The Asbestos Worker: The Insulators' Union Journal, 1912–1963

The Asbestos Worker is the journal of the insulators' union, the International Association of Heat and Frost Insulators and Asbestos Workers, written for its members: the men who covered pipes, boilers and ducts with asbestos, magnesia and cork in power plants, refineries, ships, factories and public buildings. It began in March 1912 as the union's Monthly Journal, published in St. Louis, became the Official Journal that August and a quarterly in 1913, and has been The Asbestos Worker since April 1917. This archive holds the 200 issues we have from 1912 to 1963, free to read online or download.

The union was founded in St. Louis in 1903 and is today the International Association of Heat and Frost Insulators and Allied Workers. Its members, more than any other trade, breathed asbestos at work every day.

How to use the archive

Each year has its own page with that year's issues and an index of their articles, grouped by topic. Choose an article in the index and the issue opens at its page. The journal never printed an index, so we compiled one from each issue's contents.

• 1912, Volume 1: March, April, May, July, August, September, October, November
• 1913, Volume 1: January, May, July, October
• 1914, Volume 1: January, April, July, October
• 1915, Volume 1: January, April, July, October
• 1916, Volumes 1 and 2: January, April, July, October
• 1917, Volume 2: January, April, July, October
• 1918, Volume 2: January, April, July, October
• 1919, Volumes 2 and 3: January, April, July
• 1920, Volume 3: January, April, July, October
• 1921, Volume 3: January, April, July, October
• 1922, Volumes 3 and 4: January, April, July, October
• 1923, Volume 4: January, April, July, October
• 1924, Volume 4: January, April, July, October
• 1925, Volume 4: January, April, July, October
• 1926, Volume 5: January, April, July, August, September, October, November, December
• 1927, Volume 6: every month
• 1928, Volume 7: every month
• 1929, Volume 8: every month
• 1930, Volume 9: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September
• 1931, Volume 10: January
• 1933, Volume 10: July, October
• 1934, Volume 10: January, April, July, October
• 1935, Volume 10: January, April, July, October
• 1936, Volume 10: January, April, July, October
• 1937, Volumes 10 and 11: January, April, July, October
• 1938, Volume 11: January, April, July, October
• 1939, Volume 11: January, April, July, October
• 1940, Volume 11: January, April, July, October
• 1941, Volume 11: January, April, July, October
• 1942, Volumes 11 and 12: January, April, July, October
• 1943, Volume 12: January, April, July, October
• 1944, Volume 12: January, April, July, October
• 1945, Volume 12: January, April, July, October
• 1946, Volume 12: January, April, July, October
• 1947, Volumes 12 and 13: January, April, July, October
• 1948, Volume 13: January, April, July, October
• 1949, Volume 13: January, April, July, October
• 1950, Volume 13: January, April, July, October
• 1951, Volume 13: January, April, July, October
• 1952, Volumes 13 and 14: January, April, July, October
• 1953, Volume 14: January, April, July, October
• 1954, Volume 14: January, April, July, October
• 1961, Volume 15: November

What is in it

Each issue carries the General President's report on his travels to the locals, the Secretary-Treasurer's report, the editor's page, letters from the local unions, wage rates, the minutes of the regional conferences, "In Memoriam" notices and the directory of locals. Through them runs the record of the trade: which firms the members worked for, in which cities, on what jobs, and with what materials.

That record names the asbestos companies again and again. Johns-Manville, Keasbey & Mattison, Philip Carey, Armstrong Cork, Eagle-Picher, Ehret Magnesia and Mundet Cork appear as employers, as parties to the union's agreements and strikes, and as makers of the pipe covering, block, cement and cork its members applied. In 1943 the General President told the government's wage board that the firms he met with "operate 95 per cent of all insulation work throughout the country under signed agreement with our Locals."

The year indexes list these items under "Materials & Manufacturers" and "Employers, Contractors & Agreements." Among them:

• the union's constitution of 1914, which defines the trade by its materials: magnesia, asbestos, hair felt, cork, mineral wool, asbestos paper and mill board;
• a 1915 test of the heat losses of twelve makes of steam-pipe covering, with their makers and makeup;
• the unionizing of Johns-Manville's Milwaukee branch in 1913, and the cork-slab agreement of 1918 "signed by all cork concerns with the exception of Johns-Manville";
• articles on 85% magnesia (1926–27) and on asbestos and its mines, supplied by Keasbey & Mattison (1926) and others;
• the 1937 obituary of Richard V. Mattison, the "asbestos king" of Ambler, Pennsylvania.

What the members were told about the dust

Very little, for most of these years. In September 1930 the journal reprinted "The 'Pulmonary Asbestosis' Menace" from the government's Monthly Labor Review, an account of the British factory inspectors' survey of asbestos textile workers. In 1934 the union's own statement to the government on a code for the industry said that "the work-life span of the asbestos worker is extremely short as the reports of the various life insurance companies will attest." In 1941 and 1942 members reported skin trouble and worse from the new glass-fibre insulation, and the journal printed the State of Massachusetts' finding that its dust was a "nuisance dust." In 1954 a delegate told a regional conference about chest X-rays at a Philadelphia clinic, "of great benefit to the Asbestos Worker and his family." In 1961 the journal printed a poster from the Long Beach Naval Shipyard urging members to wear their respirators.

The issues list members' deaths in nearly every number but almost never give a cause. What asbestos was doing to the men who read this journal was shown only later, by the union's own members: in 1962 Dr. Irving Selikoff began his studies of the insulators of Newark and New York, which proved how many of them were dying of asbestosis, lung cancer and mesothelioma.

About these copies

Our copies are scans of a bound set of the union's journal, two printed pages to a scan in the early years. We have split those into single pages and added a searchable text layer. Some years are incomplete, and we have no issues from 1932, from 1955 to 1960, or from 1962 and 1963. If you have issues we are missing, we would like to hear from you.

Rights

Issues published in 1930 or earlier are in the public domain. The journal was never registered for copyright, and no issue was ever renewed, so the issues of 1931 to 1963 are in the public domain in the United States as well. We publish later issues only with the union's agreement.