Searching for Asbestos History: Another Good Resource Example

This blog continues my discussion on historical resources available to search asbestos exposures; this time, with a focus on a United Kingdom authored and published book from 1919. The book is entitled Asbestos and the Asbestos Industry: The World’s Most Wonderful Mineral and Other Fireproof Materials authored by A. Leonard Summers as part of the Pitman’s Common Commodities and Industries series.

For those of you in the U.K., the lead advertiser of the book will not surprise you.

This book is an excellent example of the information available electronically over the Internet. I downloaded it from the Hathi Trust, likely the largest repository of books in the world.

If you ever need help in sorting through this time of search or getting on the website, just let me know.

The book provides commentary and pictures on a wide range of materials which exposed the trades to asbestos use. In fact, the largest use of asbestos at the time was by tradesmen.

And, of course, asbestos mining in the U.K. was an up and coming industry at the time. This particular mine opportunity was especially valuable as it was highly fibrous and included pure amphibole asbestos of good quality.

So that you can see the broad array of asbestos uses at the time, the Contents page is as follows.

The book has extensive an excellent pictures of asbestos containing products, such as pipe coverings and asbestos paint on sheds. The pictures are especially useful when searching for historical exposures.

Not to mention pictures of raw asbestos from that era.

Although this book focused on exposures to our friends across the pond, it is just one of many examples of resources available to those who are in search of history. I happen to have this book electronically without any trademark limitations should anyone want a copy.

Please let me know if you have any questions by emailing me at TheAsbestosBlog@gmail.com or by leaving a comment.