The J-M Circle: The Archive, 1928–1930

The J-M Circle was Johns-Manville's own monthly magazine, written, its cover said, "by, for, and about Johns-Manville Employees." The first issue, Volume 1, Number 1, appeared in April 1928. Its pages carried company news from the sales offices, the factories and the asbestos mines: new products and big contracts, plant expansions, safety contests, service anniversaries and retirements. This archive holds the 31 issues we have, from April 1928 to December 1930, free to read online or download.

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 magazine never printed an index, so we compiled one from each issue's headlines and contents, under topic headings like those of our Asbestos Magazine indexes.

What the archive holds

• April 1928 to December 1930: the monthly issues, some of them two months in one (August–September 1929, and May through October 1930).
• A special edition of March 20, 1929, in memory of the company's president, Theodore F. Merseles.
• Two issues of The J-M Factory Circle, a plant edition: the Nashua, New Hampshire edition of August 1929 (No. 1), and the Chrysotile, Arizona edition of November 1929 (No. 3).

These are Johns-Manville's own copies, stamped "This Document Should Be Returned To The Public Relations Library." A few are incomplete: the scan of June 1929 holds only three of that issue's pages, and some others lack a page or two.

Why it matters

The magazine shows, in the company's own words, what Johns-Manville made and where. Its pages follow asbestos from the mines at Asbestos, Quebec, and Chrysotile, Arizona, through the plants at Manville, New Jersey, Waukegan, Illinois, Nashua and elsewhere, to the roofing, shingles, brake linings, packings, insulation and the new Transite pipe the company sold. The articles that matter most for asbestos history are in each year's index under "Dust, Health & Safety" and "Asbestos Mines & Fiber." Among them:

• the start of a safety section, reporting that safety committees had been formed at all plants "to discuss the problems of accident prevention and health" (February 1929);
• the electrifying of the open-pit mines at Asbestos, Quebec, with photographs of the mills (July 1928);
• the company hospital at Asbestos, Quebec, with its X-ray equipment (May–June 1930);
• a safety and first-aid meeting at the Manville plant, where the plant physician spoke on "what a plant hospital means to our employees" (March 1930).

The May–June 1930 issue also notes that Vandiver Brown had joined the company's law department as an attorney.

For what Johns-Manville knew about asbestos and health, and when, see the Johns-Manville Knowledge Chronology.

Rights

From the Johns-Manville corporate archive. Republished under fair use for research and historical study.