Industrial Hygiene Foundation Letter Sending New Jersey's Tentative Dust and Fume Limits, with Sumner Simpson's Note to O. H. Cilley (1946)

A note "From the desk of Sumner Simpson," dated February 19, 1946, asking O. H. Cilley of Raybestos-Manhattan to "please read and return," with a copy of a letter of the same date from John F. McMahon, managing director of the Industrial Hygiene Foundation of America, to C. T. Young, factory manager of the company's Manhattan Rubber division at Passaic, New Jersey. McMahon enclosed the "Tentative Hygiene and Sanitation Standards" recently proposed by the New Jersey Department of Labor, adding that it was not the Foundation's function "to take up positions on legal matters" but that a technical analysis of the code was available to members. The four-page standards, dated November 15, 1945, set maximum allowable concentrations for gases, vapors, fumes and dusts in places of employment over an eight-hour day, including 5 million particles per cubic foot for asbestos, and rules for sampling the air at the worker's breathing level.

What it shows

New Jersey's proposed code would have made the 5 million particle figure for asbestos, until then a guideline (see Threshold Limit Value (TLV)), a legal limit that "shall not be exceeded" in any workplace in the state, where Raybestos-Manhattan had its Passaic plant. Simpson passed the papers to Cilley, who ran the Manheim textile mill.

In Johns-Manville's index

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

05592-05600. Transmittal letter for "Tentative Hygiene and Sanitation Standards, Rules and Regulations Prescribing Maximum Allowable Concentration Limits of Harmful Vapors, Gases, Fumes, Mists, Dusts and Radiant Energy for Places of Employment," recently proposed by the New Jersey Dept. of Labor. Attached is a handwritten note from S. Simpson to O.H. Cilley requesting accompanying article be read and returned.

05601-05615. "Tentative Hygiene and Sanitation Standards, Rules and Regulations Prescribing Maximum Allowable Concentration Limits of Harmful Vapors, Gases, Fumes, Mists, Dusts and Radiant Energy for Places of Employment." Sets out levels of vapors, gases, fumes, mists, dusts and radiant energy allowable in the work place. Also discusses the methods to be used in sampling, testing and analyzing the air.

About this copy

These are documents 05592-05600, 05601-05615 of the Sumner Simpson Papers, as numbered in the collection's index.