If you have never heard of the Motley 1000 documents, then you have not spent time as the Manville document repository in Denver, Colorado feeling lost and confused. These are the documents as organized by Ron Motley and his teams of lawyer associates called the Asbestos Litigation Group in 1978 with the goal of upending…
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I posted a summary of my asbestos blogs a couple of months ago (January 12, 2023) after I reached the 100 blog level. Given the number of new readers and the breadth of my posts (now up to about 110), I would like to post that list again. If any of the below interests you,…
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We already know that, per the historical documents, Johns-Manville was aware of asbestos occupational lung related issues arising in its Manville, N.J. facilities by the early 1930s. My blog at https://theasbestosblog.com/?p=769 mentions the twelve lawsuits filed in the late 1920s which Manville settled for $30,000 in total with secrecy agreements in 1933, along with obtaining…
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For those of you who like to collect old documents or do your own research, especially for asbestos related issues, the Hathi Digital Trust is a great place to start. Never heard of the Hathi Digital Trust? You are leaving behind 18 million documents scanned into electronic format by Google. A good discussion is found…
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I started my weekly asbestos history blogs on December 16, 2020. Just over two years later, the total has reached 100. Hopefully, you find them interesting, informative, and thought provoking. For those of you who have joined me after the beginning or who have specific topics of interest, I am listing the blogs in the…
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Nazis, death camps, and Priests. For my 98th weekly blog, I am going to detour from directly discussing asbestos, although this story is taken from the stories about Johns-Manville provided by the residents of Manville, N.J. during 1987 in the book published by the Manville Public Library titled Ellis Island, the Coal Mines, to the…
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My blog this week will change the pace back to pure history, including what was then thought to be a wonderful development of Johns-Manville moving to Manville, New Jersey. This discussion involves the city outside of the factory and, quite honestly, during a time when asbestos had a good reputation. The city leaders were proud…
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I have previously posted information about conduct by Johns-Manville in the 1930s to 1950s, especially their legal department, that was, to say the least, disheartening. See my Blogs at https://theasbestosblog.com/?p=769 and at https://theasbestosblog.com/?p=2808. So, did they see the errors of their ways over time or attempt to draw a line under which they would not…
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I may overly post about the people who made history at Manville, N.J., but I think that the first hand statements of the residents, especially those who had family working at the Johns-Manville facility, add a lot of context to that history. This story by Mary Limyansky is told in Ellis Island, the Coal Mines,…
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Since I started blogging when I entered my Master’s in History program, I have blogged 64 times. As it is tough to track these blogs, below is a total listing with links. I plan to continue this work as I focus my research on asbestos exposures to shipbreakers and then expand this work to ship…
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