Montgomery Ward

Montgomery Ward & Co. was a Chicago mail-order and retail company. Documents in the library show it selling asbestos products under its Wards name, including vinyl asbestos floor tile, asbestos kindlers, and texture paint, wood putty and joint cement that Bondex said were private-label versions of its own asbestos-containing products; a Johns-Manville sheet pictures its Fort Worth building among installations of Corrugated Transite, an asbestos-cement sheet. Two of its executives, Theodore F. Merseles and Lewis H. Brown, went on to lead Johns-Manville. The library holds no record of an asbestos trust for Montgomery Ward.

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

Background

Montgomery Ward was founded in Chicago in 1872 as one of the first American mail-order businesses. This entry covers only what the library's documents show about its part in the asbestos story.

Asbestos products sold under the Wards name

The Sourcebook on Asbestos Diseases lists four Wards catalog numbers as vinyl asbestos floor tile: Wards Style House Cat. No. 4190R and 4191R as of 1970, and Cat. No. 41502 and 41832 as of 1974⁴. A box in the library's own collection, printed "Wards Wire Woven Asbestos Kindlers," held six woven strips; the strips themselves have not been tested⁵.

In 2001 responses to discovery requests in a Philadelphia asbestos case, signed by its counsel, Bondex International listed products that it or its predecessor Reardon had made with chrysotile asbestos added as an ingredient, and named three sold under Montgomery Ward's label^{6, 11, 12, 13}:

• Wards Texture, a private-label version of Dramex Texture Paint, which Bondex said contained 1.2 to 7.3 percent chrysotile by dry weight⁶.
• Wards Wood Putty, a private-label version of its Water Putty, given as 4.4 to 6.5 percent chrysotile^{12, 14}.
• Wards All Purpose Joint Cement (Ready-Mixed), a private-label version of its Pre-Mixed Joint Cement, given as 3.4 to 3.8 percent chrysotile¹³.

For each, Bondex gave 1977 as the last year the product was made with asbestos^{6, 13, 14}.

Johns-Manville materials in Ward buildings

Johns-Manville's employee magazine reported in December 1928 that a J-M salesman had supervised the application of 850 squares of Class "A" built-up roofing on the new Montgomery Ward plant at Fort Worth¹⁵. A 1932 Johns-Manville sheet on Corrugated Transite, reprinted in a 1938 compilation of building-material specifications, pictures the Montgomery Ward & Co. building at Fort Worth among its installations⁷. The same specification describes Transite as made of asbestos fibre and portland cement⁸. In January 1930 the J-M magazine reported that nearly three acres of Johns-Manville Sanacoustic tile had been installed in Montgomery Ward's new retail store and offices in Chicago². Montgomery Ward & Co., Chicago, also appears in a list of prominent users of Johns-Manville steam traps in a 1920 Johns-Manville catalog for power users¹⁶.

The executives who went to Johns-Manville

A Johns-Manville memorial issue says Theodore F. Merseles became president of Montgomery Ward in 1921, when the company was facing a $9,000,000 deficit¹⁰; Asbestos magazine's 1929 account says he resigned from his previous company in 1920 to take the post, and dates the deficit to 1920¹. The library's sources give both years. Asbestos magazine reported in June 1927 that J. P. Morgan & Co. had bought a substantial common stock interest in Johns-Manville and that Merseles was resigning as Montgomery Ward's president to become president of Johns-Manville on July 1⁹; a 1929 Asbestos profile of Lewis H. Brown says instead that Merseles became Johns-Manville's president in August 1927¹⁷. The memorial issue says he kept his connection with Ward's as chairman of its executive committee¹⁰.

Lewis H. Brown joined Montgomery Ward after serving in the First World War and rose to assistant general operating manager of all plants; he went with Merseles to Johns-Manville as his assistant^{17, 18}. When Merseles died in 1929, Brown was elected Johns-Manville's president^{18, 19}. George B. Everitt, who had succeeded Merseles as Montgomery Ward's president, was elected to the Johns-Manville board on May 28, 1929^{20, 21}. Twenty years later Asbestos noted that Sewell L. Avery was chairman of both Montgomery Ward and the United States Gypsum Company²².

References

1. Asbestos, March 1929, p. 12
2. The J-M Circle, January 1930, p. 19
3. The J-M Circle, special edition, March 20, 1929, p. 4
4. Wards Style House Cat. No. 4190R (Montgomery Ward), product page
5. Montgomery Ward: Wire Woven Asbestos Kindlers Box
6. Bondex International's Responses to Requests for Admission and Interrogatories in Harahan v. Bondex (2001), p. 20
7. Slum Clearance Program: Specifications and Data on Various Building Materials (1938), p. 290
8. Slum Clearance Program: Specifications and Data on Various Building Materials (1938), p. 281
9. Asbestos, June 1927, p. 46
10. The J-M Circle, special edition, March 20, 1929, p. 5
11. Bondex International's Responses (2001), p. 19
12. Bondex International's Responses (2001), p. 22
13. Bondex International's Responses (2001), p. 27
14. Bondex International's Responses (2001), p. 21
15. The J-M Circle, December 1928, p. 21
16. Johns-Manville Service to Power Users: Catalog No. 117, Second Edition (1920), p. 102
17. Asbestos, April 1929, p. 22
18. Asbestos, March 1951, p. 16
19. Asbestos, March 1958, p. 6
20. The J-M Circle, July 1929, p. 3
21. Asbestos, June 1929, p. 56
22. Asbestos, September 1949, p. 44

Asbestos products

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

• Wards Cat. No. 41502 (Montgomery Ward)
• Wards Cat. No. 41832 (Montgomery Ward)
• Wards Style House Cat. No. 4190R (Montgomery Ward)
• Wards Style House Cat. No. 4191R (Montgomery Ward)

In our library

1 document in our library name Montgomery Ward, by collection.

Other library documents (1)

• Montgomery Ward: Wire Woven Asbestos Kindlers Box (publisher)

Where this comes from

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