Asbestos (magazine)

Asbestos (sometimes called Asbestos Magazine) was a trade publication first issued in 1919 that served the asbestos mining, manufacturing, and product industries in North America for most of the 20th century. It carried industry news, advertisements, technical articles, and editorials promoting asbestos products and defending the industry against emerging health concerns. The magazine is now a key documentary source in asbestos litigation because it shows what manufacturers, suppliers, and insurers knew, and said publicly, about asbestos hazards over many decades.

Origin

The publication was launched in 1919 in Philadelphia by Charles N. Stover and continued under various publishers through the 1980s. It was the dominant English-language trade journal devoted specifically to the asbestos industry and circulated widely among executives, plant managers, and insurers in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom.

Significance in Asbestos Context

For patients and families, Asbestos Magazine matters because its pages contain direct evidence of what the industry knew about disease risk and when they knew it. Articles from the 1930s and 1940s discussed asbestosis, dust control, and worker health, while advertisements continued to promote asbestos-containing products as safe well into the 1970s. Plaintiffs' attorneys and historians routinely cite specific issues to demonstrate corporate knowledge, to identify which companies made which products, and to rebut defense claims that hazards were unknown at the time of a patient's exposure. If a loved one worked with a specific brand of insulation, joint compound, or gasket material, this magazine's advertisements and supplier listings can help identify the manufacturer decades later.

Related Terms

State of the Art Defense, Sumner Simpson Papers, Industry Knowledge, Trade Association, Johns-Manville, Product Identification

Notes

• If you can recall brand names, product types, or employer names from a family member's work history, share them with your legal team. Historians can often locate matching advertisements or supplier listings in Asbestos Magazine to identify defendants.
• Bound volumes are archived at industrial and university libraries (including the Science History Institute in Philadelphia and several occupational health collections); attorneys experienced in asbestos litigation generally have access to digitized runs.
• Ask whether your case file includes a 'state of the art' expert report. That report will often cite specific issues and articles from this magazine to establish what was knowable at the time of your exposure.
• Preserve any old company newsletters, training materials, or product brochures you find at home; these often cross-reference advertisements and articles that appeared in the trade press.

People

People the documents tie to Asbestos (magazine), most often named first, with the titles the documents give them.

• William C. Thurber: Product Manager
• John L. Myers: Marketing Manager; Product and Production Manager
• Franklin D. Dexter: Manager
• A. E. Pufahl: Assistant General Manager
• L. S. O'Rourke unreviewed

In our library

17 documents in our library name Asbestos (magazine), by collection.

In the Union Carbide documents

Asbestos (magazine) is named in 14 Union Carbide documents dated 1970 to 1984 (1 as the source, 14 mentioned), from asbestos lawsuits over Union Carbide's Calidria asbestos. All are published in our collection.

• Calidria Asbestos Status Summary on Asbestos Toxicology, Mid 1970, with Attached Articles, Regulation, Toxicology Report and Pellet News Release UC-4559 (mentioned)
• Union Carbide Calidria Asbestos Status Summary on Asbestos Toxicology, with Attached Articles, Regulations and Safety Data Sheet (Mid 1970) UC-5371 (mentioned)
• "The Influence of Asbestos on Health": Report on McGill University Three-Year Survey of Quebec Asbestos Workers, from Asbestos (1970) UC-5459 (source, mentioned)
• H. B. Rhodes to John Juett (International Shoe Co.) Transmitting Asbestos Toxicology Status Summary and Articles (1970) UC-5443 (mentioned)
• B. L. Ingalls to E. Miller (M. A. Bruder & Sons) on Asbestos Toxicology, with Enclosed Status Summary and Related Materials (1970) UC-5379 (mentioned)
• John L. Myers to M. Kanno (Tomoe Engineering) on RG-244 Sales, Degussa and Asbestos Toxicology Questions, with Kanno's Letter of Nov. 10 (1971) Union Carbide 179 (mentioned)
• John L. Myers to M. Kanno (Tomoe Engineering) on Resin Grade Sales, Degussa and Asbestos Toxicology Publicity, with Kanno's Letter of November 10, 1971 (1971) UC-986 (mentioned)
• John L. Myers to Doris M. Fagan, Editor of ASBESTOS, on Use of His Paper for a Magazine Article, with Fagan's Letter of June 6, 1973 (1973) UC-2555 (mentioned)
• J. L. Myers to T. D. Finnigan on HR-1524 and Calidria Asbestos Market Share, with Attached Tables (1979) UC-3010 (mentioned)
• John L. Myers to J. T. Kelly on Strategic Planning for Asbestos: World Production, Competitors and Sales (1980) UC-3587 (mentioned)
• Asbestos International Association Director-General's Notes for Associations on Panel Activities, EEC Matters and Regulation (1980) UC-3937 (mentioned)
• John L. Myers to Charles C. Ivie Transmitting Reprint of 'Calidria' Asbestos Pellets Article (1980) UC-2923 (mentioned)
• John L. Myers to Jerald S. Weigler on Calidria Bag Samples, Literature Lists and the 'Asbestos Education' Sheet (1984) UC-846 (mentioned)
• The Asbestos Factbook: Excerpted Pages on Origin, History, World Production, Uses and Fiber Grades UC-1386 (mentioned)

Names in the documents

The spellings documents use for Asbestos (magazine), OCR misreadings included, so a search for any of them finds this page: Asbestos Magazine · ASBESTOS · Asbestos (Secretarial Service, Philadelphia) · Asbestos (trade periodical).

Where this comes from

This page brings together every document in our library that names Asbestos (magazine), across collections. Titles and affiliations are taken from the documents themselves, and units and subsidiaries are grouped under the company they belong to.