Robert M. Brown of the South Carolina State Board of Health, Dust Study of the Mule Spinning Department at North Charleston (1938)

A covering letter of April 15, 1938, from Robert M. Brown, chemical engineer in the industrial hygiene division of the State Board of Health of South Carolina, to E. H. Jeffords, general manager of the General Asbestos & Rubber plant of Raybestos-Manhattan at North Charleston, with Brown's four-page report of a dust study made at the plant's request in the mule spinning department during the week of April 4, 1938. Counts there averaged about 0.85 to 1.17 million particles per cubic foot of air, including a test with all dust control on the same floor shut off to "represent those in the plant in 1930." Brown concluded that the dust was "far below that minimum necessary to cause asbestosis in the workers" and that exhaust ventilation in the department "is in no wise indicated." In the letter he called the results "quite gratifying."

What it shows

The mule spinning room was the only department in the plant without exhaust ventilation. The company asked the state health board, working with the U.S. Public Health Service, to recheck it against the January and February 1937 survey, and to reconstruct conditions as they had been in 1930 to see whether dust from the twisting and winding machines raised the counts. The report does not say why 1930 conditions mattered. Jeffords sent a copy to Sumner Simpson marked "Confidential" (his April 18 letter).

In Johns-Manville's index

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

03414. Transmittal letter for report of dust study made in spinning department during week of 4/4/38. Informs the results are "quite gratifying".

03415-03418. "Report of Dust Study Made in Mule Spinning Department of General Asbestos and Rubber Co., North Charleston, S.C." Study made to determine levels of asbestos dust which workers were exposed to. Gives details of mule spinning operations and equipment. Concludes: dust concentrations in this department are far below minimum necessary to cause asbestosis and that there is not a need for exhaust ventilation equipment in this department.

Related documents

• E. H. Jeffords to Robert M. Brown Thanking Him for the Mule Spinning Dust Study (1938)
• E. H. Jeffords to Sumner Simpson Enclosing the Mule Spinning Dust Study (1938)
• 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 the Public Health Service Dust Survey at North Charleston (1937)

About this copy

These are documents 03414, 03415-03418 of the Sumner Simpson Papers, as numbered in the collection's index.