Leroy U. Gardner to Sumner Simpson on the Delayed Asbestosis Monograph and Saranac's Building Fund (1945)

A two-page letter of December 11, 1945, from Dr. Leroy U. Gardner, director of the Saranac Laboratory, to Sumner Simpson, president of Raybestos-Manhattan; the file also holds a typed copy. Gardner wrote that Manfred Bowditch, formerly director of the Division of Occupational Disease of the Massachusetts Department of Labor, would join him in January to run the Field Division, freeing him "to tackle my proposed monograph on asbestosis"; meanwhile he had "accumulated some fifteen more human autopsy specimens from Quebec." He then asked for a company contribution toward the $100,000 needed to build and equip an addition to the laboratory, reporting pledges of $27,000 from five industries and asking for early action "before the tax laws change the first of the year."

What it shows

The monograph was to be Gardner's final report on the asbestos dust experiments that Raybestos-Manhattan and other companies had paid for since 1936, and it was already years overdue. In the same letter Gardner asked the sponsors for building money: "If Industry can help us to build a better workshop we will do our best to solve its health problems." In August 1946 Thomas L. Gatke of Gatke Corporation said he had not given to the fund because of the laboratory's "apparent lack of interest in the affairs of our Industry" (his letter to J. F. D. Rohrbach).

In Johns-Manville's index

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

Informs that new employee will be added in January to ease workload of Gardner so he can finish monograph on asbestosis. States that new buildings, equipment and employees are needed at Saranac to handle the incoming workload. Requests donation from RM to help finance building of new facilities.

Related documents

• Thomas L. Gatke to J. F. D. Rohrbach on Getting Gardner's Report (1946)

About this copy

This is document 05590-05591 of the Sumner Simpson Papers, as numbered in the collection's index.