survey of the Manheim Textile Mill (1944)

A one-page letter of November 24, 1944, from O. H. Cilley of the United States Asbestos Division of Raybestos-Manhattan at Manheim, Pennsylvania, to Sumner Simpson, the company's president, enclosing a report of November 20 by the Pennsylvania Department of Health's Bureau of Industrial Hygiene on its November survey of dust in the textile mill. Only two points were over 5,000,000 dust particles per cubic foot (the Johnson grader at 5.2 million and a Foster winder at 5.5 million), and Cilley described the work under way to bring them below 4,000,000. The enclosed four-page report, made at the request of the War Production Board, gives impinger counts at 35 places, judges the hazard "entirely negative" against the Public Health Service's limit of 5 million particles, and makes no recommendations.

What it shows

The state's engineers compared their counts with the limit of 5 million particles per cubic foot suggested by the U.S. Public Health Service (see Threshold Limit Value (TLV)) and found the mill within it. The report also said plainly that the company "is well aware of the hazardous nature of the dust and has taken remarkable measures for the correction of dusty operations," the passage Cilley called "the most important point." Cilley had first reported the survey's findings to Simpson on November 16 (his earlier letter), and Simpson sent this letter on to the North Charleston plant, which returned it in December.

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 from Department of Health, Bureau of Industrial Hygiene, Commonwealth of Penn. Report states only 2 points in plant have dust levels in excess of 5 mppcf. Measures are under way to reduce these levels to 4 mppcf. Report finds "this Company is well aware of the hazardous nature of the dust and has taken remarkable measures for the correction of dusty operations."

Related documents

• O. H. Cilley to Sumner Simpson on the Pennsylvania Dust Survey at Manheim (1944)
• Sumner Simpson to O. H. Cilley Acknowledging His Letter on the Pennsylvania Dust Analysis (1944)
• A. F. Heinsohn to Sumner Simpson Returning Cilley's Letter and Proposing Another Dust Check (1944)

About this copy

This is document 05571-05575 of the Sumner Simpson Papers, as numbered in the collection's index.