Grant Wilson

Grant Wilson, Inc. was a Chicago insulation firm founded in 1930 by Grant V. Wilson, who had been a vice president of the Sall Mountain Company. It was announced as an insulation engineering service, was soon also a distributor of insulation and asbestos materials, and later sold asbestos paper, board, duct connectors and paper tape under its own names. It was still in business in the 1970s and was named as a defendant in a 1981 Illinois asbestos case; the library's documents do not show how it ended.

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

History

Asbestos magazine reported in March 1930 that Grant V. Wilson had organized Grant Wilson, Incorporated, with headquarters at 205 W. Wacker Drive, Chicago, to give the power and building industry an engineering service on insulation¹. The notice called Wilson "the former Vice President of the Sall Mountain Company" and said the company would offer no materials for sale and would act as consulting engineers, doing inspections, development and research¹. A March 1940 article marking the company's tenth anniversary tells it differently: it says Wilson "was at that time Vice President of The Sall Mountain Company of Chicago" and organized his firm for a consulting engineer service, "at the same time distributing insulation and other asbestos and fireproof materials."²

That plan changed quickly. In June 1930 the magazine reported that, because of requests from producers and the trade, the company would also sell and distribute insulation materials, covering Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Wisconsin and Missouri from Chicago³. The same article said Wilson had started as a paste boy in the Sall Mountain Company's pipe covering factory and worked up to cost clerk in 1915, then general purchasing agent, production manager of the company's three plants and vice president³. By July 1930 the firm had moved to 4101 W. Taylor Street, Chicago, where it occupied an entire building with a large warehouse⁹. In December 1930 Asbestos reported that it had been chosen as exclusive zone distributor for the Mineral Felt Insulating Company of Toledo, Ohio, in northeastern Illinois, northern Indiana and the Calumet district¹⁰.

The firm grew through the 1930s. The magazine reported in August 1932 that the pipes of the Administration Building at the Chicago World's Fair were insulated with Aircell pipe covering furnished by Grant Wilson, Inc.¹¹ In December 1935 it reported that Edward A. Wilson, Jr. was in charge of the company's Detroit office¹², and in November 1941 that Fred Surridge had been in charge of its St. Louis office for the previous eight years¹³. A March 1940 article marking the company's tenth anniversary quoted Grant Wilson as saying that several of its products had international distribution and that other asbestos items it had developed were now standard products in the industry².

The magazine's notices show the company's officers in the 1940s. Asbestos reported in January 1944 that J. Harry Ebbert, formerly vice president and general manager of the Armstrong Company, maker of asbestos furnace and refractory cements, had been elected a vice president¹⁴. Grant V. Wilson was still listed as president in 1952¹⁵. The company was still in business in the 1970s: Asbestos listed Grant V. Wilson, Jr. as secretary of Grant Wilson, Inc., Chicago, in 1976 and 1978^{16, 17}.

From at least January 1942 to at least April 1953, Grant Wilson, Inc. was listed in advertisements for Johnson's Company, a raw asbestos producer at Thetford Mines, Quebec, as its agent or representative in Chicago^{18, 19}. These advertisements give the company's address as 4101 West Taylor Street in 1942 and as 141 West Jackson Boulevard by September 1945^{18, 20}.

Asbestos products

The company's own paper and board appear in the trade press from its first years. In April 1931 Asbestos described a blotter-size sample of Grant Wilson's Non-Con-Dux asbestos felt paper, sent out with a suggested pull test of the wet sheet²¹. In March 1938 the magazine reported that the company had developed and placed on the market Dux-Sulation, a duct covering for warm-air and air-conditioning work²². A March 1940 article described "Asbestos Protected Dux-Sulation" as having built-in asbestos protection of asbestos paper as a fire stop, and attributed its insulating figures to the company²³.

Labels and advertisements in the library show the company's later product names. Each records a first-use date that the company gave, as kept in a U.S. Patent Office trademark file:

• Fyrex Asbestos Board, advertised as a general purpose asbestos board for home, shop and farm: the trademark file gives first use in June 1945⁴.
• Grant Wilson Asbestos Paper and Fyrex Paper: the label, which also carries a Non Con Dux seal, gives first use in June 1945⁵.
• Flexi-Duct, a woven asbestos duct material: the 1951 label gives first use on August 9, 1951, while a 1955 advertisement and sample envelope give February 7, 1955. The library's records give both dates and do not settle the difference^{6, 24, 25}.
• Vibra-Stop, a flexible duct connection offered in asbestos, canvas or neoprene fabric: the 1955 advertisement and envelope give first use on February 7, 1955^{24, 25}.
• Gum-Bestos, a pre-gummed asbestos paper tape: the labels give first use on September 9, 1959⁷.

The 1955 sample envelope also lists asbestos paper, asbestos millboard and asbestos specialties among the company's products²⁵. Another label names asbestos rope packing²⁶. A household roll of Fyrex Paper in the library's own collection is labeled fireproof, acid-proof and vermin-proof and lists uses such as covering furnace pipes and lining barbecue grills; the roll does not say asbestos and has not been tested²⁷. The Sourcebook on Asbestos Diseases lists a Grant Wilson product called Air-Moist, described as a humidifier pad of cellular asbestos²⁸.

What the documents show

The library holds no internal Grant Wilson papers on dust, health or warnings. Its record of the company is the trade press, the company's own labels and advertisements, and one court decision.

Litigation and the company's end

Grant Wilson was one of the defendants in Nolan v. Johns-Manville Asbestos, a suit brought in Cook County, Illinois, by an asbestos insulator and continued after his death by his estate⁸. In 1981 the Illinois Supreme Court held that the two-year limitations period began when the plaintiff knew or reasonably should have known both of the injury and that it was wrongfully caused, and it sent the case back to the trial court⁸. The library has no record of what became of the company after the 1970s, and no record of a Grant Wilson bankruptcy, sale or asbestos trust.

References

1. Asbestos, March 1930, p. 10
2. Asbestos, March 1940, p. 26
3. Asbestos, June 1930, p. 16
4. Advertisement: Fyrex Asbestos Board (Grant Wilson, Inc.) (1945)
5. Label: Grant Wilson Asbestos Paper, Fyrex Paper (Grant Wilson, Inc.) (1945)
6. Label: Flexi-Duct asbestos woven duct material (Grant Wilson, Inc.) (1951)
7. Label: Gum-Bestos pre-gummed asbestos paper tape (Grant Wilson, Inc.) (1959)
8. Nolan v. Johns-Manville Asbestos (Ill. 1981)
9. Asbestos, July 1930, p. 51
10. Asbestos, December 1930, p. 54
11. Asbestos, August 1932, p. 45
12. Asbestos, December 1935, p. 36
13. Asbestos, November 1941, p. 34
14. Asbestos, January 1944, p. 40
15. Asbestos, July 1952, p. 44
16. Asbestos, February 1976, p. 38
17. Asbestos, February 1978, p. 58
18. Asbestos, January 1942, p. 21 (Johnson's Company advertisement)
19. Asbestos, April 1953, p. 21 (Johnson's Company advertisement)
20. Asbestos, September 1945, p. 24 (Johnson's Company advertisement)
21. Asbestos, April 1931, p. 15
22. Asbestos, March 1938, p. 20
23. Asbestos, March 1940, p. 8
24. Advertisement: Flexi-Duct and Vibra-Stop flexible duct connections (Grant Wilson, Inc.) (1955)
25. Package: Vibra-Stop / Flexi-Duct sample envelope (Grant Wilson, Inc.) (1955)
26. Label: Asbestos Rope Packing (Grant Wilson, Inc., Chicago)
27. Grant Wilson: Fyrex Paper Household Roll (ACL Doc 14710)
28. Air-Moist (Grant Wilson), product page

Asbestos products

10 products our documents name Grant Wilson as making or selling. Each product's page says what the documents say about it, including its asbestos content.

• Air-Moist (Grant Wilson)
• Asbestos paper (Grant Wilson)
• Asbestos rope packing (Grant Wilson)
• Flexi-Duct (Grant Wilson)
• Fyrex (Grant Wilson)
• Fyrex Asbestos Board (Grant Wilson)
• Fyrex Paper (Grant Wilson)
• Gum-Bestos Asbestos Paper Tape (Grant Wilson)
• Non-Con-Dux (Grant Wilson)
• Vibra-Stop (Grant Wilson)

Court cases

1 court decision in our case-law library name Grant Wilson as a defendant.

• Nolan v. Johns-Manville Asbestos (1981)

In our library

9 documents in our library name Grant Wilson, by collection.

Other library documents (9)

• Advertisement: Flexi-Duct and Vibra-Stop flexible duct connections (Grant Wilson, Inc.) (1955) (publisher)
• Advertisement: Fyrex Asbestos Board (Grant Wilson, Inc.) (1945) (publisher)
• Grant Wilson: Fyrex Paper Household Roll (publisher)
• Label: Asbestos Rope Packing (Grant Wilson, Inc., Chicago) (publisher)
• Label: Flexi-Duct asbestos woven duct material (Grant Wilson, Inc.) (1951) (publisher)
• Label: Grant Wilson Asbestos Paper, Fyrex Paper (Grant Wilson, Inc.) (1945) (publisher)
• Label: Gum-Bestos asbestos paper tape (Grant Wilson, Inc.) (1959) (publisher)
• Label: Gum-Bestos pre-gummed asbestos paper tape (Grant Wilson, Inc.) (1959) (publisher)
• Package: Vibra-Stop / Flexi-Duct sample envelope (Grant Wilson, Inc.) (1955) (publisher)

Names in the documents

The spellings documents use for Grant Wilson, OCR misreadings included, so a search for any of them finds this page: Grant Wilson Incorporated.

Where this comes from

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