Ehret Magnesia Manufacturing Company

Ehret Magnesia Manufacturing Company of Valley Forge, Pennsylvania made 85% magnesia pipe and boiler insulation and a wide line of other insulations, cements, packings and asbestos specialties from the 1890s or 1900s until about 1959. It then merged with the Baldwin-Hill Company to form Baldwin-Ehret-Hill, Inc., whose products later passed to Keene Corporation. Keene told the EPA in 1990 that Ehret's Thermalite, Enduro and Thermasil insulations contained amosite or chrysotile asbestos.

Draft. The history on this page was written from the documents in our library and has not yet been reviewed by a person.

History

The company's advertisements in Asbestos in the 1920s said it was "Established 1897" and that its 85% magnesia had been made at Valley Forge since 1897.^6,7 Keene's 1990 statement to the EPA gave the years of manufacture as 1904 through about 1972.⁵ The library has no document that explains the difference. A Johns-Manville internal memo of September 19, 1980, summarizing Keene's interrogatory answers for J-M's litigation attorneys, says Thermalite was made at Valley Forge from about 1900, and the data sheet on Keene that The Travelers Insurance Company compiled for a 1980 asbestos seminar says it was made there as early as the early 1900s.^30,31,33

Alvin M. Ehret sat on the executive committee of the Magnesia Association of America, whose advertisements promoted 85% magnesia, in 1919.⁸ Asbestos listed him as the company's president in 1928.⁹ A later item in Asbestos reported that after Alvin M. Ehret, Sr., retired as president, Alvin M. Ehret, Jr., was elected in his place.¹⁰ The son was listed as president by 1933, and the father as chairman in 1948.^11,12 In 1952 and 1956 the younger Ehret was vice-chairman of the Magnesia Insulation Manufacturers Association.^13,14

In 1921 Asbestos quoted A. M. Ehret that the company would build a new plant, and in 1930 it reported a new power plant at Valley Forge.¹⁵ In 1927 Ehret was one of ten Philadelphia covering shops that subscribed to a new Board of Trade.¹⁶ By 1929 its advertisements listed branch offices in New York, Philadelphia and Chicago.¹ The 1980 J-M memo says Ehret apparently kept a contract unit at Philadelphia in the mid-1930s.³⁰ In 1951 the company announced a new plant at Valley Forge making an improved 85% magnesia insulation, sold as Thermalite.^15,17 In 1958 it said it would add a glass fiber insulation called Therma-K.¹⁸

By September 1959 Asbestos was listing a director of "Baldwin-Ehret-Hill, Inc., Valley Forge."³ In May 1960 the trade journal reported the first catalog published since Baldwin-Hill Company and Ehret Magnesia Manufacturing merged to form Baldwin-Ehret-Hill, Inc.⁴ The 1980 J-M memo dates the merger to 1959.³⁰ Our Valley Forge plant page follows the plant through the Navy's lists of qualified products, which show the same insulations under the names of Ehret, then Baldwin-Ehret-Hill, then Keene.¹⁵

Asbestos products

Ehret's core product was 85% magnesia pipe covering and block.¹⁷ The library holds two Ehret labels from 85% magnesia covering: a red octagonal label and a label on a section of pipe insulation.^19,20 By 1938 the company advertised "practically all types of insulating materials as well as mechanical packings, refractory cements and asbestos specialties."² A 1951 Ehret bulletin also listed asbestos sponge felt, air cell, wool felt, Fibre-kote, asbestos paper, millboard, wick and rope.²¹ Other lines were Enduro, a high-temperature insulation made from diatomaceous earth; Durant Insulated Pipe, factory-made underground pipe units built with 85% magnesia; and Valley Forge Packings.^22,23,24

Keene's 1990 statement, published by the EPA, described the asbestos in three Ehret insulations:⁵

• Thermalite 85% magnesia (Keene gave the years as 1904 to 1964, by Ehret and Baldwin-Ehret-Hill): 10 to 15% asbestos fiber, mostly amosite with a little chrysotile, until World War II, and 10 to 15% amosite after.
• Enduro (1924 to 1955, by Ehret): about 8.7% amosite and 1.1% chrysotile.
• Thermasil calcium silicate (1956 to 1972, by Ehret, Baldwin-Ehret-Hill and Keene Building Products): about 10% amosite until February 1969, reduced after that.

The notice gives these figures as the best information available; for Thermalite and Thermasil it says some testimony differed.⁵

The 1980 J-M memo gives Keene's discovery account. It says Thermalite, also called 85% magnesia pipe covering, was made mainly of magnesium carbonate from a quarry at the Valley Forge plant site and held about 10 to 15 percent amosite.³¹ It says Thermasil, made at Valley Forge from 1956, had replaced Thermalite by 1963, and held about 11 percent amosite until 1969, 8.6 percent until 1970 and then 2 percent, until all asbestos was removed in November 1972.³¹ The Travelers data sheet gives Thermalite as 10 percent amosite, discontinued in 1963, and Thermasil as 6 to 8 percent amosite from 1968 to 1970; Keene's 1990 statement gives 1964 as Thermalite's last year.^33,5 The memo says both products carried a logo with the word "Ehret" and were apparently made under licensing agreements with Pabco.^32,34

What the documents show

Ehret insulation went into large public jobs. In May 1939 Asbestos reported that Ehret "alone did $75,000 worth of insulation work" in buildings at the New York World's Fair, among them Ford's exhibition building, the DuPont and Eastman Kodak buildings and the British Pavilion.²⁵ The library's documents on Ehret are mostly the company's own advertising and trade news. We have not found an Ehret document in the library about dust or health.

Successor

According to the 1986 Sourcebook on Asbestos Diseases, Keene Corporation bought 98 percent of Baldwin-Ehret-Hill in 1968.²⁹ The book says Baldwin-Ehret-Hill was later renamed Keene Insulation Products Corporation, and that this company stopped making asbestos-containing products in 1972; Keene's 1990 statement uses a different name, Keene Building Products.^29,5

A 1989 court caption names Keene Corporation individually and as successor-in-interest to Keene Building Products and to Baldwin, Ehret & Hill; a caption gives the parties' description, not a court's finding.²⁶ In Tragarz v. Keene Corp. (1992), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit itself described Thermasil asbestos block as "a product manufactured by Baldwin-Ehret-Hill, a predecessor company of Keene."²⁷ Keene later went into bankruptcy; our case-law library includes the 1994 decision In re Keene Corp., which lifted the bankruptcy stay so that an appeal from a state-court asbestos judgment against Keene could go forward.²⁸ The library does not yet have a trust page for Keene.

References

1. Asbestos magazine, October 1929, p. 63
2. Asbestos magazine, March 1938, p. 43
3. Asbestos magazine, September 1959, p. 44
4. Asbestos magazine, May 1960, p. 24
5. Asbestos; Publication of Identifying Information (Federal Register, February 13, 1990), p. 11
6. Asbestos magazine, September 1921, p. 67
7. Asbestos magazine, July 1922, p. 63
8. Asbestos magazine, November 1919, p. 15
9. Asbestos magazine, April 1928, p. 46
10. Asbestos magazine, April 1981, p. 44
11. Asbestos magazine, June 1933, p. 36
12. Asbestos magazine, April 1948, p. 40
13. Asbestos magazine, March 1952, p. 6
14. Asbestos magazine, April 1956, p. 16
15. Ehret Magnesia Mfg. Co. and later owners plant at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania (plant page)
16. Asbestos magazine, December 1927, p. 34
17. Asbestos magazine, March 1951, p. 55
18. Asbestos magazine, March 1958, p. 52
19. Ehret Magnesia Manufacturing Company: 85% Magnesia Covering Label
20. Label: Ehret Magnesia pipe covering, octagonal label
21. Asbestos magazine, October 1951, p. 36
22. Asbestos magazine, June 1938, p. 2
23. Asbestos magazine, August 1942, p. 2
24. Asbestos magazine, July 1934, p. 43
25. Asbestos magazine, May 1939, p. 6
26. Manville Fund's Answers to Interrogatories in Gunn v. Celotex (1989), p. 2
27. Tragarz v. Keene Corp. (7th Cir. 1992)
28. In re Keene Corp. (Bankr. S.D.N.Y. 1994)
29. Barbara J. Peters and George A. Peters, Sourcebook on Asbestos Diseases: Medical, Legal, and Engineering Aspects, vol. 2 (New York: Garland Law Publishing, 1986), p. 167.
30. Travelers Asbestos Seminar Booklet (1980): Keene Corporation Product Information, p. 2 (Johns-Manville memo, September 19, 1980)
31. Travelers Asbestos Seminar Booklet (1980): Keene Corporation Product Information, p. 3 (Johns-Manville memo)
32. Travelers Asbestos Seminar Booklet (1980): Keene Corporation Product Information, p. 4 (Johns-Manville memo)
33. Travelers Asbestos Seminar Booklet (1980): Keene Corporation Product Information, p. 8
34. Travelers Asbestos Seminar Booklet (1980): Keene Corporation Product Information, p. 5 (Johns-Manville memo)

Asbestos products

8 products our documents name Ehret Magnesia Manufacturing Company as making or selling. Each product's page says what the documents say about it, including its asbestos content.

• 85% Magnesia covering (Ehret Magnesia)
• Durocell (Ehret Magnesia Manufacturing Co.)
• Enduro (Ehret Magnesia Manufacturing Co.)
• Fibre Kote (Ehret Magnesia Manufacturing Co.)
• Minkote (Ehret Magnesia Manufacturing Co.)
• Thermalite 85% Magnesia (Ehret Magnesia Manufacturing Co.)
• Thermasil (Ehret Magnesia Manufacturing Co.)
• Thermatite (Ehret Magnesia Manufacturing Co.)

In our library

2 documents in our library name Ehret Magnesia Manufacturing Company, by collection.

Other library documents (2)

• Ehret Magnesia Manufacturing Company: 85% Magnesia Covering Label (publisher)
• Label: Ehret Magnesia pipe covering, octagonal label (Ehret Magnesia Manufacturing Co.) (publisher)

Where this comes from

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