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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE AND LABOR
BUREAU
OF LABOR.
CHAS. P. NEILL, Commissioner
LEAD POISONING IN POTTERIES
TILE WORKS, AND PORCELAIN ENAMELED
SANITARY WARE FACTORIES
BULLETIN OF THE UNITED
STATES BUREAU OF LABOR
WHOLE NUMBER 104
INDUSTRIAL ACCIDENTS AND HYGIENE SERIES
No. 1
AUGUST 7, 1912
WASHINGTON
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
1912
CONTENTS.
Page.
Introduction and summary................................................................................... 5-11
Character of dangers in the industry............................................................. 6, 7
Sanitary condition of potteries....................................................................... 7, 8
Extent of lead poisoning among pottery workers.....................,.................... 8, 9
Symptoms and progress of lead poisoning..................................................... 9,10
Typical cases of lead poisoning...................................................................... 10,11
Glazing and decorating of white ware, art and utility ware, and tiles.............. 12-14
Glazing and decorating of pottery in general. . ............................................ 12
Composition of glazes..................................................................................... 12-14
Glazing and decorating of white ware.................................................................. 14-22
Description of processes....................................................................... ........ 14-20
Mixing.........................................................
15,16
Dipping..... .............................
16
Work of dippers ’ helpers......................................................................... 16-18
Work of glost-kiln men............................................................................ 18,19
Color work............................................................................................... 19, 20
Workers in white-ware potteries.................................................................... 20-22
Number and distribution of employees......................................................... 22
Glazing and decorating of art and utility ware.................................................... 22-25
Comparison of conditions of workers in art and utility ware potteries and
in white-ware potteries............................................................................. 22, 23
Greater- danger in art and utility ware potteries.................................. ........ 23
Composition of the glazes..................................................
24
Number and distribution of employees......................................................... 25
Glazing and decorating of wall, floor, art, and roof tiles..................................... 25-28
Number of plants studied.............................................................................. 25
Composition of glazes..................................................................................... 25, 26
Description of processes................................................................................. 26-28
Number and distribution of employees......................................................... 28
Sanitary conditions in potteries and tile works................................................... 29-31
White-ware potteries....................................................................................... 29, 30
Art and utility ware potteries.......................... ............................................. 30
Tile works...................................................................................................... 30, 31
Porcelain enameling of iron sanitary ware.......................................................... 31-41
Number of plants studied.............................................................................. 31
Composition of enamel used........................................................................... 31-33
Mixing of the enamel..................................................................................... 33-35
Enameling...................................................................................................... 35, 36
Dangers involved in the work........................................................................ 36
Workers in iron sanitary ware factories......................................................... 37-39
Mill hands............................. : ................................................................ 37
Enamelers................................................................................................ 37-39
Number and distribution of employees......................................................... 39
Sanitary conditions in enameling works........................................................ 39-41
3
4
CONTENTS.
Page.
Lead poisoning in potteries................................................................................... 41-58
Sources of information............................................................... -.................... 41-43
Lead poisoning in white-ware potteries......................................................... 43-48
Lead poisoning among male employees in white-ware potteries........... 44-46
Lead poisoning among female employees in white-ware potteries........ 47
Relative number of cases among men and women................................. 47,48
Lead poisoning in art and utility ware potteries and in tile works............. 48-58
Character of workers and wages in relation to lead poisoning................ 48, 49
General belief as to frequency of lead poisoning............................... 49-51
Number of cases of lead poisoning found............................................... 51, 52
Frequency of lead poisoning in white-ware potteries and in art and
utility ware potteries and tile works. ................................................. 52, 53
Frequency of lead poisoning in British and in American potteries.. 53-55
Severity of lead poisoning in British and in American potteries____ 55, 56
Relative frequency of lead poisoning in men and in women............... 56-58
Lead poisoning in the making of porcelain enameled iron sanitary ware........... 58-65
Intensive study of 148 men............................................................................ 59-62
Length of exposure in lead-poisoning cases.................................................. 62-64
Severity of lead poisoning in iron sanitary-ware factories........................... 64
Effect of lead with reference to nature of the work...................................... 64, 65
Is danger of lead poisoning increasing in industries studied.............................. 65
Appendix A.—Hygienic conditions and regulations in potteries, tile works,
and enameled sanitary-ware works in Great Britain, Germany, and Austria.. 66-82
Introduction................................................................................................... 66-69
British potteries and tile works..................................................................... 69-72
German potteries and tile works................................................................... 72-76
Austrian potteries and tile works........................................................
76
Comparison of conditions in American and foreign potteries....................... 76, 77
Lead poisoning in British, German, and Austrian potteries....................... 77-79
Porcelain-enameled sanitaryware................................................................. 79-82
Appendix B.—Regulations for factories and workshops engaged in the manufac
ture and decoration of earthemvare and china and in the vitreous enameling
cf metal or glass in Great Britain.................................................................. 83-92
BULLETIN OF THE
UNITED STATES BUREAU OF LABOR.
w h o le n o . 104.
WASHINGTON.
a u g u st 7, 1912 .
LEAD POISONING IN POTTERIES, TILE WORKS, AND PORCELAIN
ENAMELED SANITARY WARE FACTORIES.
BY ALICE HAMILTON, M. A., M. D.
INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY.
The four industries included in this study have one important
feature in common—that of employing a glaze containing one or
more compounds of lead. In other respects they differ more or less
widely; in methods of handling the glaze, in workshop conditions,
in wages, in the class of workpeople, and in the number of women
employed.
The four industries studied fall into two divisions. The first divi
sion comprises: (1) The making of so-called white ware, which means
sanitary earthenware and table and toilet ware; (2) The making of
cheap earthenware bowls and teapots, of decorated bowls, jardinieres,
pedestals, spittoons, etc., which are usually summarized as art and
utility ware; and (3) the making of lead-glazed wall, floor, and roof
tiles; these three differ in some respects but have many features in
common. The second division comprises the manufacture of por
celain enameled iron sanitary ware, often called hollow ware, and
is quite distinct.
The study of these industries has involved an investigation of 68
potteries and factories located in 9 different States and employ
ing in work which exposes them to the risk of lead poisoning over
2,100 men and nearly 400 women. It has included such points as the
method of handling the lead glaze, how much the working people are
exposed to it, and what precautions are taken to protect them. It
has also involved a study of the people employed, their living con
ditions, their nationality, the character of their work, and the inci
dence of industrial lead poisoning among them.
5
6
B U L L E T IN OF T H E BUREAU OF LABOE.
The number of establishments visited in each of these industries
and the number and sex of employees engaged in processes involving
a risk of lead poisoning were as follows:
e s t a b l is h m e n t s v is it e d a n d e m p l o y e e s in p r o c e s s e s e x p o s e d to r is k
OF LEAD POISONING, BY INDUSTRIES, 1910 AND 1911.
Industry.
White ware pottery.............................................................................
Yellow ware and art and utility ware pottery...............................
Tile works..................................................... ;.....................................
Total............................................................................................
Porcelain enameled iron sanitary ware...........................................
Total............................................................................................
Estab Male Female
lishments em
em
visited. ployees. ployees.
40
7
11
58
10
68
796
166
138
1,100
1,012
2,112
150
39
204
393
393
Total.
946
205
342
1,493
1,012
2,505
The principal centers for the making of white ware in the United
States are Trenton, N. J., and East Liverpool, Ohio, The manufac
ture of the yellow ware and Rockingham, included in the second in
dustry, is vanishing, but is still carried on in East Liverpool and in
the district of Ohio of which Zanesville is the center. Art and
utility ware is made chiefly in the Zanesville district. The 11 tilefactories visited are in Trenton, 1ST. J .; Newell, W. Ya.; Covington
and Newport, Ky.; Indianapolis, Ind.; Chicago, 111.; and Zanesville,
Ohio. Porcelain enameled hollow ware is made chiefly in and around
Pittsburgh, Pa.; Chicago, 111.; Louisville, Ky.; Chattanooga, Tenn.;
Sheboygan, Wis.; several small towns in Ohio; and in Trenton, N. J.
CHARACTER OF DANGERS IN THE INDUSTRY.
In the industries of the first group both men and women are em
ployed in the dangerous processes,1 in the fourth industry men only.
In the first three industries the processes which involve a risk of
lead poisoning are: (1) Mixing the glaze, done by men; (2) dipping
the ware in the glaze or applying the glaze in other ways, done by
both men and women, though men predominate;12 (3) handling the
ware while the glaze is still wet, done by men, women, and boys;
(4) removing excess glaze from dry ware, done by both sexes;
(5) decorating the ware with lead colors, done by both sexes; (0)
cleaning or sweeping dusty floors, boards, or tables, done by both
sexes.
In the fourth industry, the manufacture of porcelain enameled
hollow ware, there are only two dangerous processes—mixing and
grinding the ingredients for the enamel and applying the enamel.
The former is done by mill hands, usually Slavs but sometimes
1 Throughout this study the words “ dangerous ” and “ risky ” are used to indicate only
danger or risk of lead poisoning.
2 In the making of white ware no women dippers were found, and in the second industry
Digitized for only
FRASER
one, but in the tile potteries they were employed both as hand and as machine
dippers. See pp. 22, 25, and 28.
7
Negroes. The application of the enamel is skilled work, usually done
by Americans or Slavs. The cast-iron ware, after first being given a
liquid coat, is heated red hot, and before it can cool powdered enamel
is sprinkled over it and it is returned to the furnace. After the
enamel has melted over the iron, the ware is taken out and another
coat is sprinkled on, this process being repeated several times. This
is extremely dusty work, the enameler and his assistant being sur
rounded by clouds of powdered lead glaze,' which fills the air and fails
over their hair and clothes and over their bared arms and chests.
The degree of danger involved in these various processes depends
partly on the amount of lead used in the glazes and partly on the use
or neglect of various methods and devices for protecting the workers.
In the white-ware potteries visited the glazes used contained from
1.75 to 33.3 per cent of raw white lead. In the potteries making art
and utility ware and in the tile factories the glazes contained from 5
to 60 per cent of white lead. In the fourth industry it was difficult
to obtain reliable information on this point, but it is known that
enamels are in use containing from 2 up to 25 per cent of lead.1
The precautions which should be taken in establishments using
such glazes are indicated by the nature of the danger. Lead is a
slowly cumulative poison which enters the human system chiefly
through the digestive tract. The mucous membrane of the respira
tory tract may absorb some lead salts, and lead has also been found
to penetrate the blood vessels of the lungs and so to reach the general
circulation. However, the greater part of the lead which is breathed
in as dust is swallowed with the saliva, thus reaching the stomach,
and this is the most frequent mode of poisoning by lead. Next in
importance comes poisoning by lead salts, which are carried into the
mouth with food or chewing tobacco wThich has been handled wTith
lead-covered fingers or left exposed in a room where there was lead
dust or carried in the pockets of dusty clothes. Absorption of lead
salts through the unbroken skin is probably so little as to be
negligible.
It follows, then, that the prevention of lead poisoning in a factory
in which lead glazes are used depends upon measures to prevent dust,
so that the workman need not breathe in lead, and measures to pro
vide for personal cleanliness, so that he will not convey lead into his
mouth from his fingers or carry it home on his body or clothes.
LEAD PO ISO N IN G IN PO TTERIES, T ILE W ORKS, ETC.
SANITARY CONDITION OF POTTERIES.
Preventive measures of both these kinds were conspicuously absent
in the establishments investigated. Generally speaking, no effort was
made to keep down the amount of dust and no provision made for
carrying it off by exhausts or other mechanical devices. Processes2
2 See pp. 13, 24, 26, 32, and 33.
B U L L E T IN OF T H E BUREAU OF LABOR.
8
which involved no dust were carried on in the same rooms with dusty
ones, exposing workers in the first to a wholly unnecessary danger.
The construction of the floors and the methods of cleaning added to
the risk. Hot water, an absolute necessity for removing the lead from
the hands before eating, was furnished in but a few instances, and
soap and towels not at all. Lunch rooms were not provided, and in
many instances workers ate wherever they could find a place, regard
less of whether or not lead dust was thick about them. No medical
care was given the employees except when one of them was taken
violently ill while at work,
EXTENT OF LEAD POISONING AMONG POTTERY WORKERS.
It was impossible to make a thorough census of the cases of lead
poisoning which had occurred during the last two years, but those
found were unduly numerous if compared with the number of cases
knoAvn to occur in British establishments of the same kind. Com
pared with British potteries, American potteries, with less than onehalf the work people, show almost twice as many cases of lead
poisoning. Of late years there has been an enormous decline in this
form of industrial poisoning in England, due to sanitary regulation,
while in this country there is an almost entire absence of such regula
tion. If American wages are higher and living conditions better,
these advantages seem to be more than offset by the lack of sanitary
control and of proper regulations for the protection of the workers.
Among the 796 men in the white-ware potteries 60 cases of lead
poisoning were found to have occurred during the two years 1910 and
1911, 39 of which occurred during the latter year. Among the 150
women there were 43 cases, 29 of them occurring during 1911. A
single local of the Dippers’ Union, which gave accurate records of
85 men for one year, showed that 13 had acute lead poisoning during
that year.
In the potteries making art and utility ware and in the tile fac
tories poisoning was more common. Among the 304 men employed
63 cases of poisoning were found to have occurred in 1910 and 1911,
of which 48 occurred in the latter year. Among the 243 women 35
cases were attributed to the two years, 28 of which had occurred
in 1911.
It will be noticed that the men employed in the white-ware pot
teries showed in 1911 one case of poisoning for every 20 to 21 em
ployees, while those employed in the art potteries and tile factories
showed in the same year 1 case of poisoning for every 6 or 7 workers.
Probably this difference is due in part to the smaller amount of lead
in the glazes used and partly also to the fact that the white-ware
male potters are very well paid, and therefore well fed* and well
housed. The art potters and tile workers have the disadvantage of
low
wages, with all that that implies.
9
The women in the white-ware potteries suffer more in proportion
to their number than do those in art potteries and tile works. This
is explained by the fact that all the women in the glaze departments
of white-ware potteries are doing dangerous work, while in the tile
factories many women are engaged in the comparatively safe work of
placing glazed ware in receptacles to be fired. All of these women in
white-ware potteries, as well as in tile works and art potteries, earn
low wages and are often poorly fed and housed.
Taking all the men and women employed in these three industries,
it was found that among the 1,100 men there were 87 cases of lead
poisoning in a single year, or 1 for every 12 or 13 employed, and
among the 393 women 57 cases, or 1 for every 7 employed.
In the fourth industry, the porcelain enameling of iron hollow
ware, 309 cases of lead poisoning were found to have occurred in the
10 factories studied within two years’time. One hundred and eightyseven cases occurring in 1911 were either reported by physicians, ob
tained from hospital records, or discovered by personal examination
of workers.1 One hundred and forty-eight enamelers and mill hands
were examined, and .54, or 36 per cent, were found to be suffering
from chronic lead poisoning.
LEAD PO ISO N IN G IN PO TTERIES, TILE W O RK S, ETC.
SYMPTOMS AND PROGRESS OE LEAD POISONING.
When a person is exposed to lead-laden dust or habitually eats his
food with lead-soiled hands the poison accumulates in his system and
usually attacks first the digestive tract and the blood. He acquires a
peculiar pallor, which foremen and workmen soon learn to recognize,
and which is caused partly by poverty of the blood, partly by con
traction of the surface blood vessels. He begins to lose his appetite,
especially for breakfast, for he is apt to get up with a foul mouth
and to vomit if he tries to eat solid food. A peculiarly disagreeable,
sweetish taste is one of the early symptoms and increases the man’s
repugnance to food. Then he begins to lose strength and to have
headache and pains in his limbs. He is almost always constipated,
and this trouble increases till it may culminate in an attack of ago
nizing colic with complete stoppage of the bowels. This so-called
lead colic is what the men themselves and many physicians recognize
under the head of acute lead poisoning, although a man is usually
poisoned for some time before it comes on and may be severely
poisoned without ever having colic.
If the victim of acute lead colic leaves his occupation for a more
healthful one he may recover completely from the effects of the
lead, though there are authorities who insist that even one attack
leaves permanent changes in the blood vessels and in the liver. But
if the man goes back to the same work he develops the chronic form
of lead poisoning, with perhaps recurrent attacks of colic. Chronic
1 30 cases reported
by workers are not counted here; see p. 59.
B U L L E T IN OF T H E BUREAU OF LABOR.
10
lead poisoning is essentially a disease of the blood vessels, leading to
degeneration of the organs, to atrophy of the digestive glands, har
dening of the liver and kidneys, derangement of the heart, and pre
mature senility.
With either the acute or the chronic form there may be involve
ment of the nervous system. If the poison attacks the nerves and
spinal cord only, paralysis comes on, most commonly in arms and
wrists, sometimes in shoulders and legs, sometimes general. If it
attacks the brain, there is headache, dizziness, disturbances of sight,
loss of consciousness, or convulsions, which may be fatal, or may end
in more or less lasting insanity. Paralysis is more common in men,
convulsions in women.
TYPICAL CASES OF LEAD POISONING.
The history of a few typical cases may serve to illustrate this
description:
Case 1.—This is a typical case of mild chronic lead poisoning. A girl of 19
years has worked 3 years in the dipping room of a white-ware pottery, during
which time she has had two attacks of colic. She is pale and has not much
strength, partly, her mother thinks, because she eats so little. She is very
apt to vomit in the morning if she takes breakfast, and can eat nothing at
any meal till she has had a sour pickle to rid her mouth of the sweet taste.
She is always constipated and takes cathartics regularly. She is not allowed
to go into the biscuit warehouse to cat her lunch, because the forewoman objects,
so she eats in the dipping room after washing her hands in cold water. She
comes home with her skirts full of glaze dust, and it is almost impossible to
get rid of it.
Case 2.—This is another instance of chronic lead poisoning in a woman.
She has worked for 10 years scraping and blowing glaze from the edges of
dipped tiles; she has never had colic, but she has grown very nervous and has
had repeated attacks of dizziness and loss of consciousness, so that a doctor
would have to be summoned and she would be carried home. She was trans
ferred to another department in the tile works, but she did not like it, and left
to enter the glaze room of another factory, where she soon had an attack of
unconsciousness so alarming that she was discharged and not allowed to
return. She is pale, thin, tremulous, and so excessively irritable and excitable
that her family treat her as if she were not quite sound mentally. This woman
will undoubtedly have cerebral lead poisoning of a serious type if she returns
to this work.
Case 3.—This woman had severe cerebral lead poisoning. She was em
ployed for six years dipping and scraping tiles; she was always a nervous
girl and grew increasingly so, suffering from bad attacks of dizziness and
fainting. One morning she awoke to find both legs paralyzed. After some
weeks she recovered and went back to work, but only for a week, for she
fainted away, and when she came to, both arms and legs were paralyzed, her
memory was impaired, and she was confused and very irritable and at times
had hallucinations of sight She lived on in this condition for seven years,
with occasional periods of improvement followed by relapses, and then died.
Case 4.—Mild chronic lead poisoning. He has been a dipper for 10 years
a white-ware pottery; has never had colic but has grown excessively pale.
Digitized for in
FRASER
LEAD PO ISO N IN G IN PO TTERIES, T IL E W ORKS, ETC.
11
so that it is very noticeable. He walks slowly and likes to stop and rest
every now and then; has no appetite, has lost weight, and has lost his spirits,
so that he seems like a tired old man, though he is only a little over 30.
Case. 5.—An instance of an unusually susceptible man. He went to the hos
pital with lead colic, after working as an enamelers helper only three days.
Case 6.—A Slav, 3T years old, with a wife and five children to support. He
is paying for his house. He used to be so strong that he could run up the
hill on which his house stands, after work, and spend all the evening digging
in his garden. Now he climbs up like an old man and sinks exhausted in a chair
and if he tries to hoe or rake he has to give it up, he is so weary. He worked
for two years as helper in a porcelain enameling factory and six years as an
enameler. It was four years before he began to get sick, then his digestion
failed, his mouth was foul, he could not eat. He has had frequent attacks of
colic and his doctor tells him he must leave the work, but he can not support
his family and pay for his house on laborer’s wages even if he could find the
work. Lately they have put him on a double furnace and he has to work
half again as hard and he does not know how long he can hold out. He has no
appetite and can not digest his food, he is pale and emaciated, .with anxious
eyes. He used to be gentle and even tempered, but now he “ gets mad at any
thing,” which makes him ashamed but he does not seem able to help it.
Case 7.—A white-haired old man, apparently over 70 years old, weak and
trembling, unable to dress himself, tottering when he walks. He is confused
and bewildered, and can not find the right word when he tries to talk. Actually
he is only 46 years old. For 26 years he has worked in the colored dipping
room of a tile factory. It is more than 10 years since he began to feel the
effects of the glaze seriously. It took the form of general hardening of the
blood vessels, and a few weeks ago he had a stroke of apoplexy with partial
paralysis and aphasia. His physician does not believe that he will ever work
again.
Case 8.—A Croatian who has enameled sinks and bathtubs for about 10
years. Two years ago he began to lose strength in his arms, especially the
right arm. Fie stopped work awhile and improved, then he went back and
grew much worse; his arms were almost completely paralyzed, and he had to
be dressed and fed like a baby. After six months he regained the use of his
left hand, but his right arm is strongly bent and he can not straighten it.
He is deep in debt and is trying for a job as yard laborer in the factory where
he used to enamel, but with only one arm he has not much hope of being
employed.
Case 9.—Involvement of the central nervous system. This man is a strong
young Slav who worked for five months pouring glaze over roof tiles. Then
he began to feel sick, had a bad taste and nausea, could not eat, felt weak and
“ no good.” This lasted eight weeks. Then one day, just as he had reached
home after work, an attack of colic came on, so violent that he lost conscious
ness. He was in maniacal delirium for 48 hours, apparently in great pain
much of the time. This passed over, and after a period of mental confusion
and impaired vision, lasting about two weeks, he regained his normal state.
When he was seen three months later he was pale and had not yet recovered
his strength.
Case 10.—A young American who had worked two years as an enameler.
He had several mild attacks of lead colic and then one so severe that the
doctors were unable to control the pain; he became delirious, and during an
unguarded moment he took a fatal dose of the morphine which had been left
beside him, and died.
12
B U L L E T IN OF T H E BUREAU OF LABOR.
GLAZING AND DECORATING OF WHITE WARE, ART AND UTILITY
WARE, AND TILES.
GLAZING AND DECORATING OF POTTERY IN GENERAL.
The occupations which expose the worker to the danger of lead
poisoning—mixing the glaze, applying it to the ware, removing the
excess of glaze from the foot of the ware, handling the ware while
the glaze is still wet, decorating the fired ware by tinting, ground
iaving, or hand painting, and, finally, sweeping the rooms in which
the glaze has been handled—are not carried on in exactly the same
way in all potteries. Different ware requires different handling,
and there are also local peculiarities which demand different dis
tribution of certain tasks, so that the same class of workers are sub
jected to different conditions in different places.
The following description applies to the making of general white
ware; that is, table and toilet ware and sanitary earthenware. It
also applies in general to the making of yellow ware and Rocking
ham, of so-called art and utility pottery, and the making of glazed
tiles. Special processes used in the art potteries and in tile works
which differ from those in white-ware potteries will be described
separately.
COMPOSITION OF GLAZES.
Since glazes are used in making pottery of every kind, and since
the danger of all the processes referred to depends largely upon the
amount of lead in the glaze used, it seems desirable to consider the
composition of glazes before describing the processes in which the
workers handle them or are exposed to glaze dusts.
The glaze used in general-ware potteries in this country for table
and toilet ware always contains lead, no ware of this kind being
made in the United States with leadless glaze. Sanitary earthen
ware is made partly with a lead glaze, partly with a leadless glaze.
The smaller sanitary ware, such as basins, lavatories, closets, sinks,
etc., is, like most earthenware, first fired, then dipped in a lead glaze
and fired again. The larger ware—bathtubs, laundry tubs, sitz baths,
urinals, etc.—is fired only once. The glaze is painted on the raw clay,
and then the ware is subjected to a single prolonged firing, which
biscuits the clay and fuses the glaze. Owing to the long firing at a
great heat, lead is not needed in this glaze and only a small per
centage, if any, is added. The glaze used for cheap earthenware,
known as yellow ware and Rockingham, is very rich in lead; so is
that used in decorated ware known as art pottery and also the glaze
used on colored wall and floor tiles and, in some instances, on colored
roof tiles. The glaze used on white tiles often contains small quan
tities
only of lead.
13
There has been much discussion in England and in European
countries over “ fritted lead glazes ”; that is, glazes made by adding
the lead to the glaze-forming constituents and fusing them together,
in the course of which fusion the lead is, at least in part, changed to
an insoluble silicate. Such glazes are looked upon as very much less
harmful than raw glazes. This question has not apparently been con
sidered in the United States up to the present time, for lead-fritted
glazes are not used in our potteries at all, so far as could be ascer
tained, except in one tile pottery, where part of the lead is fritted.
Our glazes are subjected to a fritting process; but the lead, usually
white lead, more rarely red lead, is added after the fritting is over.
The glaze with the smallest percentage of lead is that used for
largT sanitary ware, when a lead glaze is used at all, for much of it
is made without lead. That used for smaller sanitary ware has
usually less than the glaze used for table and toilet ware. The
largest percentage is used for colored tiles, for Rockingham and
yellow ware, and for certain kinds of art pottery and majolica, for
this ware is fired at a low heat to prevent alteration of the colors.
Forty white-ware potteries were visited, and in 39 of them state
ments were obtained from the officials as to the amount of lead in the
glaze used. In three of these potteries yellow ware and Rockingham
were also manufactured; it will be noticed that the glazes used for
them never contained under 20 per cent of lead. The officials of
nine of the tile works visited gave similar information concerning
their glazes. In four of these tile works two kinds of glaze were
used,' one for white and one for colored tiles. The following table,
based on the information thus obtained, gives the percentage of lead
in the various glazes:
LEAD PO ISO N IN G IN PO TTERIES, T IL E WORK'S1, ETC.
NUMBER OF ESTABLISHMENTS USING GLAZE CONTAINING EACH CLASSIFIED
AMOUNT OF LEAD.
White ware.
Classified amount of lead in glaze used.
..............................................
Tin dor 5 per eent
5 and under 10 per cent ..............................................
10 and under 15 per cent
..................................
15 and under 20 per cent..................................................
90 and under 30 per eent
..................................
30 and under 40 per cent..................................................
40 and under 50 per cent..................................................
50 and under 60 per cent ..............................................
Total.........................................................................
Sanitary General
ware. ware.
3
2
2
2
3
3
2 23
1
9
630
Yellow
ware.
Art
ware.
Tile
works.
i2
32
31
3
3
2
2
7
44
2
61
54
7 13
1 For white tiles only.
2 In some of them the amount was said to be “ about 20 per cent.” So it may have been
a little
over.
3 Red and white lead.
4 Red lead.
5 For colored work only.
6 Not including one manufacturer who refused information.
glazes; 2 refused information.
7 Four
works use 2 different
B U L L E T IN OF T H E BUREAU OF LABOR.
14
These figures are not exactly comparable with those in the British
reports,1 because they represent the amount of white or red lead
originally added to the glaze, while the English figures represent the
amount of soluble lead found in the finished glaze.
GLAZING AND DECORATING OF WHITE WARE.
DESCRIPTION OF PROCESSES.
As before mentioned, the term “ white ware ” includes table ware,
toilet ware, and sanitary earthenware. Forty white-ware potteries
were visited in Trenton and in the East Liverpool district in Ohio.
In these potteries the glaze is mixed by or under the supervision of a
skilled man who knows what he is handling; it is ground and sifted
by laborers who are often ignorant and unable to speak English.
The dangers in the mixing room come from shoveling, weighing,
and carrying the white or red lead that goes into the glaze and from
grinding and sifting the glaze. This work is done by men who often
do not know one powder from another and may be quite unaware
that there is any risk involved. The list of cases of lead poisoning
given further on shows that these men are not protected from the
dangers of mixing glaze.
The liquid glaze is applied to the ware by dippers who are highly
skilled English-speaking men. The dipped ware is finished—that is,
rid of any excess of glaze—by dippers’ helpers. In the sanitary-ware
potteries these are young men who must be strong enough to lift the
heavy ware, and who clean it by wiping off the glaze with a wet
sponge. In the Trenton general-ware potteries the helpers are
usually boys of 14 years and over, more rarely women and young girls.
They simply stack the ware on boards and carry it to the kiln room,
where it is finished by the kiln men, who rub off the dry glaze on
aprons or bands of muslin. In the East Liverpool potteries the
helpers are all women and girls, wTho have to clean the ware, usually
with a sponge, but sometimes by rubbing off the glaze after it is dry.
They also gather up the dry glazed ware and pile it on boards for
the kiln men to carry off. The kiln men in East Liverpool and the
sanitary men in Trenton do no finishing; they only place the glazed
ware in saggers to be fired.
The dipping or glaze room is dangerous because the floor is dusty
from glaze which has been splashed over it, and because glaze dust
rises from the dried ware as it is stacked up and put on shelves
and as it is taken down and carried away. Dust also rises when
small ware is finished by dry rubbing. Theglost-kiln room12 is
1 Annual Report of the Chief Inspector of Factories and Workshops for the year 1910,
pp. 174, 175.
2 A glost kiln is one in which glazed ware is fired, the biscuit kiln being used for the
Digitized for ware
FRASER
before it receives the glaze.
15
fairly clean in potteries in which wet finishing is done by the dippers’
helpers in the glaze room, but there is always some glaze dust rubbed
off or blown off while the ware is being placed in the saggers. In
the Trenton white-ware potteries there is a great deal of glaze dust
in the kiln rooms, because the glost-kiln men finish the dry, glazed
ware here.
These processes belong to the glaze department. There is another
department in general-ware potteries where lead salts are used—
the decorating department. The danger of lead poisoning in this
department is much less than was formerly the case, because print
ing and decalcomania have largely displaced the processes of drycolor dusting, known as ground laying, and of color blowing, known
as tinting.
LEAD PO ISO N IN G IN PO TTERIES, T ILE W ORKS, ETC.
MIXING.
Mixing is usually done by a foreman who is acquainted with the
'substances he uses and who hands over to a laborer for melting and
grinding the ingredients he has mixed. In other places a laborer
does the mixing, the ingredients being numbered only, so that he
does not know what he is handling, and there is no danger of his be
traying the formula. The materials used in making the first stage
of the glaze, which is known as the frit, may or may* not contain
a little white lead, but even if it does, by far the larger part of the
white lead is added during the second stage, after the fritting is
over. The first stage consists in melting the mixture of borates and
silicates, with perhaps some white lead, till it is a fluid mass, which
is then run into water, where it scatters and hardens quickly in
feathery masses. This, the so-called frit, is then ground to a powder.
Whatever lead there is in the mixture is said to have been changed
to a comparatively harmless form, lead disilicate, but the invariable
custom in all the potteries visited is to add white lead to this frit.
Therefore, when a fritted glaze is spoken of by an American pot
ter, it must be remembered that the one poisonous ingredient, the
lead, has been either not at all changed by the fritting, or only in
part. The ground frit, to which white lead and other ingredients
have been added, is again ground in water mills and is then filtered
through silk sieves and, suspended in water, is now ready for use
by the dippers.
During the preparation of the glaze the men exposed to lead are
the mixer and one or two laborers, who help mix and who convey
and dump the mixture. As the grinding is done in wTater mills, no
dust is produced, and the process is not attended with risk. If ordi
nary care is observed, the work of the mixer and his helper can be
rendered safe, and it is in any case only occasional work, done per
haps twice a week, for a large quantity of glaze can be prepared at
B U L L E T IN OF T H E BUREAU OF LABOR.
16
one time. If it is carelessly done, the workman may, of course, be
exposed to the danger of breathing lead dust. In many potteries the
laborer engaged in mixing may be any one of several unskilled men
(“ odd men ” they are called), so that no one man handles the white
lead often.
DIPPING.
The dipping of ware is highly skilled work and consists in rapidly
immersing the biscuit ware in the liquid glaze, turning it, and bring
ing it out in such a way that the coat of glaze is evenly distributed
all over the surface. The glazed ware is placed on a board or tray to
dry and later on is carried to the glost kiln for firing. The dipper
works with his sleeves rolled up to the shoulders. His arms are cov
ered with the glaze and his clothes are splashed with it. The floor
around the dipping tub is covered with splashed and spilt glaze.
This dries and is constantly stirred up by the feet of the helpers as
they come and go, and several dippers have spoken of this dust as
being, in their opinion, one of the most important sources of lead
poisoning among dippers. In Trenton there is, except for this, little
production of dust in the dipping room, and were the floor of cement
or metal and kept slightly damp all dust could be abolished except the
small amount that is caused by lifting and carrying away the tray
of glazed pottery. As will be seen later, conditions are not so good
in the dipping rooms in East Liverpool.
Dipping rooms are necessarily well lighted and are usually fairly
clean, except for the floor, which is almost always of rough, worn
boards, white with the accumulated glaze of years. These floors
are swept after work hours, in East Liverpool by the dippers’ helpers,
in Trenton usually by laborers, but apparently they are never really
cleaned. Dippers always wTear overalls, fully protecting their under
clothing, and they leave them behind when they go home. A dipper
leaving work in the afternoon is, as far as one can see, quite free from
white-lead dust on his clothing and person. However, at the noon
hour he is not so scrupulous. If he does not go home for lunch, he
may go to a neighboring eating place in his overalls, or he may eat
in the yard of the factory. In winter he often take's his lunch in the
dipping room. Besides this, his mid-morning lunch, which is still
customary in many potteries, is always eaten in the workroom, and
some dippers admit that they do not bother to wash their hands thor
oughly before eating, being content to rinse them off in a pail of cold
water. Other men, however, are scrupulously careful in this respect.
WORK OF DIPPERS’ HELPERS.
Working with the dippers are the dippers’ helpers, who sponge or
clean the ware to get rid of the glaze on the foot, stack the ware on
Digitized forboards
FRASERor trays, and, in Trenton, carry it to the glost kiln for firing.
17
Sanitary ware is large and heavy and the dippers’ helpers in these
potteries must be well-grown boys or men. In general ware potteries,
where the pieces are smaller, the helpers are girls, women, or boys.
In Trenton the dippers’ helpers are exposed to no more danger
than are the dippers, except for what is involved in lifting and
carrying the glazed ware to the kilns. Large pieces of sanitary ware
are carried one by one on the helper’s shoulder or head. The small
pieces of general ware are piled up on boards and these boards are
carried on the shoulder or head. The boards are white with glaze
dust, and sts the small ware dries quickly, the dust flies over the
helper as he walks, and boys often show deposits of white dust on
their hair and faces and in their nostrils.
Conditions in the dipping rooms are distinctly better in Trenton
than in East Liverpool. In the former field it is the custom to em
ploy boys as dippers’ helpers. These boys carry the dipped ware,
general ware, to the glost kiln as soon as a tray is full. Then it is
left for the glost-kiln men to do the “ smoothing,” or “ rubbing off,”
or “ finishing,” which means removing the excess of glaze from the
foot of the ware. In sanitary ware potteries the dippers’ helpers
do this work, but they use a wet sponge and do the finishing before
the ware is dry, so no dust is produced.
In East Liverpool, on the other hand, the glost-kiln men do no
finishing' at all and this work falls to the dippers’ helpers, wTho in this
field are all women or girls. These helpers are known as “ takersoff ” and “ gatherers.” The taker-off stands right in front of the
dipper, with the drain board, on which the dipped ware is placed,
between them. If the dipper is fairly careful, his helper can keep
quite clean, but many dippers scatter the glaze badly b}^ shaking the
ware as they bring it out, and girls are often splashed with glaze
from head to foot. They wear caps to protect their hair, sometimes,
but they can not protect their faces. The taker-off sponges the foot
of the dipped w7are and then places it carefully on boards to dry.
The gatherer piles together the glazed and sponged ware after it is
dry and places the piles on boards for the glost-kiln men to carry
away. This gatherer has a much dustier task than has the sponger,
but as the work is arranged in most dipping rooms all the people in
the room are exposed to the dust raised by any one of them.
The smallest ware, the individual butter plates, can not be sponged
as the other wTare is, because the pieces are so light that each one
would have to be held in place or it wrould be pushed about by the
sponge. Therefore these pieces have to be finished dry by the kiln
men in Trenton, by the takers-off and gatherers in East Liverpool.
The girls wait until a large number of butter plates have accumulated
and then rub them, bottom side down, on a piece of rough flannel or
LEAD PO ISO N IN G IN PO TTERIES, T ILE W ORKS, ETC.
55884° —
12----2
B U L L E T IN OF T H E BUREAU OF LABOR.
18
carpet tacked to a board. Sometimes only the gatherer does this,
sometimes both girls. Usually the work does not need to be done
every day. It is looked upon as dangerous because it is so very dusty.
These girls also clean the boards on which the dipped ware is
carried. Usually they do it by sponging, but sometimes a girl pounds
the board against the floor or wall to shake the dust off. The clean
ing of the glaze room is also the work of these girls, and is danger
ous or not according to the care with which it is done. Some dip
pers are very particular to make the girls wet the floor thoroughly
before sweeping and will not allow them to begin till the day’s work
is over. Others are indifferent and let the girls sweep any time
they choose, perhaps during the noon hour, and they admit that the
sprinkling of the floor is done perfunctorily. The girls bring their
mid-morning lunch to the dipping room and eat it there, though they
prefer to go into the biscuit room to eat. They always eat in their
dipping clothes, and it is common talk that the girls are careless
about washing their hands before lunch, but this is perhaps not to
be wondered at inasmuch as it is exceptional to find in any factory
provision for washing except with cold water.
The presence of these girl helpers is said by the dippers to be a
distinct disadvantage, not only to themselves but to the men work
ing in the room, for they stir up so much glaze dust with their skirts
as they pass to and fro over the floor. The mother of one of these,
girte said that she could always shake glaze dust from her daughter’s
skirt and petticoat when she came home.
WORK OF GLOST-KILN MEN.
In the sanitary-ware potteries of Trenton, and in the general-ware
potteries of East Liverpool, the glost-kiln men simply place the
glazed ware in saggers, and therefore the only exposure to lead comes
from getting their hands smeared with the glaze. But in the gen
eral-ware potteries of Trenton the glost-kiln men must take up each
piece and smooth or finish it by rubbing off the excess of glaze from
the foot of the ware on a sort of band, or apron, of rough muslin
which they wear around the waist for this purpose. This apron soon
becomes filled with dust, and the air around the glost kiln where this
work is done is always contaminated with lead dust. The men them
selves recognize that this is dangerous and that wet finishing is bet
ter, but the assigning of this work to the glost-kiln men instead of
to the dippers’ helpers, who would have to do it if it were done wet, is
a thing of long standing in the Trenton district and could not be
changed without disturbing the very elaborate piecework system now
in force. It is, however, quite within the power of the men to insist
on this change if they care to, as was done in August, 1911, by the
Digitized forglost-kiln
FRASER men of East Liverpool.
LEAD PO ISO N IN G IN PO TTERIES, TILE W ORKS, ETC.
19
Placing the glazed ware in saggers to be fired, and finishing" it
when finishing is done, is carried on in the space directly beside the
kiln or kilns, and therefore the work is often hot, but ventilation is
almost always sufficient during the time the men are placing the ware.
As no glaze drops on the floor, the question of cleanliness is not so
important here as in the dipping room. Glost-kiln men have, if
anything, even less adequate washing facilities than dippers. They
also usually eat a mid-morning lunch in the room in which they are
working, with unwashed hands. They wear overalls and when they
quit work they look well washed and free from dust, but this is only
superficially apparent. Some of them say that they only rinse
their hands at the factory and wait till they get home for a real
cleansing.
The hours in these factories are not long and the dippers and kiln
men usually leave work by 4 o’clock in the afternoon. They work
rapidly, but their speed is very much a matter of their own regu
lation.
COLOR WORK.
Decoration used to he a dangerous process in the potteries when
ground laying and tinting were more generally clone, but the change
in popular taste, leading to a demand for clearly defined patterns on
white ground, has done away with much of this work. There is more
decoration clone in East Liverpool than in Trenton, owing to the
character of the ware. Decalcomania and printing may be ignored
in this inquiry, leaving as the only branches to be considered the
grinding and sifting of colors, ground laying, tinting, and hand
painting. The hand painters use lead colors, but in an oily medium,
and apply them with a brush, so they run no risk if they use the
most ordinary care. On the other hand, the preparation of colors,
tinting, and ground laying are recognized as decidedly dangerous.
The preparation of colors is usually done by one skilled man, the
foreman, in a separate room. Ground laying is still clone occasion
ally, but was seen only in one place visited. It consists in dusting
dry colors on a prepared surface by means of pads of cotton. The
color sticks to the prepared part of the ware and is wiped off from
the edges with clean cotton.
Tinting has almost taken the place of ground lajdng now. It was
seen in almost every pottery in East Liverpool, and in some of the
general-ware potteries in Trenton, but in several of them so little
tinting is clone that one man can do all the work of three or four
plants. In tinting, the colors are applied in a spray, driven through
an atomizer by compressed air. This is the process spoken of in
British reports as “ color blowing.” The wTare is held under a hood
at the back of which is an electric fan, fixed in a flue or a hole in the
Digitized wall,
for FRASER
which communicates with the outside air. If this fan exerts
B U L L E T IN OF T H E BUREAU OF LABOK.
20
the proper amount of suction, and if the spray is not driven with too
much force through the atomizer, and if the hood is deep enough to
allow the ware to be held a little distance from the tinter, the dangers
of the work have been minimized as much as possible. These condi
tions are not always met. In some factories if one stands at one side
of the tinter so as to be able to see between him and the hood, a fine
spray of color can be seen blowing back over his person. This is
especially true if he is tinting the side of a large object, such as a
pitcher or basin. Tinters were seen whose aprons were covered with
the -color they were using. This work is done by both men and
women and is regarded by them as rather dangerous, though the em
ployers believe that they have eliminated all possible risks. Our lists
contain eight cases of lead poisoning among decorators in two years’
time—five women and three men. The English experts call attention
to the greater risk run by nearsighted color blowers and ground
layers, who must hold their heads close to their work. They advise
against allowing nearsighted people to do this sort of work.
Tinting used to be much more common in American potteries and
was done without any attempt to protect the men. There is a night
watchman in Trenton who has had to take up that occupation be
cause he has a most persistent double wrist palsey. Fifteen years ago
he was a tinter, and did his work, without any protective device for
carrying off the lead dust, in a room where numbers of other people
were employed, some tinting, many doing other work. He can recall
the names of five fellow workmen, all dead now, though none was
over 40 years old. Two died with acute lead poisoning, the others
had the chronic form. Workmen who were not decorators were often
poisoned by the dust that flew about the room.
WORKERS IN WHITE-WARE POTTERIES.
There are 46 dippers in the Trenton district and 85 in Salem and
the East Liverpool district, which includes Chester and Newell,
W. Va. In Trenton the kiln men number 392, but this includes the
men employed on both biscuit and glost kilns. It was impossible to
ascertain the exact number of men working on glost kilns in Trenton
because in many factories kiln men are shifted back and forth be
tween the biscuit and the glost kilns. In East Liverpool, where this
custom does not obtain, there are 300 glost-kiln men, and if the
same proportion of glost-kiln men to dippers exists in Trenton as in
East Liverpool, there should be something over 150 men employed in
that department in Trenton at any one time.
These men are, almost without exception, of American, British, or
German parentage. Some of them were born in England and learned
the trade there. They are well organized and the National Brother
Digitized forhood
FRASER
of Operative Potters has a voice in determining the conditions
21
under which work is done in these potteries. These men are intelli
gent, skilled, well paid, and they have a high standard of living.
All of them are familiar with the risks of their work and know that
personal cleanliness is of great importance in the avoidance of lead
poisoning. To all appearances they are fairly careful to get rid of
the lead glaze when they quit work. Some of them are, however,
rather reckless in the matter of eating lunch and handling chewing
tobacco with glaze on their hands.
Inquiry into the length of employment of the men in these branches
showed the following: One hundred and nineteen dippers averaged
a little less than 18 years’ employment; 50, or 42 per cent, had worked
more than 20 years; 200 glost-kiln men averaged 14|- years’ employ
ment; 1 63, or 31.5 per cent, had worked more than 20 years. Con
sidering that this is a well-paid industry and that most men enter it
before the age of 20, the average length of time that they remain in
it seems surprisingly short.
The dippers’ helpers in sanitary-ware potteries are usually of the
same class as the dippers and are learning the dipper’s trade. In
the potteries making general ware they are boys, less often girls,
still more rarely women. They are often from a poorer class than
the dippers; some of them come from Slavic and Italian families,
with a lower standard of cleanliness and poorer living conditions.
These boys and girls are said to be careless about washing away the
lead before lunch, which many of them eat on the premises. They
are notoriously unsteady and there is a general complaint of the im
possibility of keeping these young helpers for any length of time.
One employer said that his boys left every two weeks, and some of
the dippers said that they did not trouble to learn their helpers’
names for they were always coming and going. In conversation with
dippers, one learns that many of these boys drop out because they
are affected by the lead. They all know what lead poisoning means,
and when they begin to feel ill they leave. It is said to be easy for a
boy to find other work in Trenton.
The women and girls in the glaze rooms in East Liverpool number
about 135. While the men in the trade are well organized, earn good
wages, live comfortably, and are sure of employment, the women are
unorganized, their living conditions are very inferior, their pay is
low, and they have no secure tenure of their position. Many are
widows or separated from their husbands and with children to sup
port; others are young girls from the country, especially from West
Virginia, who are boarding or doing light housekeeping. They earn
$1.10 per day, and of that they pay from $3 to $4 a week for board
and lodging; $3 is the very lowest for which it can be obtained, and
LEAD PO ISO N IN G IN PO TTERIES, T ILE W ORKS, ETC.
1 The Report of the New Jersey Bureau of Labor Statistics for 1889 gives the average
men as 14| years.
of work for 297 kiln
Digitized years
for FRASER
B U L L E T IN OF T H E BUREAU OF LABOR.
22
this does not include a place to do their laundry, so they have to pay
for that too. Physicians say that a country girl who goes into the
glaze room very soon loses her color and becomes strikingly anemic,
and the only thing that saves these girls from serious forms of lead
poisoning is that they understand the danger of the work and usually
give it up after one attack. Plowever, there is very little opportunity
in East Liverpool for such a girl to work in any place except a pot
tery, and if she leaves the glaze room it is only to go into one of the
other departments, most of which are dusty and unhealthful; so that
the advice given by physicians to a girl to change her occupation can
only be followed to a limited extent. On the whole, the women and
girl helpers do not stay very long in the glaze rooms. Forty-three
of them averaged only two and one-half years’ employment. Most of
the physicians and /workmen interviewed said that the employment
of girls and women in the glaze rooms was the worst feature of the
industry in East Liverpool.
The unskilled laborers employed in those parts of the potteries
where lead is handled are the odd men in the mixing room and those
who sweep the floor of the glost-kiln room, rarely of the glaze room.
These men are usually Slavs or Italians. They do not belong to
the Brotherhood of Operative Potters. They are continually being
shifted from place to place in the pottery or from one pottery to
another. Often they do not know that they are handling stuff that
is poisonous, and they are not told to take any particular precaution.
NUMBER AND DISTRIBUTION OF EMPLOYEES.
The following shows the number of persons comprised in this
study of the Trenton and East Liverpool fields:
NUMBER OF WORKPEOPLE IN TRENTON AND EAST LIVERPOOL WHITE-WARE
POTTERIES, BY OCCUPATION.
Occupation.
Dippers...............................................................................................................................
Dippers’ helpers:
Men and boys.............................................................................................................
Women and girls.......................................................................................................
Glost-kiln men .................................................................................................................
T inters:
Men .............................................................................................................................
Women.........................................................................................................................
Odd men.............................................................................................................................
T otal........................................................................................................................
U nion Esti
records. mated. Total.
132
464
£96
75
135
20
15
105
350
132
75
135
464
20
15
105
946.
GLAZING AND DECORATING OF ART AND UTILITY WARE.
COMPARISON OF CONDITIONS OF WORKERS IN ART AND UTILITY WARE
POTTERIES AND IN WHITE-WARE POTTERIES.
It has seemed best to take up under a separate head the making
of
yellow ware, Rockingham, and the so-called “ art and utility
23
ware,” which means earthenware decorated with colored glazes or
with colors applied under or oyer the glaze. These branches of the
pottery industry are carried on under conditions quite different in
many ways from those described in the section on wdiite ware. In
the United States the National Brotherhood of Operative Potters
has organized the workers in the white-ware potteries, and these men
make good wages and have a voice in controlling the conditions
under which their work is done. The making of cheap yellow ware
and of the dark-brown ware known as Rockingham is not strictly
in this class. In East Liverpool this ware is in some instances made
in one department of a white-ware pottery, and as it was impossible
to separate the cases of lead poisoning among the makers of this class
of ware from the others of East Liverpool, all the pottery workers in
this district have been counted together as white-ware workers.
The making of Rockingham and yellow ware is a diminishing in
dustry. In former years there was a great deal made in East Liver
pool, but now there is not much. Three potteries still make it, em
ploying 3 to 5 dippers and 10 to 12 kiln men, but only 2 of them were
operating at the time this inquiry was made. Yellow ware and Rock
ingham are made from brown clays, and the glaze used is much richer
in lead than the glaze for white ware, usually containing 40 to 50 per
cent of a mixture of white and red lead. One advantage, however,
is that, as this ware is cheap, no sponging or rubbing of the glaze is
done, which means that the glaze needs less handling and that girls
are not employed in the dipping room.
The Zanesville district, including Crooksville and Roseville, is
the center for art and utility ware potteries, and some yellow ware
and Rockingham is also made there. The art ware, consisting of
vases, bowls, jardinieres, pedestals, spittoons, pitchers, etc., is much
of it “ single-fire ” ware, and the glaze contains a great deal of lead.
The decoration is sometimes done with colored glaze (majolica), or
colors are applied under or over the glaze. Included in this section
is one factory making white ware, since it makes also art ware and
employs the same class of labor and pays the same rate of wages as
the others.
LEAD PO ISO N IN G IN PO TTERIES, T IL E W ORKS, ETC.
GREATER, DANGER IN ART AND UTILITY WARE POTTERIES.
There is a very different state of things found in these potteries
from that found in East Liverpool and Trenton, both as to the kind
of work done and as to the character of the workpeople. Mixing is
more dangerous in these potteries because large amounts of colored
glazes rich in lead must be prepared. One pottery employs no less
than 10 men in the mill room, and uses a glaze containing 50 per
cent of white lead.
24
B U L L E T IN OF T H E BUREAU OF LABOR.
COMPOSITION OF THE GLAZES.
The following are the proportions of lead in the glazes said to be
used in seven art potteries:
PROPORTION OF LEAD IN GLAZES USED IN 7 ART POTTERIES.
Establishments.
No 1 ..........................................................
No. 2 ..........................................................
No 3
...............................................
No. 4...............................................................
Per cent
of lead
in glaze
used.
Establishments.
50 No. 5..............................................................
33J No. 6.....................................................
20 No. 7..............................................................
40
Per cent
of lead
in glaze
used.
10-20
50
15
The dippers are not engaged in dipping only. Some must also do
the finishing, either sponging the ware or scraping the glaze off
after it has partly dried, an operation which is known as “ fettling.”
In one pottery there was an ingenious arrangement for finishing.
Each dipping tub had a scrubbing brush fastened to the edge and as
the dipper brought his ware up from the glaze he passed it, bottom
side down, over the brush, to remove the excess of glaze. Other
dippers spend part of their time laying on colors or colored glazes
with paint brushes. One woman dipper was seen who dipped the
lower part of the ware in the colored glaze. She was said to be
“ blending,” not dipping, technically. There were 34 men dippers
and 1 woman in the 7 potteries studied, and there were 2 boys and 6
girls engaged in fettling or sponging.
The decorating department of an art pottery is very important
and really spreads over into the dipping department. Ground laying was not seen, but there is a great deal of tinting or color spray
ing, a description of which has been given in the section on white
ware. Thirty-two men tinters and nine women were employed in
the 7 factories studied. Seven men and 23 women were engaged in
hand painting. The decorating by dipping is done by the dip
pers. Of the four potteries in which tinting is done, three were
in a condition to be inspected; the other was not at the time using
this kind of decoration. None of the three had all their hoods pro
vided with proper exhausts, and in two there w^ere no curtains at
the sides of the hoods, so that undoubtedly the lead color which was
sprayed over the ware escaped into the room and was a danger not
only to the tinters, but to the other workers, for the tinting machines
are not in a separate room.
Art and utility potteries, even when kept as clean as possible, are
more dangerous than white-ware and sanitary potteries, because the
glaze is rich in lead and because there is a great deal of tinting done.
25
LEAD PO ISO N IN G IN PO TTERIES, T IL E W ORKS, ETC.
NUMBER AND DISTRIBUTION OF EMPLOYEES.
The following are the numbers employed in these seven plants:
NUMBER OF WORKPEOPLE IN YELLOW WARE ANI) ART AND UTILITY WARE
FACTORIES, BY SEX AND OCCUPATION.
Occupation.
Mixers.......................................................................................................................
Dippers.................................... ...............................................................................
Kiln men.................................................................................................................
Fettlers....................................................................................................................
Hand painters.........................................................................................................
Tinters.....................................................................................................................
Total..............................................................................................................
Male.
19
34
72
2
7
32
166
Female.
1
6
23
9
39
Total.
19
35
72
8
30
41
205
It must be remembered that the lead that enters into the compo
sition of the glaze is not the only lead used, for the colors put on by
painting and spraying also contain varying quantities of lead.
Fifteen of the men in the glaze room of these potteries averaged
two and one-half years’ employment.
GLAZING AND DECORATING OF WALL, FLOOR, ART, AND ROOF TILES.
NUMBER OF PLANTS STUDIED.
The processes used in the glazing and decorating of tiles are more
like those found in the potteries justdescribed than in the sanitary
and general ware potteries. Here we have, as in the making of art
and utility ware, an unorganized trade employing women and young
men at a low wage in work which requires the use of glazes rich in
lead.
The potteries in which lead-glazed tiles are made and which form
the subject of this study are situated in Trenton, N. J., Zanesville,
Ohio, Newell, W. Va., Covington and Newport, Ky., Indianapolis,
Ind., and Chicago, 111. Eleven of these were visited, but in one
permission was refused to inspect more than a small part of the
factory. All make colored tiles and all but four make both white
and colored. In two of them the output of white tiles constitutes 90
per cent of the whole.
COMPOSITION OF GLAZES.
What is true of mixing the glaze in art and utility potteries is
true of mixing in tile works, most of which require a great variety
of glazes and use large amounts of lead, only two establishments
reporting the use of a glaze with as little as 5 per cent, all the other
glazes containing 20 per cent ©r more, the amount even running to
60 per cent m 4 establishments. In the ] 1 establishments making
BULLETIN" OF T H E BUREAU OF LABOR.
26
glazed tiles included in this report the following statements were
made as to the amount of white lead entering into the composition of
the glazes used:
No. 1. Information refused by officials; workmen say 10 to 15
per cent in white; more than twice as much in colored.
No. 2. White, 5 per cent; colored, 40 to 50 per cent.
No. 3. White, 5 per cent; colored, 30 per cent.
No. 4. 20 to 60 per cent.
No. 5. 30 per cent, colored only.
No. 6. 20 per cent red lead.
No. 7. 60 per cent, colored only.
No. 8. 60 per cent, colored only.
No. 9. Information refused. Colored glaze chiefly.
No. 10. White, 20 to 30 per cent; colored, 60 per cent. Part of
the lead is fritted.
No. 11. 20 per cent, colored only.
DESCRIPTION” OF PROCESSES.
The mixers are alwTays men, and usually only 1 or 2 are employed
in each factory. Sixteen mixers were found in the 11.factories.
White tiles are dipped in a glaze less rich in lead than that used
for colored tiles. Several methods of dipping are used—hand dip
ping, pouring, and machine dipping. In hand dipping the tile does
not need to be immersed in the glaze, for only one side is glazed, and
the dippers’ hands do not become smeared, as in pottery dipping.
In pouring the glaze on small tiles, a number of them are placed on
a sloping surface which drains into the dipping tub when the glaze
is poured over them. Larger tiles, such as roof tiles, are held one by
one over the dipping tub while the glaze is poured over. 'One end of
the roof tile is left unglazed because the tile above is to lap over it,
and the dipper holds the tile by this end, so if he is careful he can
keep his hands perfectly clean. The disadvantage of the pouring
method is that a great deal of glaze runs over the edges of the tiles
and must be scraped or brushed away by hand.
More common than the pouring method for wall tiles is machine
dipping, and this is much the safer way, for no handwork is required
except to place the tiles on the traveling belt of the dipping machine
and take them off after they have passed over the glaze. There is
no splashing from such machines and no scraping or brushing off
is needed, because the machine applies the glaze with perfect even
ness. This machine dipping is the least dangerous work done in the
glaze department of a tile works, and if it* weise carried on in a room
separate from the hand dipping and the finisfolilg rt would be attended
writh very little risk to the workpeople. Such a separation of
safe from dangerous processes was not seeh in any
Digitized forcomparatively
FRASER
27
factory visited. Even when all the white ware is glazed in a separate
room there is still hand dipping and finishing in this same room, as
well as the machine work, because the irregularly shaped white tiles,
the border and cornice pieces (known to the workmen as “ shapes ”)
are always dipped and finished by hand, not by machine.
Finishing is done in two ways. The glaze that runs down over
surfaces where it is not needed may be scraped off with an instrument
like a palette knife—a process known as “ fettling 55—or it may be
brushed off with a stiff brush. Now, if it is scraped off before it has
had time to dry completely, there need not be much dust. There will
always be some, because the scraped-off glaze falls on the table or
on the floor and dries. The English experts recommend that all
scraping of glazed ware be done over a trough of water, while the
glaze is still damp, and such precautions would be of immense service
in cur tile works. As it is, tiles are often kept over night or even
over Sunday before they are scraped, and the girl and boy u fettlers,”
as they are called, scrape and blow away a fine powTdery glaze con
taining sometimes as much as 60 per cent white lead, which settles
on their clothes and hair, and can be seen even in their nostrils.
They are, of course, not the only ones who suffer from this dust, as
all the others working in the same room, no matter how harmless
their occupation, must breathe this lead-laden air.
Brushing is not a common way of finishing, fortunately, but it is
sometimes done, and apparently it is left to the finisher to decide
which method she will use. The work is usually paid for by the
piece, and some women said they could work faster with the brush,
while the majority preferred a fettle. In one tile works, the worst
of all seen, the work of glazing and finishing is carried on in the
same room as all the other processes, from pressing to firing. At
the end of the day all the workpeople sweep and brush the floor and
tables where they are working, and do this without any preliminary
sprinkling. The result is vast clouds of dust, which fill the air so
that one can hardly see, and from which the people emerge powTdered
like millers.
Colored tile glazing is done almost entirely by hand, though plain
colors may be put on by machine. The hand clipping is usually
done by men, the fettling by women and girls, but in some cases the
latter also dip. What has been said of the finishing of vdiite tiles
applies to the finishing of colored also. In one factory a very
dangerous kind of glazing vras seen. It was desired to apply a
colored glaze to a tile, the body of vdiich was too hard to absorb
much liquid, so liquid glaze was first brushed over the surface of the
tiles, which lay spread out on a table, and then dry colored glaze was
sifted over this moist surface. Of course the powdered glaze, con
taining 60 per cent white lead, floated in the air and spread through
LEAD PO ISO N IN G IK PO TTERIES, T ILE W ORKS, ETC.
B U L L E T IN OF T H E BUREAU OF LABOR.
28
the room where ail the other glaze workers were employed. In two
other factories artistic tiles were painted by hand with colored glazes
and finished by scraping and brushing by the men who did the
painting.
Tiles decorated with mottled color, called onyx tiles, must be
treated twice, first with a harder glaze which forms the background,
and then with a softer glaze of a contrasting color, which is sprinkled
on. In many tile works the second glaze is dabbed on with balls of
cotton soaked in the colored glaze. This work may be done by either
men or women. The onyx-tile worker gets his hands covered with
colored glaze and splashes it over his apron and the table. In some
places another method of mottling still obtains. The tiles, covered
with the first glaze by pouring, are spread out on a table, a man takes
a pailful of the colored glaze, and, scooping it up in his hand, sends
it scattering over the table. Such a way of handling lead glaze needs
no comment.
Onyx work is carried on in the same rooms with other less dan
gerous work. In one factory the sprinkling process just described
was done in the same room with all the glazing. In another it was
done in a general room in which were the kilns, and three 11-year-old
boys wrere working there at the time as kiln drawers’ helpers.
Placing the glazed ware in saggers for the kilns is carried on
sometimes in a separate room, and is then attended with little risk
from dust, but this is the exception, not the rule. Usually the girls
and boys who tend the machine and fettle also place, and the work
is done in the same room. Sometimes the kiln men do the placing,
but this is unusual.
NUMBER AND DISTRIBUTION OF EMPLOYEES.
This is an approximately correct statement of the distribution of
workpeople in the glaze departments of the 11 tile works.
NUMBER OF WORKPEOPLE IN TILE WORKS, BY SEX AND OCCUPATION.
Occupation.
Mixers.......................................................................................................................
Hand dippers..........................................................................................................
Machine dippers.....................................................................................................
Fettlers and hrushers............................................................................................
Placers ....................................................................................................................
Onyx tile workers..................................................................................................
Hand decorating.....................................................................................................
Total...............................................................................................................
Male.
20
54
17
5
25
8
9
133
Female.
36
42
58
55
12
1
204
Total.
20
90
59
63
80
20
10
342
Twenty-five men tile workers averaged a little over three years’
employment ; 31 women averaged a little less than three years.
LEAD PO ISO N IN G IK PO TTERIES, T ILE W O RK S, ETC.
29
SANITARY CONDITIONS IN POTTERIES AND TILE WORKS.
WHITE-WARE POTTERIES.
The white-ware potteries of New Jersey, Ohio, West Virginia, and
Pennsylvania are subject to no special rules of sanitation, but simply
come under the general State laws governing factories and work
shops. There is a remarkable uniformity in these establishments so
far as the almost complete lack of hygienic regulations is concerned.
A few are better than the majority because they are newer and more
spacious; others stand out in contrast because they are under the
charge of very careful foremen, who will not tolerate dust, but for the
most part what is said of one pottery would apply to all. The pro
visions required by law in England and Germany for the protection
of potters against lead poisoning are not found in our country.
Washing facilities consist of small sinks with one or two faucets of
cold water. Hot water is very rarely provided; soap and towels
never. Often the glost-kiln men must go to the dipping room to
wash, for they have no sink provided for them. There are no lockers
to keep clothes, which must hang anywhere, sometimes on the walls
of the dipping room. There is no lunch room and no place provided
for the people to store their lunches away from the dust. The girls
in the dipping room often go into the biscuit warehouse to eat their
lunches, but sometimes this is against the rules and they are obliged
to eat in the glaze room. It is needless to say that no medical care
is given the employees of any pottery. If there is a physician
attached to the plant, he is called on for accident cases only or to
give emergency care to a case of violent colic or convulsions occur
ring on the premises.
The sweeping is a quite unnecessary danger. In the glost-kiln
room the kiln men insist that the odd man who does the sweeping
shall either wet the floor thoroughly before he sweeps, or wait until
they have gone before he begins, but in the mixing room and the
dipping room there is often very little care shown. The girl helpers
hurry through their sweeping with a perfunctory preliminary sprin
kling, and the dipper often contents himself with insisting that they
shall wait till he has gone, though some dippers do compel their girls
to do the wrork carefully. The only safe way would be to flush the
floors with a hose, but this is never done.
The men wear overalls or old trousers and shirts, which they leave
in the pottery when they have finished work. The women and girls
usually put on old skirts and waists, but they often keep on their
petticoats, and their street clothes may be left hanging in the dipping
room. Not half of them protect their hair by wearing caps, and
those who act as helpers for careless dippers get glaze splashed on
B U L L E T IN OF T H E BUREAU OF LABOR.
30
their faces and hair, while the girls who gather together the glazed
pieces almost always show white dust on their hair and in their
nostrils.
ART AND UTILITY WARE POTTERIES.
What has been said of the white-ware potteries applies also to
those making “ art and utility ” ware, only the lack of sanitary con
trol is even a more serious evil in these potteries because the glaze
contains so much more lead. Unfortunately, in those very potteries
where the most dangerous glaze is used, a very low standard of
cleanliness is often found. Indeed, the cleanest and most carefully
managed pottery of the seven art pottery works visited is the one
which uses the smallest amount of lead. In this pottery the dipping
room has a cement floor and it is sprinkled before being swept. It
is by far the cleanest dipping room that was seen, but in this same
pottery the decorating room has a dusty wooden floor, and one of
the hoods over a tinting apparatus had so poor an exhaust that clouds
of the spray came back into the room. In another of these potteries
there is a careful foreman wdio keeps the dust in the dipping room
down to a minimum, but the weighing and mixing of the glaze is
done at one end of the dipping room. A third factory is new and
clean, but the remaining four, employing some 150 persons in glaz
ing and decorating, are dusty, dangerous places. In two of them
there is not even so simple a precaution as wet sweeping. Not one of
the seven provides a room for the keeping and eating of lunches,
only one provides hot water, none furnish soap and towels, and none
have proper lockers for the workpeoples’ clothes.
The worst one is described as follows: This is a crowded, illventilated, neglected place with very dusty wooden floors. There
are piles of dust in the corners and on the stairways, and the windows
and walls are coated with it. Dipping and decorating with colors
and colored glazes are done here, there, and everywhere at the ends
of passages or in corners of rooms where other work is being carried
on. There is no attempt to separate dangerous from safe work.
The exhaust in the tinting machine is not strong enough. Lunches
are kept and eaten anywhere. There is no provision for street clothes,
and cold water only is provided. All the glaze used contains 50 per
cent white lead. Thirty-three employees handle glaze or colors.
This factory yielded the largest number of cases of lead poisoning.
TILE WORKS.
In tile factories also there is no sanitary control of the glaze rooms,
and because of the large amount of “ fettling,” i. e., scraping or brush
ing dry glaze, these are perhaps the dustiest of all. A sink with only
cold wxater for washing, and a rule, often unenforced, that water shall
be
sprinkled on the floors before they are swept, are the only attempts
made
in most places against the very real dangers from glaze dust.
31
The street clothes often hang on the walls of the workrooms. Women
workers often go home in the skirts they have worn all day, covered
with a long coat to hide the white dust. Caps to protect the women’s
hair are an exception. Lunches are tucked away in any convenient
place and eaten wherever it is comfortable. In one of the best of
these plants 15 girls were found eating their lunch at the dipping
tables for onyx tiles. Hot wTater, soap, and towels are never pro
vided. The sweeping must be done by the men and girls after work
is over. The floors are rarely if ever washed really clean, and most
of them are white with the accumulated dust of years.
A reference to the section in the appendix on sanitary regulations
in the British potteries would suggest that there is much more lead
poisoning in this trade in our country than over there, for all the
provisions for the prevention of lead poisoning which in this country
are neglected have been made compulsory in Great Britain. The re
sults of the different policies followed by these two countries can be
seen in our records of lead poisoning as compared with British
records.
LEAD PO ISO N IN G IN PO TTERIES, T IL E W ORKS, ETC.
PORCELAIN ENAMELING OF IRON SANITARY WARE.
NUMBER OF PLANTS STUDIED.
The making of porcelain enameled iron sanitary ware, such as
bathtubs, sinks, basins, etc., with a lead enamel is a very large in
dustry in the United States. This report does not cover all the
factories in which such work is done, but it covers the 5 largest in
the country, 2 medium-sized plants, and 3 smaller ones. At the time
the inquiry was made there were strikes in two factories, and these
places were not open to inspection. These 10 factories are in Chi
cago, 111.; Sheboygan, Wis.; Louisville, Ky.; Chattanooga, Tenn.;
Salem, Ohio, Allegheny, Monaca, Zelienople, and New Brighton, Pa.;
and Trenton, N. J. Altogether they employ between 1,000 and 1,100
men in the preparation and application of lead enamel. These men
are the ones who mix the enamel, grind and sift it, the ones who
spread it on the ware, and the helpers and foremen.
COMPOSITION OF ENAMEL USED.
The cast-iron bathtubs, sinks, and basins, which have been
roughened by sand blasting, are first given a coat called the “ slush,”
or “ ground ” coat, to fill the pores of the iron, to make the enamel
adhere to it and to bring together the expansion coefficient of iron and
enamel. This slush contains small quantities only of lead. In
several factories the slush was said to be quite free from lead, in
others to contain less than 1 per cent. One sample that was analyzed
contained one-sixth of 1 per cent. The slush coat is always applied
in
form.
Digitized forliquid
FRASER
B U L L E T IN OF T H E BUREAU OF LABOR.
32
The enamel used on sanitary ware is a lead glaze consisting of
silicates, borates, fluorides, alkalies, usually both soda and potash, in
troduced, in part, as feldspar, carbonates or nitrates; alkaline earths,
calcium, magnesium and barium oxide; and the oxides of tin, zinc,
and lead. These are fused to a liquid and run out from the oven into
cold water, which causes it to harden into feathery masses known as
the “frit.” After drying the frit is ground and sifted, and is ready
for use. The lead content of this glaze depends partly on the pecu
liarities of the ware, partly upon the prejudices of the users (many
chemists say that more lead is generally used than is really re
quired). On the theory that lead is the element giving elasticity
to the enamel, it is customary to add less lead to an enamel which is
to cover an even surface, where expansion and contraction will be
evenly distributed, and more to an enamel which is used over rims
or projections, where there will be unequal expansion requiring
greater elasticity. A commercial chemist of many years’ experience
says that the lead in an enamel for sanitary ware seldom runs below
5 per cent or over 25 per cent, but that he has found enamels in use
containing as little as 2.9 per cent.
As a rule, questions about the quantity of lead in the enamel are
evaded by the managers of these plants, but four of them gave the
following:
No. 1: 6 to 8 per cent litharge in mixture A; no lead in mix
ture B ; 55 to 60 per cent of A added to B. Slush coat onefourth per cent litharge.
No. 2: 5 per cent red lead.
No. 3: 5 to 8 per cent red lead.
No. 4: 2 per cent red lead.
These statements applied to the enamel in common use in each
plant. A recent writer on the subject gives the formula of an enamel
which he says is in common use in three factories in the United
States.1 It contains 160 pounds of red lead in melted weight, in 990
pounds melted weight, or 16 per cent. The writer referred to states
that a higher per cent than this is probably used in all plants for
certain kinds of ware.
It is not so important to know how much lead oxide goes into the
mixture as to know what change it undergoes in the fritting process
and what soluble, and therefore poisonous, compounds are present
in the finished enamel. The statement made by managers and com
pany officials in general is alwa}^s to the effect that when the ingredi
ents are fused to form a glaze the lead is changed to the disilicate,
insoluble in the gastric juice, and therefore not poisonous. Accord
ing to Prof. A. V. Bleininger, of the Bureau of Standards, Depart
ment of Commerce and Labor, “ this statement is not true. The
1 Homer F. Staley, The Control of Fusibility
http://fraser.stlouisfed.org/
of American Ceramic Society, Vol. XIII, p. 14.
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis
in Enamels. Reprinted from Transactions
33
disilicate (Pb02Si02) can not be formed in enamels for the simple
reason that there is not enough silica to go around. In fact, Thorpe’s
statement holds quite accurately.” The question as to what actually
happens in this fusion process and what forms of lead exist in the
so-called frit has been gone into very thoroughly in the ThorpeOliver report to Parliament,1 which defines fritted glazes as those
“ in which the whole of the lead has been fritted as a properly com
pounded lead silicate—that is, fritted directly with the other com
ponents of the glaze so as to form a double silicate. * * * Experi
ment shows, however, that much depends upon the nature and com
position of the “ fritted ” lead. * * * The ordinary silicate,
containing about 70 per cent lead oxide, 25 per cent silica, with small
quantities of alumina, lime, magnesia, and alkalies, corresponding
in fact to a crude monosilicate, and which is generally understood as
“ fritted ” lead, is hardly less soluble in acids than basic lead car
bonate [white lead].”
That the fritting process in use in the sanitary ware establishments
in the United States does’not render the lead insoluble is shown by
the following analyses of samples of enamel mixtures made for this
report by the Bureau of Chemistry, Department of Agriculture.
Nos. 6 and 7 are from the same factory.
LEAD PO ISO N IN G IN PO TTERIES, T IL E W O RK S, ETC.
PER CENT OF SOLUBLE LEAD IN SEVEN SAMPLES OF ENAMEL MIXTURES.
Sample Sample Sample Sample Sample Sample Sample
No. 1. No. 2. No. 3. No. 4. No. 5. No. 6. No. 7.
Per cent soluble lead (PbO)
when
exposed
the action
of 0.25 per
cent tohydrochloric
acid for 2 hours (Thorpe test).
9.04
2.55
6.31
8.35
20.4
0.51
10.22
MIXING OF THE ENAMEL.
According to our present knowledge of these enamels we may say
that in grinding, sifting, and applying the enamel, the workmen are
exposed to a dust which contains lead in soluble form, soluble, that is,
in the gastric juice, and probably also in the saliva and the mucus
of the respiratory tract, and in mixing the ingredients for the enamel
the workmen must handle the oxides of lead, which are by many
authorities considered as among the most dangerous of lead com
pounds, and by some as the most dangerous of all because of their
lightness and dustiness.
Mixing is always done in rooms quite separate from the enameling.
The materials which are used, including the lead oxide, are stored in
bins or barrels and handled with shovels. In a well-equipped mixing
room these ingredients fall through a chute from the storage room
1 Report on the Employment of Compounds of Lead in the Manufacture of Pottery, by
T. E. Thorpe and Thomas Oliver, p. 10. Home Office, London, 1899.
55884°— 12--- 3
B U L L E T IN O F T H E BUREAU OF LABOR.
34
into covered bins, which stand in a row along the wall and above
which, at about the height of a man’s head or a foot lower, is placed
a projecting hood with an air exhaust over each bin. A rail runs
along the floor in front of the bins,, and a truck on this rail. The
workman shovels material from each bin into the truck, pushing it
from one bin to the next and opening and closing the air exhaust as
he goes. Such an arrangement was seen in 2 of the 10 factories, but
even in these the mixer was not protected from dust, for the exhaust
was not strong enough to carry it all off, as could be seen by the
deposits on top of the hood and on the wall. This dust may, how
ever, have come from the unprotected chute in the floor, down which
the mixture was sent to the fritting room below. i n only one case
was there a hood over this opening.
In the other factories not even these precautions are taken. In two
of them the ingredients of the glaze are simply thrown on the floor
and there the men mix them by working them back and forth with
hoes and shovels, as dangerous a method as could well be conceived.
In three others the ingredients of the enamel are shoveled into closed
mixers and the mixture is dumped either into a truck or through a
hole in the floor.
The rooms with the fritting furnaces, if they are separate, could
be fairly free from dust, but they are usually dusty because of care
less handling of the dry mixture which comes from the mixing room
and goes into the fritting ovens* Grinding the dry frit is a very
dusty process in one of these factories^ and the evil is added to by the
whirling belts of the machinery, which keeps the dust stirred up all
the time. Walls, furnaces, and men were white with enamel in this
place, and, in addition to the other sources of dust, one man was
shoveling enamel into a truck from a pile on the floor. Even the
stairway leading up from this room was white with dust. In two
other places conditions would have been fair had it not been for
leakage from the mills. One plant had a really clean mill room;
the remaining three were dusty because the powder was handled
carelessly at the chutes coming down from the mixing room or at the
sifters or at the final discharge from the mill. The enamel is usually
kept in closed receptacles until it is needed, for no dust must fall
on it.
In all these processes there is a great deal of unnecessary dust pro
duction. Thus, in the mixing department there is no reason why the
lead should be handled as carelessly as it often is. A properly pro
tected chute from the storage bins to the mixing room, a hood with
a good draft over the bins in the mixing room, and a closed mixer
would lessen the dangers to the men working there. The mill rooms
could be made fairly safe if all the precautions observed in any one
the plants were observed in all. This would mean that the ma
Digitized for of
FRASER
terial
from the mixing room should be dropped into a dust-proof
35
receptacle containing a truck, which truck could then, after the dust
had settled, be wheeled out to the fritting oven. The fritting should
be carried on in a separate room, because there is no reason why the
man here should be exposed to the dust from other rooms. The
covers of the mills and sifters should be dust-proof and should never
be left open. In one factory a mill was found open and discharging
dust, a quite unnecessary source of danger. The finished enamel
should be dropped into trucks with covers and transported in these
to the enameling rooms. In a number of factories the helpers simply
shovel the enamel into pails or into open trucks. The walls, ceilings,
and floors of the mill rooms and mixing rooms should be of such ma
terial as to permit flushing with water. There should be no dry
sweeping or dusting in any of these rooms. The slushers who are
not handling dust should work in a room quite separate from the
enamelers.
ENAMELING.
Enameling is usually carried on in large rooms, wTell built, with
brick or cement floors, high ceilings, ventilated both from the sides
and from the roof, and two factories have in addition hoods with ex
hausts over each furnace. It is the exception to find small, ill-venti
lated enameling rooms. One factory has most of its work done on
the two top floors, with ventilation on four sides. The bathtubs,
sinks, basins, etc., which are to be covered with enamel come from the
sand-blasting department to the slushers, whose duty it is to paint
them over with the “ slush ” or “ ground ” coat. If the room in
which this is done is separated from the enameling room, as it is in
one plant, the work is perfectly harmless, but generally the slushers
work at one end of the enameling room or in a room opening di
rectly into it and full of enamel dust. After the ware has had this
preliminary coat it is handed over to the enameler and his helper,
who put it into the furnace till it is red-hot. Then it is brought
out and placed on a turntable in front of the furnace door. The
helper turns the ware at different angles, while the enameler shakes
the powdered glaze over it. He uses for this purpose a small or
large dredge, according to the size of the ware. The largest are too
heavy to carry and are suspended from the ceiling by a chain. These
large dredges and some of the smaller ones are vTorked by compressed
air or by electricity, a rod inside driving back and forth and shaking
out the powTder, but often the enameler hastens the dredging by
striking the handle of the dredge with a ring placed around it, or
with a rod. The men say that they feel the shocks of the driving rod
in the dredge, and that this makes the use of the larger dredges, with
their strong driving rods, very tiring.
The process of heating and enameling must be repeated several
times,
the ware being returned to the furnace after each coat and
then
brought
out for another coat. Large ware must remain several
http://fraser.stlouisfed.org/
LEAD PO ISO N IN G IN PO TTERIES, T IL E W ORKS, ETC.
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis
B U L L E T IN O F T H E BUREAU OF LABOR.
36
minutes in the furnace, and in this interval the men can go over to
the windows to cool off or sit down and rest. Small-ware work is
more nearly continuous, and it is a question among the men which
is the dustier and more strenuous work. On the one hand, small
ware does not take so much enamel nor so much strength to handle,
but, on the other hand, there are many more pieces to be done.
In putting on the first coat the enameler can stand at a distance
from the ware, at about 4 feet from the small ware and 7 or 8 feet
from large ware, but the last coat must be put on with great care, so
that no uneven places shall remain, and for this the man must come
much closer, as close, indeed, as the heat will allow him to. He often
uses a wooden mask with eye pieces and a projecting handle which
he places between his teeth, and this makes it possible for him to get
closer to the hot ware. His helper is not quite so close to the dredge
as he is, but there is not much difference. After the ware is done it
is gone over by a specially skilled enameler, who looks for the defec
tive spots, and these men may sometimes be seen dusting enamel by
hand over imperfectly covered ware.
BANGERS INVOLVED IN THE WORK.
In the enamel room the one thing that places a limit upon the
accumulation of dust is the fear that it may blow down or be shaken
down from the ceiling or beams and spoil the hot wTare. The one
factory that has its enameling room on the upper floor has to get rid
of the accumulated enamel every week, because the vibration of the
building would shake it down. Other places are not cleaned so often.
This work is done by a laborer from the mill or by an enameler’s
helper; rarely does an enameler take the job. It is excessively dusty
work, for the dust is blown down from ceilings and walls by com
pressed air and swept up from the floor. One manager has the men
use a hose to flood the walls, ceiling, and floor, and he insists that
there is no reason why this method should not be used everywhere.
Another manager, to whom the question was referred, said that water
could be used just as well but the men preferred the dry way. The
only man -interviewed who had ever done this work was a Slavic
enameler, and he was fully convinced as to its danger. He had
agreed to do the work on Sunday to earn some extra money, but he
found that the dust sickened him so that he loathed his food for sev
eral days after and he was obliged to stop because he was losing
strength.
It is the task of the enamelers and their helpers to scrape up the
enamel that falls on the floor from the dredges, because this is clean
and can be used again. The best arrangement for catching it is a
pit or shallow depression in the floor, lined with zinc, which makes
shoveling easy. When this is not provided, a sheet of metal is placed
under
the ware to catch the powder.
LEAD PO ISO N IN G IN PO TTERIES, TILE W ORKS, ETC.
37
WORKERS IN IRON SANITARY WARE FACTORIES.
MILL HANDS.
Compounding enamel is skilled work and must be done by a trained
man, who, if he does not actually handle the materials himself, at
least superintends the work. The formula is always a trade secret,
jealously guarded, which fact sometimes works to the benefit of the
men employed, as, for example, in one plant where the laborers who
do the mixing are shifted frequently to outside work and other men
taken in their places for fear they might learn to know the compo
sition of the enamel. These laborers are always unskilled men, work
ing at the rate of wage which obtains in that place for unskilled
labor. In the South they are Negroes; in the North, Slavs. Some of
them know that they are working with poisonous stuff, because they
have seen men who were affected by it, but others are quite ignorant of
the risks of the work. One American workman was visited during a
severe attack of acute lead poisoning. He had been employed for
only four weeks in a mill room with a leaking mill. He had not
knowm that the millwork was dangerous, though he had known
enamelers to become poisoned. The mill hands may, if they choose,
leave the plant at lunch time. They usually wear old clothes or
overalls, but some work in their undershirts and wear the same shirts
home. They are not a steady class of workmen, but change very
often, some, according to their own account, quitting because the
work makes them sick. It was hard to get information from them
because so few of them understood English. Forty-five who were
questioned had worked from 3 weeks to 10 years in the mill rooms,
but only 16 more than 1 year; 29 had worked less than 1 year.
ENAMELERS.
The enamelers are skilled workmen, earning very good wages.
It was said that with steady work a man might make $1,000 a year,
but slack times, breakdowns, or poor materials bring down his earn
ings until $2 or $2.50 per day throughout the year is considered a
very good average. It is always piecework, and the man’s earnings
depend on the supply of work. In Louisville and Chattanooga the
enamelers are all American; in Salem, New Brighton, and Zelienople
they are Americans and Slavs; in Sheboygan they are Germans, Russians, and Austrians; in Chicago, Pittsburgh, Monaca, and Trenton
they are practically all Slavs, this term including Russians, Poles,
Bohemians, Slovaks, and Croatians. Many of the homes of these
people were visited, and showed evidences of comfort and a high
standard of living. Indeed, it was only in the lodging houses of
some recent immigrants that there seemed to be overcrowding and
Digitizedpoverty.
for FRASER Those who could speak English and German were found to
B U L L E T IN OF T H E BUREAU OF LABOR.
38
be intelligent men, quite able to describe their daily work anck its
effect on their health. The enamelers are usually grown men, but in
two plants the majority looked very young, between 18 and 22 years,
apparently.
According to some of the employers and most of the foremen these
men are heavy drinkers, but nothing was found in the course of the
inquiry to show that there is an unusual degree of intemperance
among them. On discussing instances of lead poisoning the men
would tell whether such and such a case was a heavy drinker or not,
and no attempt was made to gloss over the facts. But the heavy
drinkers do not seem to be numerous among the Americans, nor un
usually so among the Slavs, according to priests and visitors for
charitable associations and Slavic physicians.
It is undoubtedly true that some men begin to drink more heavily
when they feel the first symptoms of lead poisoning, because the
peculiarly disagreeable, sweetish taste so characteristic of this
malady yields to bitter beer more than it does to tea or coffee or
milk. This gives the men the idea that the beer “cuts the lead and
carries it off,” and they sometimes maintain this with entire sincerity
and say they advise the new %men to drink beer as a preventive.
Later on, when appetite is gone and there is a loathing for solid
food, the men bring their lunches home untasted, and depend on
beer. Several of the men’s wives noticed this symptom before their
husbands had begun to realize that they were victims of lead poison
ing. Here there is, of course, a vicious circle, as was pointed out by
Pieraccini,1 the lead poisoning increasing the man’s desire for alco
hol and making him more susceptible to its ravages, and the alcohol
in turn making him more susceptible to the effect of the lead. These
men are skilled workmen and their wages permit them to live well,
so that they are unwilling to leave the trade, yet their working life is
short. Two hundred and fifty men averaged only six years in the
trade.
The work of the enamelers’ helpers is practically the same as that
of the enamelers so far as danger to health is concerned. These
helpers are of two kinds, men who are learning the trade and who
eventually become enamelers, and boys and unskilled foreigners or
Negroes, who are not steady but come and go all the time. Some
times they quit because the lead affects their health, sometimes be
cause they can not stand the heat. In two factories the enamelers
said that they did not even have time to learn their helpers’ names
before they were gone. It is rare to see young boys employed as
helpers; only one factory had them in any number. Nothing definite
can be said as to the home surroundings and mode of life of these
1 Les nevroses professionelles, Proceedings of the International Congress for Industrial
Digitized forHygiene,
FRASERBrussels, 1910.
39
helpers. If they are young Americans learning the trade they may
be well fed and cared for, or they may come from very poor families.
If they are Slavs or Negroes they live as is usual for such people
when they are earning a low wage. Helpers are paid, according to
their own statement, from 75 cents to $1.50 at first; later on they
earn from $2 to $2.50. Sometimes they earn a day wTage with the
addition of a small percentage calculated on the earnings of the
enameler. In other factories the helper does piecework, his rate of
pay being 70 per cent of that of the enameler.
LEAD PO ISO N IN G IN PO TTERIES, T ILE W ORKS, ETC.
NUMBER AND DISTRIBUTION OF EMPLOYEES.
The following is the force employed in the 10 iron sanitary-ware
factories included in this study:
Enamelers__________________________________________________________
900
Mill Rands__________________________________
112
Total____________________________________________________ 1,012
SANITARY CONDITIONS IN ENAMELING WORKS.
There is no law except in Illinois which requires in establishments
using dry lead enamel any precautions for the care of the men other
than those required in a box factory, for instance, or a tailor shop.
The men in the mixing rooms, mill rooms, and enameling rooms have
no place to hang their street clothes away from the lead dust, and
no place to keep or eat their lunch. Several times the wives of these
men spoke of finding white dust in their husbands’ lunch boxes. The
millmen may go out into the yard or go home for lunch, but the
enamelers are doing piecework and lose money if they stop work to
eat. Moreover, the furnaces are running continuously, and the men
are not expected to let them run at a loss to the factory. The mana
gers who were interviewed said that the men were supposed to work
steadily during the six or eight hours of their shift, except for the
necessary pauses while the ware was heating. Consequently these
men either eat no lunch at all—many say that the heat or the enamel
destroys their appetite and they do not care for lunch—or they take
a-^bite now and then while the tubs are heating. Frequently during
the course of this inspection a man would be seen opening his lunch
box and taking out some food, then putting it down anywhere (there
is no dust-free place), and going off to his work, coming back in a
few minutes for the rest of it. Of course, washing the hands and
face before lunch is out of the question here; there is no time for it.
In some factories the drinking water stands in open pails in the
enameling rooms.
If the reader will turn back to the description of the processes used
in
enameling iron sanitary ware (pp. 33-36), he will see that this is
B U L L E T IN OF T H E BUREAU OF LABOR.
40
above all things a dusty trade and that the enamelers and their helpers
are for at least two-thirds of their working time breathing in soluble,
poisonous lead compounds. One must, however, visit the factories
personally to realize how much of this dust there is. In one of the
cleaner enameling rooms the furnaces, which were built out into the
room, were covered with a deposit of more than 2 inches of the finer
enamel dust, which had been carried up by the drafts of air toward
the ceiling, and these 2 inches did not represent a long accumulation,
for the stuff is carefully gathered up every two months. In every
plant visited walls, ceilings, and windows were white with dust, and
in spite of ventilators in the rooms, hoods, and open windows, the air
is always cloudy when vTork is going on. Indeed, the enamel powder,
consisting, as it does, of ground glass, is not light, and an upward
draft carries off only a small part of it, while side drafts simply
blowr it to and fro. It vrnuld seem that a strong down suction would
be the only sort of dust removal at all effective.
The men who handle small ware do not have to make great physical
efforts to get their ware in and out of the furnaces, but handling the
bathtubs requires all the men’s strength, even with the help of the
mechanical appliances found now in all factories. The excessive heat
is exhausting, especially in summer, and more so to the men who are
on large ware than to those on small ware. The men’s wives speak of
their husbands coming home weak and exhausted on warm days, and
soaking wet. In some factories the hours are shortened in summer,
and four shifts are employed instead of three in order to spare the
men and increase the output, for there is often an increased demand
for this kind of ware during the building season, but in other fac
tories the long shift comes during the summer time and the short
shift is introduced when work is slack.
The elements of heat and fatigue bid fair to grow worse in this
trade rather than better, because of the introduction of double fur
naces in place of the single furnaces. These furnaces are kept at a
somewhat lower temperature, so that the enamel does not fuse quite
so quickly, and one man can tend both, for while he is dredging
enamel on one piece of ware the other is heating, and by the time the
first is ready to go into the furnace the second is ready to come out.
This makes his work practically continuous. There are no intervals
here for strolling to the windows for a breath of air or sitting down
to rest. Even when the hours are shortened from eight to six the
man on the double furnace finds his work more exhausting than it
was on the single furnace. It is said that the adoption of these
double furnaces will probably be general.
When the men leave work they have not got rid of the lead dust.
Shower baths are practically unknown. One manager is planning to
Digitized forinstall
FRASERthem and exhibited the architect’s blue prints of a very good
41
“ comfort house.” Another factory takes pride in its shower baths,
but the neglected appearance they presented was explained by the
men who were interviewed and who said that the baths were badly
placed and always out of repair. These were intelligent American
workmen, accustomed to bathing at home. All were obliged to carry
soap and towels to the factory, which furnished nothing but cold
water. So far as soap and towels are concerned this is true of all
10 factories, but in some of them the men can get hot water.
No working clothes or caps are provided. The men usually make
a complete change when they leave work, but this is not always true.
Some of the foreign workmen are said to wear their shirts home, if
not their trousers. In one plant which was visited on a very cold day
the helpers, boys between 14 and 16 years of age, were wearing good,
new sweaters while working, and there can be no doubt that these
same sweaters would be worn in the street and at home.
Even more important than provision for cleanliness is the preven
tion of dust, for no amount of scrupulous washing will save a man
who is obliged to breathe in lead dust. In this respect the 10 fac
tories do differ somewhat, because foremen have different standards,
and while some are slovenly, others are naturally lovers of cleanliness.
One of the 10 factories wTas beautifully clean, partly because it was
very new. The others were of different degrees of dustiness, and in
some dust seemed to be so much a part of the place that no effort at
all was made to keep it down. Yet a great deal could be done to
control the dust without altering the present method of manufacture.
LEAD PO ISO N IN G IN PO TTERIES, TILE W ORKS, ETC.
LEAD POISONING IN POTTERIES.
SOURCES OF INFORMATION.
In attempting to find out how many cases of lead poisoning have
occurred during a given period of time among the workpeople in
these industries, one meets with many difficulties. There was no
regular medical examination of employees in any factory and no
registration of cases of industrial plumbism at the time of this inves
tigation except in Illinois and Wisconsin, where the law had not
been in force long enough to give results of value.1 The records of
the trade-unions are of great assistance, but in this inquiry they
helped only in the case of the dippers and kiln men in white-ware
potteries; the other trades are all unorganized. There was, there
fore, no single trustworthy source of information as to lead poison
ing in these occupations, and all that could be done was to interview
everyone who had any information on the subject, and then sift
the evidence and arrive at an approximate statement of the truth.
Strict accuracy is not claimed for the following figures, either as to
1 These laws were enacted in May and June, 1911. Similar laws were enacted in .1911
Michigan, and New York; in 1912 in New Jersey and
#
Digitized for
in FRASER
California, Connecticut,
Maryland.
B U L L E T IN OF T H E BUREAU OF LABOR.
42
the numbers employed or the numbers poisoned, except in the case
of the potters belonging to the National Brotherhood of Operative
Potters, but it is certain that the figures understate the actual facts.
There were four methods used in collecting the cases of lead poison
ing on our lists. The first, which yielded the largest number of
cases, was to interview the physicians in the town where the plant
was situated. Sometimes the information obtained would be too
vague for use. A great many doctors can not give the names of their
patients, especially when the latter are Slavs with names unfamiliar
and hard to spell. If a physician could make only a general state
ment, such as “ I have seen many cases in the past two years, most
of them foreigners,” he only strengthened the general impression as
to lead poisoning in that plant; he did not add one case to our list.
But if he said, “ I saw four Slovaks last year suffering from lead
colic,” and if later on four Slovaks were found who said that they
had been to this doctor, these men were entered on the lists of cases
accredited to the factory in question, even if the doctor could not
remember their names.
In some cases the doctor could remember the house in which the
man lived or the fact that he had gone into another kind of work or
had left the town, from which information it was possible to make
sure that he was not one of the cases already listed. Fortunately
there are some physicians who speak the languages of their foreign
patients and who can give their names and full particulars about
them, but usually it is much easier to get information about the
Americans than about the foreigners. For instance, in one small
town in which there is a sanitary-ware establishment employing both
Americans and Slavs, 10 cases of lead poisoning were reported by the
doctors from among the American workmen, and probably these were
all the cases that had occurred, because all those who spoke English
in the place knew each other. Only one case cf a Slavic workman
was reported by a doctor and he could not remember the man’s name.
The other doctors had seen Slavs with lead poisoning, but could not
remember any details about them.
In East Liverpool, Trenton, Zanesville, Indianapolis, New
Brighton, Chattanooga, Louisville, Covington, and Newport there are
few or no foreigners employed and the situation is much easier to
handle.
The second source of supply was hospital records, of some value
in the larger cities with a foreign population, but of little value in
most smaller towns, especially if the workmen are Americans. Usu
ally the hospital patients are Slavs or Italians whose families are in
the old country.
The third method of discovering cases was by examining the men.
It
so happened that at the time this inquiry was made two porcelain
43
enameling factories had strikes, one involving only the enamelers,
the other the whole force. These men were quite willing to be ques
tioned and examined, and as they had all been working up to the
moment of the strike there was an opportunity to discover what pro
portion of the working force of a factory are victims of industrial
lead poisoning. A few other cases were seen personally during visits
to the homes of men whose addresses had been furnished by doctors.
Thus, for example, in the home of a Polish enameler who had had a
very bad attack of lead poisoning his young brother-in-law was
found. The latter had been employed for only six months as a helper
and said he was not sick, but examination showed that the lead line
was already present. He admitted that he had become very consti
pated and was losing strength, and his sister testified that he could
not eat his breakfast, nor did he care much for lunch. A woman tile
worker who had had several attacks of lead colic called in her hus
band, who was working in the glaze room at the time, and he also was
found to have the lead line and to be suffering from characteristic
gastric and nervous symptoms. Several of the cases on our pottery
lists were personally examined, as well as the larger number of
enamelers.
The fourth method was to collect information from the men about
fheir own attacks of lead poisoning and about the cases they had
known among their fellow workmen. When the man himself could
be seen it was often easy to determine whether the sickness he had
suffered from was clearly lead poisoning or was dubious. But when
the story was at secondhand it had to be taken with caution and
efforts made to get corroboration from the doctor who had attended
the case. If there was reason for doubt the case was omitted from
the list. For instance, a Croatian enameler was seen who gave a
history of four attacks of “ stomach trouble,” with violent pain and
obstinate constipation. After each attack he quit work, but went
back later on. He was very pale and emaciated and had lost strength,
his mouth was badly inflamed, and, as is often true in that condition,
no lead line could be detected. The case was certainly very sus
picious, but the man was a heavy drinker and his symptoms might
have been caused by alcoholism, so he was rejected as not proved.
LEAD PO ISO N IN G IN PO TTERIES, TILE W ORKS, ETC.
LEAD POISONING IN WHITE-WARE POTTERIES.
This inquiry includes Trenton, JSL J., and the part of Ohio and
West Virginia of which East Liverpool is the center. Trenton is a
city with many trades besides the potteries, and consequently the
people in general are not familiar with what happens in that par
ticular industry, and there are physicians whose practice does not
take them among pottery workers at all. The East Liverpool dis
trict,
however, is practically given up to this one trade and here
44
B U L L E T IN OF T H E BUREAU OF LABOR.
everyone knows about the potteries, either from personal experience
or from common talk, and every doctor has potters and girl helpers
among his patients. For these reasons it was easier to trace cases of
lead poisoning in East Liverpool than in Trenton. It was always
harder to get information about the women and boy helpers and the
unskilled laborers than about the dippers and kiln men, because the
latter are a steady, organized body of workmen, whose names and
addresses can be obtained from the Brotherhood books, who are in
the trade to stay, who know each other, and who, finally, are not
afraid to answer questions inside the pottery even when the manager
is present. On the other hand, the women and boys and the unskilled
laborers are a drifting body of working people, in and out of the
trade all the time. They are unorganized, nobody knows just how
many there are, nobody knows why they drop out of the glazing
room when they do; their addresses, often even their surnames, can
not be learned, and they are timid and distrustful of questions asked
them inside the pottery.
A great deal of information was obtained from union officials, who
cooperated heartily in the investigation, and it is believed that the
information gathered about the dippers and glost-kiln men is fairly
complete. For the cases among the women and girl and boy helpers
and the laborers, inquiry was made of 53 physicians—13 in Trenton,"4
6 in Salem, and 34 in East Liverpool—and visits were paid to the
homes of the people whenever it was possible to secure an address.
Most of the 34 physicians in East Liverpool who were interviewed
said that there was still a great deal of lead poisoning among the
pottery workers in this region, but that there used to be far more
than now, and that the cases now seen were seldom of a serious
character.
In Trenton only one of the 13 physicians who were visited—a
man whose practice was in a large pottery district—said that he still
saw many cases of lead poisoning. The others all said that they
had noticed a decided dropping off of this sort of practice in recent
years, and six had seen no cases at all during the last three years.
They attributed this improvement to the smaller amount of lead used
in the glaze at present (the impression as to this is general, but we
have no proof that it is true), the gradual abandonment of dangerous
kinds of decorating, the increasing improvement in the standard of
living on the part of the workmen, and their increasing sobriety.
LEAD POISONING AMONG MALE EMPLOYEES IN W HITE-W ARE POTTERIES.
To take the men workers first, 60 cases of poisoning were found
occurring in two years’ time among 796 men. Some of these had
left the trade at the time this study was made, and if only those
45
actually working at the time are counted, there are 49 cases out of
796 employed, or 1 for every 16 to 17 employed. These 60 cases fall
under the following heads:
LEAD PO ISO N IN G IN PO TTERIES, T IL E W ORKS, ETC.
NUMBER OF CASES OF LEAD POISONING IN TWO YEARS AMONG WORKMEN
IN WHITE-WARE POTTERIES, BY OCCUPATIONS.
Occupation.
Dippers..............................................................................................................................
Kiln men..................................................................................................................
Decorators................................................................................................................
Helpers and “odd men” 1.................................................................................................
Total.........................................................................................................
Cases of Number
lead of male
poison em
ing. ployees.
25
193
13
60
132
464
20
180
796
1 This term includes the men who help mix the glaze, grind and transport it, and who
sweep the kiln rooms and mill rooms.
The dippers evidently suffer more than any other class of work
men. Of 34 dippers who were personally interviewed in Trenton,
10 said that they had had lead poisoning, while only 6 glost-kiln
men out of 105 admitted having been poisoned. In East Liverpool,
through the courtesy of the secretary-treasurer of the local dippers’
union, it was possible to examine the sickness records of 85 dippers
from April, 1910, to April, 1911. These dippers averaged 19^ years
in the trade and their average age was 40 years. During the year in
question 13 of them had had 16 attacks of lead poisoning, 3 had 2
attacks each of colic. This is an unexpectedly large proportion. In
the report of the British factory inspection department for 1910-11,1
the incidence of le a d poisoning among dippers is given as 13 cases
out of 786 men employed, exactly the same number as in East Liver
pool among 85 men employed. In other words, in England 1 dipper
out of every 60 suffered from lead poisoning in one year’s time, in
Ohio 1 out of every 6 or 7.
The number of odd men on the list of cases of lead poisoning is
probably below the truth, because of the great difficulty in finding
out anything about these men. Included among the odd men are
7 men with lead poisoning who were said to have been employed
in the potteries, but whose occupation was not given and who were
known to be neither dippers nor kiln men.
There were many more cases of lead poisoning found in East
Liverpool in proportion to the men employed than in Trenton. In
Trenton about 314 men were employed in work exposing them to
lead, and 18 cases of lead poisoning during 1910 and 1911 were found,
or 1 for every 17 or 18 employed. Five had been obliged to give up
1 Annual Report of the Chief Inspector of Factories and Workshops for the year 1910,
p. 174.
B U L L E T IN OF T H E BUREAU O F LABOR.
46
work because of sickness and 3 had died, lead poisoning being given
as either the primary or a contributory cause of death. Only 10 of
the 314 then working had suffered from acute or chronic symptoms
of lead poisoning during the past 2 years, which would make 1 in 31
to 32 of the force employed at that time.
In East Liverpool, where about 480 men are employed in work
exposing them to lead, 42 cases during 1910 and 191.1 were discov
ered, or 1 for every 11 to 12 employed. There were 31 of these work
ing at the time of the investigation—1 for every 15 to 16 employed.
There are several reasons for this difference between the two dis
tricts. One has already been mentioned—the greater difficulty in
tracing the cases in Trenton. Another is to be found in the fact that
the varied industries of Trenton make it possible for a man who
begins to feel the effects of the lead to go into some other employ
ment, wdiile in East Liverpool this is much more difficult. Another
reason is the fact that more decorating is done in East Liverpool,
but the principal cause for the relatively small amount of lead
poisoning found in Trenton lies probably in the fact that large quan
tities of sanitary ware are made there and none at all in East Liver
pool. Now, the sanitary-ware potteries are much the least danger
ous; first, because the glaze is usually poorer in lead than in the gen
eral ware potteries, and, second, because there is less dust. The large
pieces are sponged to get rid of the excess glaze and are carried one
by one to the kilns. There is no dry rubbing and no dusty gathering
and piling together of ware, and no women’s skirts stirring up dust,
for the employees are all grown men.
The effect of the amount of lead in glaze on the incidence of lead
poisoning can be seen in some statistics gathered in Trenton, which
give the number of cases of lead poisoning contracted during 1910
and 1911 in handling glazes containing different amounts of lead:
OASES OF LEAD POISONING AMONG WORKMEN IN TRENTON WHITE-WARE FAC
TORIES USING GLAZE CONTAINING EACH CLASSIFIED AMOUNT OF LEAD.
Per cent of lead in glaze used.
Under 16 per cent.........................................
16 per cent and over.....................................
Total...................................................
Male employees.
Cases of lead poisoning.
Number
of
factories. Number. Per cent. Number. Per cent. Rate per
1000 . *
11
7
18
188
126
314
60
40
100
5
11
16
31
£9
100
26.6
87.3
51.0
Two of the 18 Trenton cases could not be placed. The 42 cases in
East Liverpool all came from potteries using from 12 per cent to 20
per cent lead in the glaze.
LEAD PO ISO N IN G IN PO TTERIES, T IL E W ORKS, ETC.
47
LEAD POISONING AMONG FEMALE EMPLOYEES IN WHITE-WARE POTTERIES.
The number of cases of lead poisoning found among the women
was relatively larger than among the men, and this in spite of the
fact that it was very much harder to trace them. It seems certain
that although the figures for men potters are fairly correct, those for
the women must fall below the truth.
There are about 135 women employed in the East Liverpool dis
trict, including Salem, as dippers’ helpers in the glaze room and as
tinters, and 15 in Trenton, making 150 1 in all. Forty-three cases of
lead poisoning were found to have occurred in the last two years.
Twenty-five of these women were still working. If it had been pos
sible to interview personally every woman found at work, it is prob
able that the number of eases discovered would be still larger. To
question the girls while they were at work without frightening them
into a denial was no easy matter, and it was still less easy to find out
where they lived so as to interview them privately. Interviews were
secured, however, with 41, and it was found that 14—a little over
one-third—had had lead poisoning withing the last two years. If
that represents the usual proportion, there would be 51 cases among
those now working instead of 25.
RELATIVE NUMBER OF CASES AMONG MEN AND WOMEN.
The contrast between the men and women in East Liverpool in
respect to the incidence of lead poisoning can be seen in the follow
ing table:
RATIO OF LEAD-POISONING CASES OF EACH SEX IN WHITE-WARE POTTERIES
TO NUMBER EMPLOYED, EAST LIVERPOOL.
Sex.
MaLs .............................................................................
Females...........................................................................
Cases of lead Ratio of cases to
Employees. poisoning, still em ployees of
at work.
each sex.
480
135
31
25
1 to 15 or 16
1 to 5 or 6
But in order to make a fair comparison between the two sexes it
should be limited to the men and women who are employed in the
glaze room only, for here both do the same kind of work and are
equally exposed to the action of lead. This comparison may be made
by taking the women who were personally interviewed and the record
of the dippers’ union, which was cpioted above.
1 This figure is estimated by counting a little more than 3 women to every 2 dippers
in East Liverpool, adding the number found in the few potteries visited in Trenton where
women helpers are employed, and the number of women tinters in both cities as far as
this could be discovered by inquiry.
48
B U L L E T IN OF T H E BUREAU OF LABOR.
RATIO OF LEAD-POISONING CASES AMONG DIPPERS AND DIPPERS’ HELPERS
IN WHITE-WARE POTTERIES TO NUMBER EMPLOYED, EAST LIVERPOOL.
Occupation and sex.
Dippers, male....................................................... .
Dippers’ helpers, female.................................................
Cases of lead Ratio of cases to
Employees. poisoning, still em p loyees of
at v/ork.
each sex.
S5
41
13
14
1 to 6 or 7
1 to 3
The contrast between the men and women becomes still greater
when one takes into consideration the fact that the average period of
employment for the men dippers was 19i years and for the women
helpers only 2\ years.
Though these figures, so far as the women are concerned, are not
based on complete evidence, yet they are probably not far from the
truth; at least the relative susceptibility of the two sexes is the same
as that shown in the Report for 1910 of the Chief Inspectors of Fac
tories and Workshops in Great Britain. This question as to the oversusceptibility of woman to lead poisoning will be taken up later on.
LEAD POISONING IN ART AND UTILITY WARE POTTERIES AND IN TILE
WORKS.
CHARACTER OF WORKERS AND WAGES IN RELATION TO LEAD POISONING.
It can not be doubted that the low wage paid in the Zanesville
district, which is the center for this kind of ware, is a factor in the
causation of lead poisoning among the potters. According to physi
cians, workpeople, and some townspeople, the wages run from 85
cents a day to $1.65. Company officials and some other townspeople
say that dippers and decorators earn as much as $2 or $2.50 a day,
but none of the workmen who were interviewed were earning more
than $1.65, and one experienced male dipper had recently been offered
only $1.35 per day. The homes visited were in strong contrast to
those of the dippers and kiln men in Trenton and East Liverpool.
A further proof of the comparative poverty of the Zanesville potters
can be seen in the fact that many married women are working in the
potteries with their husbands, a thing that was not once encountered
in the towns where the trade is organized.
The people employed in these potteries are all Americans, but they
are working for a low wage and the appearance of the men who do
the dipping and kiln work is different from that of the men seen in
these occupations in East Liverpool and Trenton. They are much
younger, some of them mere lads, and they do not stay so long in the
trade. Fifteen who were interviewed averaged only six years of
employment. Yet in Zanesville there is practically no factory work
for Americans outside the potteries and tile works. The women and
girls are in the same class as those in East Liverpool, and the same
49
description would apply to them, but the wage paid in Zanesville is
somewhat lower than that paid in East Liverpool.
Several physicians in the Zanesville district spoke in the strongest
terms of the evils of low wages in the potteries, and attributed the
unhealthfulness of the trade largely to the poverty of the workpeople,.
This will be gone into more fully under the next section.
The workpeople employed in the tile factories are almost all
Americans, except in two plants, one of which employs Slavic men
altogether, the other is beginning to employ Bulgarians and Servians.
In Trenton the glaze work is almost entirely in the hands of girls,
and these girls apparently come from the same class as do the men
potters at Trenton. They are not organized but they are well paid,
for there is much demand for girl workers in Trenton. It is evident
from visits paid to their homes that they are well fed and have a high
standard of personal cleanliness. They are intelligent and know
that their work exposes them to lead poisoning. They say that they
carry soap and towels with them to the potteries so that they can get
their hands clean, that they take cathartics regularly to keep off the
effects of the lead, and that those girls who feel ill from the effects
of the work usually leave, since it is not hard for them to find other
work in Trenton.
LEAD PO ISO N IN G IN PO TTERIES, T ILE W ORKS, ETC.
GENERAL BELIEF AS TO FREQUENCY OF LEAD POISONING.
Probably these facts explain the freedom from lead poisoning in
the Trenton tile works, a freedom which was not found anywhere else.
In every other city inquiries about lead poisoning in this work met
with abundant information from the workpeople themselves and from
physicians, but in Trenton, although vague reports concerning girl
tile workers with lead poisoning were given by a few doctors, only
one individual case was recorded positively as having occurred during
the last two years, though every effort was made to find such cases.
Yet there are 50 women employed in the three plants in this city.
Six girls were interviewed in their own homes, where they would
have no reason to be timid in answering questions, but though they
had worked in one or more of these places from three to five years,,
they knew of no cases as recent as the last two years. Two male
cases were found, both of them mixers. One had had an acute attack
and had quit work; the other was an old mixer with chronic lead
poisoning.
Outside of Trenton there is a great deal of lead poisoning in the
tile works. There is no organization among1these workpeople, either
men or women, and many of the men in all the factories except the
one which employs Slavs are young, sometimes under 18 years of age.
Many married women are employed here, and many girls. They do
55884°—'12----- £
B U L L E T IN OF T H E BUREAU OF LABOR.
50
not stay long in tlie trade, even though it is hard in some towns to
find other work. Twenty-five men averaged a little over three years’
employment; 31 girls averaged 2.9 years. Wages are very low, run
ning, it is said, from 85 cents a day up to $1.65. One dipper has
worked for 28 years in the glaze department of a tile works, and
his wages have never been above the latter sum. The homes of the
tile workers that were visited wTere poor, and often the women were
working after marriage because the husband’s wages were not enough
to support the family. In one house it was found that two young
married couples were working in a tile factory, while the mother
of the two men kept hou^e and took care of the child of one couple.
The mother of this child said that she had given up work several
times, but had always been obliged to go back because the family
could “ make both ends meet ” only under the most favorable cir
cumstances, and even a slight illness was enough to throw’ her into
debt and force her to return to the works.
Many physicians spoke in strong terms of the evils of lowr wages
in the tile works and art potteries, and attributed the sickness among
the pottery workers largely to poverty. One of them said: “ There
is absolutely no care taken in the tile works or potteries. Lead
poisoning is very common in Zanesville, though the severer forms are
not often seen. The only thing that keeps the situation from becom
ing really terrible is that the men can shift to other departments in
the pottery and the girls are apt to marry. The poverty is very
great, the workpeople are underfed and underclothed.” Another
Zanesville physician said that there w7as a great deal of lead poison
ing, not only the pronounced forms but the obscurer forms, anemia,
chlorosis, nervous troubles, and digestive disturbances. He thought
that he saw almost 100 men and girls in the course of a year affected
by work in lead. Many girls and boys employed in the tile works
are still in their teens and especially liable to the poison. Still a
third physician said, “ I see more men wdth characteristic symptoms
than girls, but often I see a dozen girls of a Saturday afternoon
complaining of anemia and constipation, which I attribute to mild
chronic plumbism. Some of them also have amenorrhea, undoubtedly
due to lead anemia. The fact that the workpeople shift all the time
to other jobs in the tile works explains why there are not more severe
cases. Wages are very low. Girls get from $4 to $6 per week, and
pay from $2.50 to $3 for board. This is the worst feature of the
trade.”
In all, 21 doctors were interviewed in or near Zanesville. Sixteen
were emphatic as to the evils of this sort of work and the prevalence
of lead poisoning, 3 were dubious, and 2 were quite positive that it
was a thing of the past and that the tile works were now all that
they should be.
51
The following is the substance of a characteristic interview with
a woman who worked in the glaze department of a Zanesville tile
works: She worked for three months brushing; that is, removing
the excess of glaze from the tile after it was dried, with a brush.
After three months she had an attack of lead colic and had to quit
work. She went back and worked for two years more but could not
stand it and is now in the pressroom. She earned 85 cents a day.
The room is terribly dusty and there is no way of heating it, except
wdien a kiln is drawn; then the heat is driven through pipes under
the floor. Between kiln drawings in winter they suffer a great deal
from the cold, and in summer they suffer from heat whenever a kiln
is drawn. At the end of the day they always brushed the tables,
swept into a pile the glaze dust that had fallen on the floor, and
then brushed their clothes with the same brush. There was so much
dust in the air then that she would almost choke. They had to wear
some of their street clothes in winter to work in because it was so
cold, and when they got home they could always shake the dust out
of their skirts. She wore a cap to keep the dust from her hair, but
somehow it always looked dusty. About half the women working
there are married. They eat their lunch wherever they can find a
warm place, and they wash their hands when they can, but the water
is icy cold in winter. Her husband works in the same place. He had
pneumonia last fall, and they are still in debt for that. This woman
gave the names of one man and three girls working there who
recently suffered from lead colic. Her brother-in-law is a placer in
this factor}^ and works in the glaze room. He has been there 18
months. He now' suffers from indigestion, he can not eat his break
fast, has a bad taste in his mouth in the morning, has lost w'eight
and strength, and has fits of trembling in his limbs so that he feels
“ like he must nail himself together or he will "fall apart.” This
man has the lead line on his gums. His wufe also wmrks in the tile
factory; she has to because his pay is so low.
Zanesville is used to illustrate conditions because there is more of
this work done there than in any other one town, but vdiat has been
said of it applies to all other places studied except Trenton, where
conditions are markedly better. Two factories, one in Newport, Ky.,
and one in Chicago Heights, employ no women.
LEAD PO ISO N IN G IN PO TTERIES, TIL E W ORKS, ETC.
NUMBER OF CASES OF LEAD POISONING FOUND.
It has not been possible to separate the cases of lead poisoning
contracted in the tile works from those contracted in the art and
utility potteries. Zanesville, which is the center for the latter in
dustry, has also three tile factories, and the physicians who see cases
of lead poisoning know that their patients are working in glaze
rooms,
but often do not know7 what establishment they come from.
http://fraser.stlouisfed.org/
The
following
list of cases, therefore, includes those found in the 11
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis
52
B U L L E T IN OF T H E BUREAU OF LABOR.
tile factories studied and in the 7 art and utility ware potteries of
the Zanesville district.
In the 11 tile works 138 men and 204 women are employed; in the
7 potteries 166 men and 39 women, making 304 men and 243 women
in occupations exposing them to lead. The cases of lead poisoning
must be given without regard to occupation because it was usually
impossible to find out what particular work the individual was
engaged in.
NUMBER OF WORKPEOPLE AND OF LEAD POISONING CASES IN 11 TILE FAC
TORIES AND 7 YELLOW WARE AND ART AND UTILITY WARE POTTERIES.
ZANESVILLE DISTRICT, BY SEX.
Sex.
Males.........................................................................................
Females.....................................................................................
Total.................................................................................
Number Cases of lead
1910 Cases of lead
employed. poisoning,
and 1911. poisoning, 1911.
304
243
547
63
35
98
48
28
76
FREQUENCY OF LEAD POISONING IN WHITE-WARE POTTERIES AND IN ART,
AND UTILITY WARE POTTERIES AND TILE WORKS.
If the number of men poisoned in 1910-11 in these two classes of
potteries are compared with the number of men poisoned in the
white-ware potteries, the influence which the large percentage of
lead in the glaze and the poverty of the workmen have on the inci
dence of industrial lead poisoning becomes apparent. The women are
omitted from the comparison because the white-ware women workers
are no better off than those employed in art and utility potteries and
tile works, with the exception of the difference in the glaze, but the
men in white ware are markedly better off than those in the art
potteries and tile works. Indeed, the women in white-ware potteries
are all exposed to the dangers of dusty work, while many women tile
workers are engaged in simply placing the glazed tiles in saggers or
in tending different machines.
FREQUENCY OF LEAD POISONING CASES IN WHITE-WARE POTTERIES AND IN
YELLOW WARE AND ART AND UTILITY WARE POTTERIES AND TILE WORKS.
Industry.
White ware
.....................................................................
Yellow ware and art and utility ware and tile works...........
Cases of lead
Men
in 2
employed. poisoning
years.
796
304
60
63
Ratio of cases
of lead poison
ing to number
of employees.
1 to 13
1 to 4 or 5
This table sh-ows that the work in the last class of industries is
almost
three times as dangerous as in the first. Tt must be remembered
that
the
discovery of cases of lead poisoning in these unorganized
53
industries was much more difficult than in the organized potteries
of Trenton and East Liverpool, but it must also be remembered that
the labor in the unorganized factories is more shifting and a larger
number of men were undoubtedly employed during those two years
than our figures indicate.
LEAD PO ISO N IN G IN PO TTERIES, TILE W ORKS, ETC.
FREQUENCY OF LEAD POISONING IN BRITISH AND IN AMERICAN POTTERIES.
Even the white-ware potteries alone have an amount of lead
poisoning far in excess of that reported for all potteries in Great
Britain.1 Occupations here are differently divided and between the
two countries workmen can not be compared class by class, but totals
may be compared as follows:
FREQUENCY OF LEAD-POISONING CASES IN EACH SEX IN ALL POTTERIES,
GREAT BRITAIN, 1910, AND IN WHITE-WARE POTTERIES, UNITED STATES,
1911.
All potteries, Great Britain.
Sex.
Males.........................................
Females....................................
Total...............................
of
Number Cases
lead
employed poison
in 1907. ing, 1910.
4,504
2,361
6,865
40
37
77
White-ware potteries, United
States, 1911.
Ratio of
of
cases of lead Number Cases
lead
poisoning to employed.
poison
number of
ing.
employees.
1 to 113
1 to 64
1 to 89
796
150
946
39
29
68
Ratio of
cases of lead
poisoning to
number of
employees.
1 to 20 or 21
1 to 5
1 to 14
It is eas}^ to see that the cases of lead poisoning among the men
and women in American white-ware potteries number about six times
as many as in all the British potteries and that the women here
suffer more than twelve times as much as do the English women
workers. Comparing individual classes of working people, as can be
done in a few instances, the following is found:
FREQUENCY OF LEAD-POISONING CASES IN SELECTED OCCUPATIONS, BY SEX,
ALL POTTERIES, GREAT BRITAIN, 1910, AND WHITE-WARE POTTERIES,
UNITED STATES, 1911.
Ail potteries, Great Britain.
Occupation and sex.
Dippers, male...........................
Dippers’ helpers and cleaners,
female...................................
White-ware potteries, United
States, 1911.
Cases of Ratio of
Ratio of
Cases of cases
of lead
lead cases of lead
Employees poison
lead poisoning
poisoning
to
Employees.
poison number ofto
in 1907. ing, 1910. number of
ing. employees.
employees.
786
858
13 1 to 60 or 61
21
1 to 41
132
135
18
26
1 to 7
1 to 5
1 Annual Report of the Chief Inspector of Factories and Workshops for the year 1910,
Digitized p.
for 174.
FRASER
B U L L E T IN OF T H E BUREAU OF LABOR.
54
The contrast is even greater when all the American pottery workers
are included, as, indeed, must be done if a fair comparison is to be
made, for the British report covers yellow ware, Rockingham,
majolica, tile works, etc.
FREQUENCY OF LEAD-POISONING CASES IN EACH SEX, IN ALL POTTERIES,
GREAT BRITAIN, 1910, AND IN POTTERIES VISITED, UNITED STATES, 1911.
All potteries, Great Britain.
Sex.
Males........................................
Females...................................
Total...............................
Potteries visited, United States, 1911.
Cases of Ratio of
Ratio of
Cases of cases
lead cases of lead
of lead
Employees poison
lead poisoning
poisoning
to
Employees.
poison number ofto
in 1907. ing, 1910. number of
ing. employees.
employees.
4,504
2,361
6,865
40
37
77
1 to 113
1 to 64
1 to 89
1,100
393
1,493
• 87
57
144
1 to 12 cr 13
1 to 7
1 to 10 or 11
With less than one-quarter of the workpeople, American potteries
have almost twice as many cases of lead poisoning. This result was
entirely unexpected, for everywhere in the pottery districts in this
country one is told that lead poisoning is much less serious than it is
in Great Britain, and the reasons given are that living conditions are
better here and there is less alcoholism, but chiefly that there is more
lead in the British glaze. The people who give this information are
themselves Staffordshire men and have learned the trade over there.
They are describing a state of things that undoubtedly existed for
merly in the Staffordshire potteries but which no longer exists. Of
late }^ears, as the British reports show, there has been a great decline
in this form of industrial poisoning in Great Britain,1 while in this
country, though there has been some improvement, especially in the
making of white ware, it has not been nearly so great.
If American wages are higher, living conditions better, and the
workmen more temperate, these advantages seem to be more than
offset by the lack of sanitary control over the potteries and the low
standard of sanitary conditions. The glaze used in the Staffordshire
potteries, in which the cases of lead poisoning reported for 1910
occurred, contained from 11.2 per cent to 33.1 per cent soluble lead.12
In American potteries the lead content ran from 5 per cent up to 60
per cent, but the lack of hygienic control in the United States is much
more important than the larger amount of lead in the glaze. There
is no freedom from lead poisoning even in those American potteries
wThich use the smallest proportion of lead. The enormous difference
1 See Bulletin of the United States Bureau of Labor, No. 95, p. 44.
2 Annual Report of the Chief Inspector of Factories and Workshops for the year 1910,
p. 43.
LEAD PO ISO N IN G IN PO TTERIES, TILE W ORKS, ETC.
55
between the number of lead-poisoning cases here and in Great Britain
is due not so much to the control exercised over the amount of lead in
the glaze as to the strict regulations which there govern the hygiene
of the trade.
SEVERITY OE LEAD POISONING IN BRITISH AND IN AMERICAN POTTERIES.
Although the number of cases of lead poisoning is much greater in
this country, yet apparently the more serious forms of the disease are
not so frequent here as in England. Perhaps this is one reason for
the popular belief that lead poisoning is much greater in Staffordshire
than in Ohio and New Jersey.
The English expert, Dr. T. M. Legge, classifies1 cases of industrial
lead poisoning under three heads—
Slight: (1) Colic short and uncomplicated; (2) anemia in ado
lescence, aggravated by employment.
Moderate: (1) A combination of colic and anemia; (2) profound
anemia, apparently without complications; (3) slight mus
cular paresis, i. e., incipient paralysis.
Severe: (1) Encephalopathy; (2) marked paralysis.
He divides as follows 217 male cases and 280 female cases occurring
in Great Britain in the five years 1903 to 1907:
NUMBER AND PER CENT IN EACH CLASSIFICATION OF LEAD POISONING CASES IN
BRITISH POTTERIES, 1903 TO 1907, BY SEX.
Males.
Classification.
Severe ............................................... .............................................
Moderate..........................................................................................
Slight
............................................................................................
N nt st,n.t.p.d _ .
. _ . ____________________________________ _____ ____
T n tn l___
Females.
Cases of
Cases of
lead
lead
poison Per cent. poison Per cent.
ing.
ing.
42
97
77
1
217
19.4
44. 7
35. 5
.5
35
97
144
4
280
12.5
34.6
51.4
1.4
The death rate in 11 years, 1899-1909, averaged 1.11 for every
1,000 men emploj^ed, and 0.85 for every 1,000 women.12
Only a partial classification can be made of the cases among Ameri
can wmrkers under these heads for lack of accurate information con
cerning most of them. Among the cases of lead poisoning that
occurred in 1911 in the potteries, histories were secured of 86 men
1 Report of Che Departmental Committee Appointed to Inquire into the Dangers Attend
ant on the Use of Lead in the Manufacture of Earthenware and China, Home Department.
1910, Vol. I, p. 11.
2 Idem, Vol. II, p. 39.
B U L L E T IN OF T H E BUREAU OF LABOE.
56
End 51 women, which are full enough to permit of dividing them
under these heads.
NUMBER AND PER CENT IN EACH CLASSIFICATION OF 137 LEAD POISONING
CASES IN THE UNITED STATES, 1911, BY SEX.
Males.
Classification.
Severe...............................................................................................
Moderate.......................................................................................
Slight......................... ...................................................................
Total..........
Females.
Cases of
Cases of
lead
lead
poison Per cent. poison Per cent.
ing.
ing.
7
39
40
86
8.1
45.3
46.5
6
14
31
51
11.8
27.5
60.8
The percentage of severe cases among the men in this table is not
nearly so high as in the British table. The cases among the women
are distributed more nearly as among the English women, but it is
very probable that many slight cases among women and girls were
not reported.
The deaths for 2 years were 3, all men, among 1,500 employed, or
1.5 for each year, which is about the same as the English death rate.,
There were no fatal cases found among women during these years.
RELATIVE FREQUENCY OF LEAD POISONING IN M EN AND IN WOMEN.
The British authorities insist that there is a true sex susceptibility
to lead poisoning, women being more prone to it than men.1 One
physician stated that men are more liable to the chronic, and women
to the acute forms, such as colic and encephalopathy.12 The cases of
encephalopathy found in this investigation among pottery workers
confirm this last statement, for 9 out of 14 cases of this severe form of
lead poisoning, and all of the three fatal cases, were women. (Some
of these 14 cases occurred earlier than 1910.) At first sight it would
seem that the figures of this study bear out also the statement that
women are more susceptible to lead poisoning than men, for there are
57 cases among 400 women, or 1 to 7, and only 87 among 1,100 men, or
1 to 12 or 13, but a closer analysis shows that there are factors influ
encing this difference other than the factor of sex.
In East Liverpool and Trenton the relative proportion of male and
female cases more than bears out the English theory. Seven hundred
and ninety-six men had 39 cases, or 1 to every 20 or 21, and 150
women had 29 cases, or 1 to every 5 or 6 employed (1911). But
1 Report of the Departmental Committee Appointed to Inquire into the Dangers Attend
ant on the Use of Lead in the Manufacture of Earthenware and China, Home Department,
1910, Vol. I, p. 12.
2 Idem, Vol. Ill, Q. 1254.
57
it has been seen that in those districts where white ware is made and
the National Brotherhood of Operative Potters holds sway the women
have many handicaps as compared with the men besides that of sex
idiosyncrasy. They are unorganized, underpaid, poorly housed, poorly
fed, subject to the worry and strain of supporting dependents on a
low wage, while the men are prosperous and independent. In the
unorganized pottery fields, however, in the tile works and art pot
teries, men and women are in the same economic class, all making low
wages, with everything that that implies, and here no such dispropor
tion is found between the two sexes in the matter of lead poisoning.
In the establishments that were studied there were in 1911 304 men
employed and 48 cases of lead poisoning, or 1 for every 6 to T men;
243 women were employed, and there were 28 cases found-, or 1 for
every 8 or 9. The ratio of cases is actually greater among the men.
Of course, these figures are offered very tentatively, realizing that,
they can in no way be compared with the British, which are based
on a medical examination of all men and women employed and on
accurate records as to the number of employees during the year. The
results obtained in this investigation can only be suggestive; they are
given simply because the contrast between the number of male cases
in East Liverpool and Trenton and those in unorganized branches of
the trade is too great to be accidental and does seem to point to the
influence of poverty as a predisposing factor in lead poisoning even
greater than sex.
In discussing the relative frequency of lead poisoning among men
and women, several physicians in the unorganized pottery towns
said that they saw more male cases than female, and one of them
explained this fact by the universal habit of tobacco chewung among
the men. Most of the men, he said, use scrap tobacco, carrying it
in the pocket of their working clothes and handling it vTith fingers
covered with glaze. A great many of them believe that chewing
tobacco helps to keep them from getting poisoned. Two other
doctors said that while they saw more men with the typical gastric
form of lead poisoning, they saw large numbers of women and
young girls with less pronounced and characteristic symptoms which
they, however, attributed to the lead, such as profound anemia with
constipation and sometimes amenorrhea. Nov/, it is more than
probable that many of these cases were not revealed in the course
of.this study, for the majority of physicians hesitate to speak of
lead poisoning if there is no colic. The British statistics, however,
include just this class of cases: “Anemia of adolescence aggravated
by employment.” Certainly it is probable that this is one reason
for the discrepancy between the results obtained here as regards
female cases and the results obtained there.
LEAD PO ISO N IN G IN PO TTERIES, T ILE W ORKS, ETC.
B U L L E T IN OF T H E BUREAU OF LABOR.
58
No evidence was secured as to the influence of lead on women as
an abortifacient. Miscarriages are very common among these
women potter}7workers, but physicians and the women themselves say
that so many are mechanically self-induced that it would be impossible
to discover the part played by the lead. The women feel obliged
to work after marriage, and they consider it economically impos
sible to have more than one or two children at the most. They do
not, for the most part, know that lead glaze has an abortifacient
action.
LEAD POISONING IN THE MAKING OF PORCELAIN ENAMELED
IKON SA N IT A R Y WARE.
More difficulty was found in tracing cases of lead poisoning in
this industry than in the pottery industry proper, because so many
of the workmen are non-English-speaking Slavs. A very large num
ber of cases were reported, but when corroborative evidence wTas
sought-it was often found that the man had gone back to Austria,
or had moved on to one of the other centers of the trade, or that he
was timid and suspicious, refusing to answer any questions. Chicago
and Pittsburgh offered the greatest difficulty, because all the force
employed there is of this character, and the men are scattered all
over the foreign colonies. To give an instance of the trouble ex
perienced, there were 96 cases reported in 1 city as having occurred
in the last 2 years. Thirty-seven of these could be traced to the
physicians near the plant, 11 were on hospital records, 2 were per
sonally examined, but 46 were unverified cases, depending only on
the statement of men who had departed or who refused to let them
selves be examined.
It has seemed best, therefore, to give a statement as to the source
of these cases side by side with the list of cases.
In all of these towns, except one large town with a small factory
employing only Slavs, the fact that sanitary-ware enamelers suffer
from lead poisoning is notorious, and physicians in the neighborhood
of the plant are able to tell of cases of severe colic, of palsy, and
even of encephalopathy, for the form of lead poisoning seen among
these men is often severe. The statement was repeatedly made by
physicians that “ one man in every three,” u at least one-half of all
the men,” “ all of them who stay apy length of time,” suffer from
lead poisoning.
The following table gives the number of men employed in the
glaze departments of the 10 plants which are included in this study,
the number of cases occurring in the 2 years covered by the inquiry,
1910 and 1911, the number in a single year, 1911, the proportion of
people
then working who had recently suffered from lead poisoning,
Digitized forand
FRASER
the
sources from which the cases were obtained:
LEAD PO ISO N IN G IN PO TTERIES, TILE W ORKS, ETC.
59
NUMBER OP EMPLOYEES AND OF LEAD-POISONING CASES, AND RATIO OP
CASES TO NUMBER EMPLOYED, IN GLAZE DEPARTMENTS OF 10 PORCELAIN
ENAMELED IRON SANITARY-WARE PLANTS.
Ratio of
lead-poison
ing
cases
Number. to number
of em
ployees.
EM PLO Y EES.
In mills............................................................................................................................
Enamelers........................................................................................................................
Total......................................................................................................................
L E A D -P O ISO N IN G C A SE S.
In 1910 and 1911...............................................................................................................
In 1911:
Reported by doctors................................................................................................
Reported by hospitals.............................................................................................
Found by examination............................................................................................
Reported by men................................................................
........................
Total......................................................................................................................
Cases among force still at work in 1911.........................................................................
112
900
1,012
309
1 to 3.3
106
15
06
30
217
199
1 to 4.7
1 to 5.1
The same warning must be given here as in the chapter on lead
poisoning in the potteries, namely, that the number of men employed
in this work in the course of a year is undoubtedly greater than
1,012 because helpers drop out frequently and enamelers leave wrork
when they are incapacitated or frightened by illness; and, also, that
the number of men poisoned is probably larger than 309, for even
with the best of efforts discovery of all the cases can not be expected.
This is shown in the fact that the number for two years, 1910 and 1911,
is not nearly double the number for the single year 1911; yet lead
poisoning is probably not on the increase. The large number of cases
in 19lT'simply means that these were still in the memory of physi
cians or still at w7ork in the plant, while some of those who had been
ill in 1910 had gone away and been forgotten. It is probable that a
number double that for 1911, or 434, would be nearer the truth for the
two years than 309. The difficulty in tracing these older cases was
especially great in Chicago and Pittsburgh, with their large pro
portion of shifting foreign workpeople with unfamiliar names. In
smaller towns, with American workmen, the names of workpeople
are fairly well remembered.
INTENSIVE STUDY OF 148 MEN.
If the most rigid standard be applied to the table given above, and
only those cases accepted which were obtained from the records of
physicians and hospitals, we should still have 121 in a force of 1,012,
or one man for every eight or nine employed. It seems impossible,
hoivever, that the number should be as low as that, for it has been
evident that all the cases occurring in a given year could not
Digitizedmade
for FRASER
B U L L E T IN OF T H E BUREAU OF LABOR.
60
be brought to light by the methods outlined above. That the num
ber is below the truth, that those physicians come nearer to it who
assert that one man in every three is poisoned by the lead, would ap
pear from the results of a physical examination and an examination
of the histories of 148 men who at the time this investigation was
made happened to be out on strike. These men were not acutely
sick and they had all been at work up to a few days before the ex
amination. They were Slavs, many of them powerfully built peas
ants, and they were employed in two factories, one of which was un
usually dusty while the other was said to be fairly clean.
In making the diagnosis of chronic lead poisoning no one symptom
can be taken as positively characteristic. The diagnosis must depend
upon a combination of symptoms and physical signs, together with
the fact that the man’s occupation has exposed him to lead. The
detection of granular changes in the red blood cells is looked on as a
great help in diagnosis by most German authorities, but Oliver, the
English authority, does not find this test of value, and Biondi, an
Italian authority on blood, says that it helps in the diagnosis when it
is present, but that its absence can not be taken as a proof against
lead poisoning. Oliver and certain German writers advise the search
for lead in the urine; other Germans say that its presence is not con
stant enough to make this a trustworthy test.
As for the symptoms which constitute a picture of chronic lead
poisoning, the following are given by the principal modern authori
ties: It. v. Jacksch says: “ In typical cases, in spite of the variety
of the symptoms, diagnosis is always easy. The presence of the lead
line in a man working in lead and a history of colic makes it cer
tain.” 1 As symptoms he gives various disturbances of digestion,
sense of oppression in the stomach, vomiting, loss of appetite, metallic
taste in the mouth, anemia.
Oliver describes the symptoms as pallor and sallowness, with me
tallic taste, especially in the morning, and says: “ If the distaste for n
food is increasing, the individual should retire or be suspended from
work, for it is one of the earliest indications of the resistance to lead
having become diminished. There may also be complaint of a feel
ing of sickness and a tendency to vomit. Obstinate constipation and
a sense of tiredness out of proportion to the amount of energy ex
pended are also complained of.” 12
Laureck3 says that if a lead worker whose digestion has been good
begins to suffer from chronic loss of appetite, more or less coated
tongue, disagreeable sweet taste, foul breath, eructation of gas, and
general lassitude, one would seldom go wrong in making the diag
1 Nothnagel’s Spezielle Pathologie und Therapie, Vol. I, 1910, p. 194.
2 Bulletin of the United States Bureau of Labor, No. 95, p. 98.
3 Theodor Weyl, Handbueh der Arbeiterkrankheiten, Jena, 1908, p. 43.
LEAD PO ISO N IN G IN PO TTERIES, T ILE W ORKS, ETC.
61
nosis of lead poisoning, even if the lead line (absent in men who have
lost their teeth) and the anemia have not yet appeared. Absolutely
certain diagnostic symptoms for lead poisoning do not exist,,
Dr. Albert Fleck, a German authority on industrial diseases, says
that “ if a lead worker complains of weakness, trembling, loss of
weight, foul breath, oppressive feeling in the stomach, itching of the
eyelids, and spots floating before the eyes, a diagnosis of lead poison
ing is probable. The presence of a lead line makes it certain.”
If we combine these varying statements we find that a fairly
definite picture emerges, but no one feature of the picture is essen
tial. The blue-black line along the margin of the gums is a valuable
help in diagnosis, but is not absolutely necessary; the same is true
of a history of colic. The fact that the man’s occupation is known
to expose him to lead poisoning is always regarded as one of the
most valuable aids in diagnosis.
In determining whether or not there was evidence of chronic
plumbism in the 148 enamelers and millhands a stricter standard
was adopted than any of those given above, and no case was included
as positive in which the lead line was not present on the gums (for
partial exceptions see cases described under (b) and (<?) following),
because it was impracticable to carry out blood and urine tests which
would have helped out the diagnosis of cases with typical symptoms
but no lead line.
All of the cases classed as positive presented the following features:
Presence of the blue-black line on the gums.
History of ill health following present occupation.
Pallor of skin and mucous membranes; often extreme sallowness.
Marked loss of appetite, and distaste for breakfast especially.
Increasing loss of strength.
Gastric disturbances of various kinds.
{a) Thirty-five gave this symptom-complex, and in addition other
symptoms were complained of by these men, as follows: Obstinate
constipation, 16 men; persistent headaches, 13; loss of weight, 11;
nausea and vomiting, 10; arthralgia, 5; tremors, 2; dizziness, 1.
(b) Six had an extreme condition of inflammation of the gums,
with caries and loss of teeth, and in these cases the lead line showed
slightly or not at all. These men had worked a longer period than
most, averaging 10J years employment, while the general average
for the 148 was less than 6 years. They suffered from ill health fol
lowing entrance on this occupation, pallor, loss of appetite, loss of
strength, indigestion, gastric pains, constipation. Three of them
complained of nausea and vomiting, 2 of persistent headaches, 1 of
tremors.1
1 Theodor Weyl, Handbuch der Arbeiterkrankheiten, Jena, 1908, p. 5G1.
62
BULLETIN" OF T H E BUREAU OF LAB OB.
(c) Thirteen had had a history of colic, severe enough to re
quire medical treatment, and confirmation of their statements was
obtained from the physicians who had treated them. They were at
the time this examination was made in ill health, suffering from
anemia and indigestion. The lead line was apparent in 10, and in
3 the inflammatory condition of the mouth described above.
There seemed to be justification, therefore, for believing that these
54 men were suffering from chronic plumbism.
Thirty-eight men were looked upon as suspicious cases. Fifteen
of these had the symptoms described above as characteristic of lead
poisoning, but no lead line; urine and blood tests might have proved
them to be cases of plumbism, but as these tests could not be made
they must be regarded simply as suspicious cases. The other 23
showed a clear lead line, but either made no complaint of ill health
or failed to give a picture typical of lead poisoning, and they, too,
must be looked upon as suspicious cases only. Such men would prob
ably in England or Germany be closely watched by the examining
physician, if not temporarily suspended from work.
Finally, there were 56 who had no lead line and only vague symp
toms. The average period of employment for these three classes was
about the same, only slightly longer for the positive cases.
To sum up, among 148 men examined, 54, or 36 per cent, showed
evidence of chronic plumbism; 56, or 38 per cent, did not show any
evidence of plumbism; 38, or 25 per cent, wrere not free from sus
picion, but could not be regarded as clear cases.
LENGTH OF EXPOSURE IN LEAD-POISONING CASES.
Among the 309 cases of lead poisoning were 186 who gave infor
mation as to the length of time they had been employed in this trade.
The average was 6 years, but 38 had worked less than 1 year.
ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY-SIX CASES OF LEAD POISONING IN THE GLAZE
DEPARTMENT OF 10 PORCELAIN-ENAMELED IRON SANITARY-WARE PLANTS,
BY CLASSIFIED LENGTH OF TIME EMPLOYED IN THE TRADE, 1910 AND 1911.
Length of time employed.
1 month and under 3 months..................
3 months and under 6 months.................
6 months and under 9 months.................
9 months and under 1 year......................
Total under 1 year..........................
1 year and under 2 years..........................
2 years and under 3 years........................
3 years and under 4 years........................
4 years and under 5 years........................
5 years and under 8 years........................
6 years and under 7 years........................
7 years and under 8 years........................
8 years and under 9 years........................
9 years and under 10 years.......................
Total under 10 years......................
Number.
3
19
10
6
38
9
11
7
9
15
12
8
19
9
137
Length of time employed.
10 years and under 11 years.....................
11 years and under 12 years.....................
12 years and under 13 years.....................
13 years and under 14 years.....................
14 years and under 15 years.....................
15 years and under 16 years.....................
16 years and under 17 years.....................
17 years and under 18 years.....................
18 years and under 19 years.....................
19 years and under 20 years.....................
Total under 20 years.......................
20 years and over.......................................
Total................................................
Number.
13
5
7
2
2
5
2
2
5
180
6
186
LEAD PO ISO N IN G I N PO TTERIES, T IL E W ORKS, ETC.
63
But many of these men had kept on working after they were sick,
going back when they were sufficiently recovered, and sometimes
repeating this many times. Eighty-two of them gave a history of
more than one attack of lead poisoning, of whom 19 used such expres
sions as “ many,” “ several,” “ frequent,” but 63 gave the actual
number of attacks. They were as M I oavs :
Number Number
of em
ployees. of attacks.
21
25
10
4
2
1
2
3
4
5
8
12
A table giving the period of exposure before the effects of the
poison were first felt is more illuminating than the length of employ
ment before a particular attack. This could be ascertained in 94
cases only. They averaged 2.3 years’ exposure.
NINETY-FOUR CASES OF LEAD POISONING IN THE GLAZE DEPARTMENTS OF
10 PORCELAIN-ENAMELED IRON SANITARY-WARE PLANTS, BY CLASSIFIED
PERIODS OF EXPOSURE.
Period of exposure.
Under 1 week............................................
Under 1 month........................................
1 month and under 2 months.................
2 months and under 3 months...............
3 months and under 4 months.................
4 months and under 6 months...............
6 months and under 8 months.................
8 m onths and under* 10 m onths
10 months and under 12 months
Total under 1 vea.r
1 year and under 2 years..........................
2 years and under 3 years.........................
Cases
of lead
poison
ing.
1
1
1
1
6
15
135
Period of exposure.
3 years and under 4 years.........................
4 years and under 5 years........................
5 years and under 6 years.........................
6 years and under 7 years.........................
7 years and under 8 years.........................
8 years and under 9 years.........................
9 years and under 10 years.......................
Total under 10 years......................
2
10 years a,nd over
45
Total................................................
9
11
Cases
of lead
poison
ing.
9
2
3
3
4
2
90
4
94
As always, some men are seen to be much more susceptible to lead
as a poison than others. The 25 men who sickened in less than 6
months were not necessarily more exposed to lead dust than those
who worked 10 years before they felt any symptoms of sickness.
Indeed, some of the former were working side by side with the
latter.
It has not been possible to separate the cases of lead poisoning
among enamelers from those among mixers nor to say what is the
proportion of men in each of these two groups affected by lead poison
ing. In 1 city there were reported 63 cases in 2 years among enam
elers in a factory employing 143 enamelers, and 36 cases among
mixers,
the whole force of mixers numbering only 20. This was a
64
B U L L E T IN OF T H E BUBEAU OF LABOR.
much larger number of cases among mixers than was heard of any
where else, but in this city information was obtained from a night
foreman who had been employed for many years in the mill depart
ment. Most of these cases were not sufficiently verified to have con
sideration in this study.
SEVERITY OF LEAD POISONING IN IRON SANITARY-WARE FACTORIES.
On this subject there are no figures from British sources to com
pare with those of this investigation. This industry is not, it seems,
an important source of poisoning in Great Britain, for only three
cases are attributed to it during the year 1909.
Serious cases of lead poisoning were found among these sanitary
ware enamelers, and yet not all the serious cases were located.
Stories were told of men who had gone back to their old homes in
Austria-Hungary broken in health, paralyzed, or dying, and some
times these tales came from very trustworthy sources^ but dates and
details were lacking. Fairly full statements, however, were obtained
from physicians, hospitals, or personal interviews concerning 177 of
the 309 cases considered. Of these 28 had palsy, 12 such cases being
reported by doctors, 16 by employers and men; 8 had the cerebral
form of lead poisoning, 7 of whom were reported by doctors and 1
by a fellow workman.
Accepting only the professional information the following classi
fication of 160 cases is obtained:
NUMBER AND PER CENT IN EACH CLASSIFICATION OF 160 PROFESSIONALLY
DETERMINED CASES OF LEAD POISONING IN 10 PORCELAIN-ENAMELED IRON
SANITARY-WARE PLANTS.
Classification.
Severe..................................................................................................................................
Moderate..............................................................................................................................
Slight...................................................................................................................................
Total..........................................................................................................................
Cases. Per cent.
19
77
64
160
11.9
48.1
40.0
100.0
The percentage of severe and moderate cases is greater here than
among the male potters.
Twelve cases were said to have ended fatally during these 2 years,
5 of whom were reported by the men, 7 by doctors and hospitals.
These 7 would represent a mortality of 3| a year among 1,012
employed, more than three times as great a mortality as that among
the potters.
EFFECT OF LEAD WITH REFERENCE TO NATURE OF THE WORK.
In considering the question of lead poisoning among iron sanitary
ware enamelers one must not overlook the influence of the excessive
Digitized for heat,
FRASER
of the bodily fatigue, and the irritating dust, all of which are
65
evils inherent in the work. The development of lead poisoning is,
according to all authorities, favored by fatigue, heat, and irritating
dust. Another feature of the work is the connection between lead
poisoning and tuberculosis. The enamel dust is ground glass, ex
tremely injurious to the lungs, and it is not surprising to find a great
deal of tuberculosis among the men who handle it. A physician prac
ticing near one of these factories had 20 patients die of tuberculosis
during 7 years’ time, all of them mixers or enamelers. It is we11
known that lead poisoning favors the development of tuberculosis.
LEAD PO ISO N IN G IN PO TTERIES, TILE W ORKS, ETC.
IS DANGER OF LEAD POISONING INCREASING IN INDUSTRIES STUDIED?
In the section on lead poisoning in the white-ware potteries it was
possible to say that according to information received from physicians
and workmen it seems to have decreased markedly. As to the other
branches of the pottery industry, tile making and art and utility
ware, the testimony is not unanimous, but it is probable that here,
too, there has been improvement. In the enameling of iron sanitary
ware there is apparently in some factories less lead poisoning than
formerly. One plant, for instance, is using less lead all the time and
the manager is endeavoring to get away from its use altogether. In
this town both the physicians and the employees of the factory assert
that there is not nearly so much sickness among the men as there used
to be. In two other towns conditions are said to have grown worse
instead of better, and lead poisoning to be increasing. This, of course,
is only hearsay evidence. So long as there is no compulsory registra
tion of cases of industrial lead poisoning and no more accurate way
of discovering cases than those here used, it can not be known whether
matters are really improving or growing worse, and so long as
formulas are secret and there is no legal control over the amount of
lead in the enamel it is impossible to determine whether one plant is
really more dangerous than another.
55884°—12-----5
A P P E N D IX A .
HYGIENIC CONDITIONS AND REGULATIONS IN POTTERIES, TILE WORKS,
AND ENAMELED SANITARY WARE WORKS IN GREAT BRITAIN, GER
MANY, AND AUSTRIA.
INTRODUCTION.
This inquiry was mad© during the summer of 1912 and covered
potteries in Great Britain, Germany, and Austria making earthen
ware for toilet and table use, sanitary earthenware, glazed tiles, and
enameled ironware for sanitary purposes, as these are the branches
of industry investigated in the United States. Establishments were,
selected which use a lead glaze or a lead enamel and at the same time
information was sought as to the attitude of the manufacturers to
ward the much-discussed question of leadless glaze and fritted glaze.
It was evident that in these three countries the use of glazes con
taining soluble lead is recognized as dangerous for the workmen and
in all the establishments visited various measures were found in
force which had been introduced solely with a view to prevent lead
poisoning among the glaze workers; measures more or less complete
and efficient, but always far superior to those found in potteries in
the United States. No British, German, or Austrian pottery was seen
in which dust was tolerated in the dipping room, in which glaze
scraping and brushing were carried on without any device for remov
ing the dust, or which failed to provide a lunch room and wash rooms
for the workpeople.
The hygiene of the industry differs very much in these three coun
tries, being best controlled in Great Britain, least in Austria, with
Germany in between. British potteries and tile works have ap
parently every possible device for the prevention of dust and for
insuring personal cleanliness on the part of the workpeople. Ger
man potteries and tile works are more generously and beautifully
built than the British, the mechanical arrangements for conveying
clay and ware are much better, wash rooms and lunch rooms are
always scrupulously clean and usually very attractive, but the system
of dust prevention is net as well thought out as in Great Britain, and
in consequence the dangers of ware cleaning are greater in German
factories. Nor do they make as generous provision in the matter of
washing facilities and working clothes as do the British. The larger
Austrian potteries resemble the German but are inferior in construc
tion and in dust prevention, while the smaller potteries in Austria
are said to be bad.
66
67
In Great Britain these industries are governed by special rules
which are modified according as the factory uses a glaze or enamel
rich in lead or the reverse. The German law of 1887 is designed
to protect the consumer, not the workman, for it simply prohibits
the use of a glaze which would yield soluble lead after one-half hour’s
boiling with 4 per cent acetic acid, this being rendered necessary by
the German habit of using earthenware for cooking purposes. Cases
of food poisoning have been traced to the use of lead glazed ware in
cooking. Efforts to introduce a law in Germany similar to the
British law have met with decided opposition from the association
of German master potters (Verbancl Deutscher Keramikef) who in
sist that the facts do not justify such legislation, that there is very
little lead poisoning in this industry, and less each year. As will
be seen later on, it is impossible to prove or disprove such a state
ment, because German statistics are incomplete, but whether or not
there is need of further legislation in Germany, it is certainly true
that many German employers have of their own initiative intro
duced into their potteries equipment and regulations measuring
nearly up to those required in Great Britain. The “ Verband ” also
declares itself in favor of the use of harmless glazes and urges all
members to carry on experiments in leadless glaze and in properly
fritted glaze.
One advantage of the British system of regulation is that it offers
every inducement to the manufacturer to reduce the amount of
soluble lead in his glaze and thus escape the irksome rules govern
ing potteries in which the glaze has over 5 per cent soluble lead.
The German and Austrian manufacturers have not this incentive.
In Austria there is no law regulating the pottery industry as such,
nor the making of enameled ironware, but the factory inspectors
have the power to insist upon the sanitary reforms which seem
necessary in any individual plant.
The system of medical care for the workpeople who are exposed
to lead is more thorough in Great Britain than in Germany and
Austria. A physician paid by the employer and approved by the
Home Office examines once a month all those who are exposed in any
way to the effects of lead and reports all cases of lead poisoning to
the Home Office. In Germany and Austria people suffering from
lead poisoning, like all other sick working people, go to the doctors
attached to the sickness-insurance office, and these doctors are not
obliged to report cases of lead poisoning in Prussia or in Austria, but
in Saxony the law requires them to do so. Obviously, even in Sax
ony, it is possible for cases to escape detection which would be
brought to light under the routine examination practiced in British
potteries.
LEAD PO ISO N IN G IN PO TTERIES, TILE W ORKS, ETC.
B U L L E T IN OF T H E BUREAU OF LABOR.
68
The question of the composition of glazes and enamels was dis
cussed with British, German, and Austrian experts. It is evident
that there is an effort among the pottery manufacturers in all these
countries to get away from the use of lead altogether whenever this
is found to be possible and, when it is not, to frit the lead in such
a way as to render it insoluble. In a large tile works in Velten
(Prussia) a glaze was found in use which after careful fritting
contains only 0.01 per cent of soluble lead. The original formula
was given as follows:1
Parts.
S ilica_____________________________________________________________________156. 0
Feldspar------------ -— —------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 55. 9
Potassium nitrate_______________________________________________________ 10.1
Sodium carbonate (anhydrous)--------------------------------------------------------------- 21.2
Tin oxide________________________________________________________ :----------- 60. 0
Lead oxid e______________________________________________________________ 133. 8
K a o lin __________________________________________________________________ 25. 8
In a Meissen tile works and pottery 18 per cent of red lead enters
into the mixture, but fritting reduces the amount of soluble lead to
3 to 4 per cent. The owner of an Austrian earthenware pottery which
was visited claims to have a fritted glaze which is entirely harmless,
though the Thorpe solubility test has not been applied to it. The for
mula is as follows:
Sand_________
Boric acid----S o d a ________
Oxide of lead.
Lime_________
392
39
17
260
188
This is fritted at a high temperature and is said to contain only
traces of soluble lead.
Dr. L. Teleky gives the results of several analyses of glaze made for
him by the royal food commission in Vienna (Lebensmitteluntersuchungsanstalt). A fritted glaze from Villeroy and Boch in Dres
den gave only 0.9 per cent soluble lead, and one from a firm in Furstenwald, which frits at a high temperature, contained no soluble lead.
On the other hand a poorly fritted glaze from a pottery in Meissen
had almost as much soluble lead 2 as a nonfritted glaze from the same
pottery, 56.17 per cent for the former, 61.3 per cent for the latter.
One of the tile factories in Meissen that was visited was using a
glaze for colored tiles which contained 30 per cent soluble lead. It
is in the use of these glazes, rich in lead, that the superiority of
British methods is seen, for, as far as the avoidance of glaze dust is12
1 Keramischer Rundschau, Vol. 20, p. 79.
2 The term soluble lead always means the amount of lead soluble in 0.25 per cent hydro
chloric acid, according to the Thorpe test. See Rule No. 2, special rules for the manufac
ture and decoration of earthenware and china in Great Britain, Appendix B of this
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p. 83.
69
concerned, the British tile works are much better managed than the
German.
In general it may be said that while the legal regulation of this
industry is not as strict in Germany and Austria as in Great Britain,
yet the employers in these countries are alive to the danger of the
use of lead glazes and are trying to lessen it by improving the com
position of the glaze and by protecting the workmen. The following
is a more detailed account of the way in which glaze is handled in
British, German, and Austrian potteries and the care that is given
to the working people:
LEAD PO ISO N IN G IN PO TTERIES, T ILE W ORKS, ETC.
BRITISH POTTERIES AND TILE WORKS.
Three potteries making table and toilet ware were visited in Staf
fordshire, namely, the Doulton Co., in Burslem; the Grindley Hotel
Ware Co., in Burslem; and the Star China Co., in Langton. The
factories are not as large and roomy as are the best in the United
States, but are also not as dark and crowded as are the worst. In
hygienic construction they are immeasurably superior to the best in
New Jersey and Ohio. The dipping rooms are constructed so as to
allow of perfect cleaning and they are kept clean. The floors of
these rooms are of cement or dust brick which shows plainly the white
drops of glaze and makes it easy to control a careless dipper. Splash
ing is never allowed, for it is wasteful as well as dangerous. The
floors are never swept dry but are washed with mops or flushed from
a hose every evening. The walls also are of smooth, impermeable,
painted plaster or of tiles, so that they can be washed free from dust.
In the three potteries visited the dipping rooms were very attrac
tive, that at Grindley’s being especially so; a one-storied building,
well lighted and ventilated from the roof, with a dark red tile floor
contrasting pleasantly with the white-glazed tiles which covered the
walls. Such a room can be washed from ceiling to floor.
There are various devices for preventing the dipper from splashing
glaze on walls and floor, but all are essentially screens of w^ood or
zinc, guarding all the circumference of the tub except the place where
the dipper stands working, or there may be a cover over all but a
third of the tub and the dipper then wrorks under this cover.
One does not usually find a u taker-off ” working beside the dipper’s
drip board as in our potteries, although this is sometimes seen. In
such cases the dipper places the ware on a board which stands so as
to drip back into the tub and the taker-off lifts it off. Never is the
glaze allowed to fall anywhere but back into the tub, a matter of
economy as well as precaution against dust.
In these three potteries the dippers placed their ware at once on a
so-called “ mangle,” which consists of a series of grated shelves travel
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Glost kiliunen do no ware cleaning; they only place the ware in
the saggers. Ware cleaning or finishing is done dry, with knives
called “ fettles,” or sharp sticks, or stiff brushes, or it is done wet
with sponges or wet flannel, but always with every possible precau
tion against dust, When dry rubbing or scraping must be used, the
man or woman, more often the latter, works over a large vessel or
shallow sink of water, which catches all the heavier particles of glaze,
and in front of or over an air exhaust, which carries off the lighter
particles. There are various devices used. In one pottery a man
was rubbing the bottoms of small saucers across rough flannel fas
tened to a long board. In front of the board, between it and the
man, was a shallow trough of water, and behind the board ran the
long opening of an air exhaust drawing away the dust raised by the
rubbing. In another, the girl taker-off at the mangle had before her
a long shallow tank in which stood two boards covered with flannel,
not under the water but saturated by it. From the center of the
tank projected the opening of an air exhaust covered with netting.
The girl took two cups off the mangle, rubbed the foot of one against
the other, holding them over this exhaust, then gave each a quick rub
over the wet flannel.
Other ware needs more thorough cleaning, with fettle and brush.
Here women were found scraping and brushing off the glaze into
shallow sinks filled with water, along the farther side of which ran
an opening about 6 inches high, with a strong exhaust leading into
the dust-collecting system. The glaze deposited from these exhaust
pipes is used to finish the inside of saggers; the glaze caught in the
water can be used for ware again. It is claimed that it is an economy
to collect excess glaze in water instead of letting it fall on the floor
to be swept up with dust and dirt,
The boards on which the glazed ware is placed and the shelves on
which it is stored before firing are beautifully clean. These boards
must be washed every evening.
Decorating rooms are not superior to those in the United States.
The proposed new rules which are still under consideration will
require the floors in these rooms to be of some impervious material,
but at present they are made of wood, and color is blown and dusted
on ware at wooden tables. The hoods used over the color blowing
to carry off the dust are like those in our potteries, except that it is
more usual in England to have the sides and top made of glass, a
good thing, for it allows one to see whether the color dust is really
carried off by the exhaust. In one pottery the sides of the hood
sloped together toward the front, thus narrowing the opening.
Majolica painting and glazing was seen in the Royal Art Pottery
in Langton. Here all the arrangements for preventing splashing
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found, and it is unnecessary to go into details. The processes used
are similar to those used in Zanesville art potteries, but the contrast
between this place and the ones visited in Zanesville is very great.
The English majolica pottery owner has succeeded in rendering the
wrork almost dustless; certainly no possible precaution seems to have
been neglected. The two tile factories visited were Minton & Hol
lins, in Stoke-upon-Trent, and Malkin’s, in Burslem. In these two
factories the abolition of glaze dust strikes an American observer as
even more remarkable than in the potteries, perhaps because Ameri
can tile works are greater offenders in the matter of dust than are
the potteries. At Minton & Hollins colored tiles are dipped by hand
so skillfully as to need no subsequent cleaning. Colored cornices and
other irregular shapes are painted with a brush, and as soon as each
is finished it is taken by a cleaner and scraped before the glaze has
had time to dry. The damp glaze drops into a pan of water and is
used again. Great care is taken not to waste it by letting it fall on
the table or floor. In both these factories it is the rule to fettle all
tiles that need cleaning at once, before they are dry, and never let
them accumulate. Usually a dipper has three or four helpers, one
to pass the dipped tiles to the others for cleaning. Majolica tiles are
finished at once by the decorator himself.
The dipping rooms in these ^factories are excellently constructed,
especially the ones in Malkin’s, which are very light and well aired,
with white tiled walls and a red tiled floor sloping to a drain, so that
it can be flushed with a hose.
The glaze for colored tiles contains, of course, much more lead
than that for white tiles, and the glazing of the two kinds is carried
on in separate rooms. Colored tiles are placed in saggers by the
dippers; white tiles are placed by special workers in a separate room,
but these people come under the same rules as other glaze workers.
The greatest contrast between British and American potteries and
tile works is seen in the attention paid to the personal care of the
workpeople. All the factories visited come under the special rules
which apply to places using a glaze containing more than 5 per cent
soluble lead. These rules apply to every person who comes in con
tact with the glaze in any way, even if he is only working in the same
room with dippers or cleaners. This, of course, leads to a strict sepa
ration of safe from dangerous processes, such as does not obtain in
many American potteries and tile works.
The glaze workers are furnished with full suits of washable work
ing clothes, washed weekly and mended at the expense of the em
ployer. Men wear overalls and caps, women full, high-necked, and
long-sleeved aprons of some light-cqlored calico. There was at first
a good deal of opposition on the part of the girls to wearing caps,
but
a clever factory inspector devised a pretty shirred sunbonnet
LEAD PO ISO N IN G IK PO TTER IES, T ILE W ORKS, ETC.
72
B U L L E T IN OF T H E BUREAU OF LABOR.
which sits loosely on the head and is very becoming. One sees light
blue, pink, and lavender, the girls choosing the color they like. The
bonnets are very inexpensive.
Toilet rooms must contain one basin with hot and cold running
water for every five employees, and roller towels, soap, and nail
brushes. The workpeople are required to take off their Avork clothes,,
and wash hands and face, before leaving work or going into the lunch
room, the only place where they are permitted to keep and eat food.
It is customary to allow one-quarter of an hour in the middle of the
morning and afternoon and one hour at noon. The lunch rooms in
British potteries are for the most part unattractive and untidy and
can not bear comparison with those in German potteries, but the
difference lies in the workpeople rather than in the employers.
The men and women employed in the Staffordshire potteries look
for the most part in excellent health, the girls with beautiful, bloom
ing complexions, but it would hardly be fair to compare them with
the workers in our potteries, for Americans in every walk of life are
paler and less robust looking than the English.
In discussing the question of State regulation of the pottery in
dustry, very strong opposition was usually expressed in Staffordshire
to any suggestion of the prohibition of lead glaze, but no criticism
was made of the rules protecting the workpeople against lead pois
oning. As can be seen, these rules involve expense and continual
vigilance on the part of the employer, yet not only are they accepted,,
but in some instances 'employers have gone beyond the requirements
of the law. Thus in the Malkin Tile Works a physician is employed
to attend to all the ailments of the women employees, in addition to
the phj^sician who once a month examines them for symptoms of
plumbism. This factory furnishes hot milk free each morning to
all the people who come under the special rules. There is a charm
ingly fitted-up lunch room with walls of decorated tiles, and the em
ployers provide a stove and fuel and the services of a housekeeper,
who cooks the food which the workpeople club together to buy. In
this way they can have a hot meat dinner for the sum of 3|d.
(7 cents).
GERMAN POTTERIES AND TILE WORKS.
The German pottery industry is different in many ways from the
British and therefore from our own, which is, of course, of British
origin. Moreover, the methods used in parts of Germany are differ
ent from those in potteries in other regions making similar w^are.
Stove tiles in Prussia are glazed in one way, in Saxony, Bavaria, and
Silesia in quite another way. Roof tiles are mostly unglazed; others
are covered, as in America, with a leadless glaze; but, in some places,
the Diisseldorf region for instance, a glaze with a large amount of
lead
is used.
73
In the Berlin district stove tiles are covered with an opaque glaze
containing oxides of tin and of lead, which are very thoroughly
fritted. These are known as “ Schmelzkacheln.” In Saxony, Ba
varia, Silesia, and in Austria a transparent glaze is used, soft, rich
in lead, which has been only partially fritted, if at all. For white
tiles the glaze may have from 10 per cent to 60 per cent lead oxide;
for colored, from 40 per cent to 80 per cent. These tiles are
“ Begusskacheln.”
One great drawback of the pottery industry in Prussia and in
Austria is that instead of using already prepared lead oxides for
the glaze, metallic lead, with tin usually, is oxidized in furnaces in
the pottery, and there is thus added a new element of danger for
the workmen. Indeed, in the Yelten district in Prussia, where a
red-clay body is used and must be covered with an opaque glaze,
this oxidizing of tin and lead is general and is said to be responsible
for almost all the cases of lead poisoning in these potteries.
Earthenware for sanitary use is covered with a leadless glaze,
table and toilet ware with a lead glaze, usually only partly fritted,
for most of the lead oxide—rarely white lead—is added after the
fritting process. According to Dr. Kaup, in the potteries of the
upper Palatinate all the lead is fritted with sand sufficient to com
bine wTith it and produce the higher silicates of lead, and in conse
quence lead poisoning has vanished from this part of the country.
The potteries visited in Germany were the Veltener Ofenfabrik,
of Blumenfeld, near Berlin, where white and colored tiles are made;
the Meissner Ofen- und Porzellan- Fabrik, C. Teichert, in Meissen,
making tiles and porcelain; and the Dresden branch of Villeroy &
Boch making sanitary ware, table and toilet ware, and tiles. These
are all large, modern, beautifully constructed factories, with brick
or tiled floors, tiled walls, ample light and air, and so high a stand
ard of cleanliness that in many rooms one could quite literally eat
off the floor.
The Veltener factory is an example of Prussian tile works, where
the glaze used is practically harmless. The formula for this glaze
has already been given.
After thorough fritting the lead is converted to the higher silicate,
and the report from the Government laboratories gave the amount
of soluble lead as only 0.01 per cent.
In this pottery there are only three places where there is any
danger of lead poisoning. The chief one is in the preparation of
the lead oxide. Metallic lead and tin are melted together and oxi
dized in furnaces. The usual precautions against the escape of
fumes are employed here, but it is said that all the cases of lead
poisoning in the factory came from the furnace gang. The second
is in the mixing room, where, however, such scrupulous cleanli
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B U L L E T IN OF T H E BUREAU OF LABOR.
ness is observed that one does not see how a case of dust poisoning
could occur.
The handling of the glaze, especially m ware cleaning, is not
nearly as careful as in England, but as the glaze is practically free
from soluble, lead there would be no need of such precautions. Safe
as it is, it is used with decidedly more care than are our soluble lead
glazes in America.
The third place where there is danger of lead poisoning is in the
making of onyx tiles. Lead colors are used and are applied by
means of sponges or atomizers. No women are employed in any of
these departments in this factory. Thirty men in all come in con
tact with lead in making and handling the glaze. Working clothes
are not provided here, nor are the washing accommodations at all
abundant, and there is no medical examination of the employees.
The officials..state that they average a little less than two cases of
lead poisoning a year, and that these men always come from the
furnace rooms.
As was stated above, the Dresden tile industry differs from the
Berlin in that a nonfritted or partially fritted glaze is used, con
taining often a large quantity of soluble lead. C. Teichert, in
Meissen, uses for wall tiles a glaze containing 90 to 95 per cent of
frit in which 10 to 20 per cent of red lead has been fused with large
quantities of silica and supposedly rendered insoluble, but this point
has not been verified by test. The experiment in fritting was made
in order to lessen the dangers of lead poisoning, and the fritted glaze
has been found to be entirely free from any disadvantages. For
stove tiles the problem is quite different, and so far it has been im
practicable to use for these a fritted glaze. It was explained that the
body of the stove tiles is made of clay which will not take a glaze
very rich in silicic acid, for it would be too inelastic and would
craze. As much as 60 or 65 per cent of red lead is used for these
tiles, and the Thorpe test is said to show the presence of 10 to 30 per
cent soluble lead.
Mixing is carried on in a room which has a smooth brick floor
and is kept scrupulously clean, but there are no dust removing ex
hausts, and an open tub is used for the mixing of ingredients.
White tiles for walls are glazed by means of machines like those
used in the United States and, as in our factories, need no scraping
or brushing. There are also machines for colored tiles. These
tiles are placed right side up on a traveling belt which carries them
through a closed chamber under a spray of colored glaze. Irregular
shapes are glazed in the same way. Large tiles, such as are used for
stoves, are glazed by pouring and these need scraping and brushing.
Women and girls scrape them with knives and rub them with heavy
felt,
letting the glaze fall into pans on the table. There is no water
75
to catch the heavy glaze and no exhaust to carry off the lighter part,
though there is really net much dust, for the glaze is still a little
damp. Still the English way of managing this part of the work is
undeniably better. In this factory decorated tiles are mostly col
ored under the glaze with leadless colors applied by deealcomania or
atomizer.
Seven hundred persons are employed here and out of this force
40 to 50 women and 24 to 30 men come in contact with glaze as
dippers and cleaners. In addition, there are 45 placers and glost
kilnmen. As in England, safe processes are separate from danger
ous; pressers and dippers do not work in the same room. There is
also a noticeable absence of dust throughout the works, in great con
trast to American tile factories. In the flint grinding room, for
instance, there is very little dust to be seen, because the mills are well
inclosed in wooden frames and are furnished with exhaust pipes
which carry off the dust and deposit it in bags, mechanically shaken
and emptying into closed hoppers. The mill was open at the time
the visit was made and a man was shoveling in flint but he worked
carefully and the draft was strong enough to draw the dust in from
the opening.
In the pressroom also, where the tiles are formed, there are large
fans in the ceiling to carry off the dust. As all authorities assure
us that irritating dusts act as predisposing cause of lead poisoning,
their removal must be looked upon as one of the measures of preven
tion of this disease, especially where, as is the case in some American
factories, pressing and glazing go on in the same room.
The factory of Villeroy & Boch, in Dresden, manufactures sanitary
ware with a leadless glaze, table and toilet ware and tiles with a
lead glaze. It is a beautiful factory, very spacious, with high ceil
ings, floors of red and white brick, and walls covered up to a height of
8 feet with gaily patterned tiles. A large dipping room accommodates
60 men and women engaged in dipping and finishing table and toilet
ware. They dip by hand only the largest and smallest pieces; the
others they grasp by means of long-handled, three-pronged forceps,
so that the dipper’s hand does not come in contact with the glaze at
all. Each piece is whirled in the air for a few seconds to dry the
glaze and not placed on the receiving board till it is too dry to drip.
To prevent scattering of drops the dipping tubs are provided with
guards of sheet zinc, as in England.
The little marks left in the glaze by the ends of the forceps are
usually smoothed off at once by the dipper’s finger, though even this
is not necessary in the case of the smaller ware handled with tiny
forceps. More extensive ware cleaning is done with thick felt or
knives. The women are supposed to do it over the opening of an air
but really much of it is done right at the receiving boards.
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There is not nearly as much care shown in this part of the work as
there is in England, but the glaze used for this ware is fritted and
contains only from 3 to 5 per cent of soluble lead.
In the tile division, also, there are not as many precautions taken as
in the English works visited. The dippers splashed glaze more and
the finishers had allowed tiles to accumulate and dry before scraping
off the excess of glaze. The work, however, was not as dusty as that
seen in some American factories, where the finishers brush and blow
away the glaze.
There are 200 persons regularly employed as dippers, cleaners,
placers, and kilnmen, and 15 more who work twice a year for periods
of four or five weeks making up the semiannual supply of glaze.
During the last four years no case of lead poisoning has come to the
notice of the sickness-insurance physicians. Certainly this is a record
to be proud of.
AUSTRIAN POTTERIES AND TILE WORKS.
In Austria as in the United States there is no law regulating the
hygiene of this industry as such and there is no compulsory regis
tration of cases of lead poisoning. Factory inspectors insist upon
certain essentials in the matter of cleanliness and lunch rooms sepa
rate from the workrooms, but one of the factories which was visited
had never been inspected and was therefore quite at liberty to neglect
all precautions. Nevertheless it seems, to judge from the instances
seen, that the owners of large potteries in Austria do not need to
be compelled to provide at least the essentials for the protection of
their workmen. For instance, in the Wieneberger tile works in
Vienna, where 550 workpeople are employed, every effort is made to
render the work dustless. The clay used for tiles is slightly
dampened before pressing, and the pressroom is singularly free from
dust. In the dipping rooms the tiled floors are washed daily, the
tables are washed daily, and the ware is cleaned over or in front of
an air exhaust. The workpeople are provided with special clothing
and head covering; there are well-equipped dressing rooms and a sepa
rate lunch room. In the earthenware pottery of Lichtenstein Bros.,
in Wilhelmsburg, the glaze mixing, grinding, and fritting is carried
on in an open shed to avoid dust.
Neither of these potteries comes up to the British standard of
safety, but both are superior to American potteries.
COMPARISON OF CONDITIONS IN AMERICAN AND FOREIGN POTTERIES.
If we should sum up the points of superiority in these foreign
potteries and tile factories as compared with those in the United
States, we should find that the first one is the recognition on the
part of the foreign employer that the handling of lead glaze is a
dangerous trade, and that the workman engaged in it needs pro
tection.
The means adopted to protect him, which are not found in
77
American factories, are the following: Efforts to lessen the amount
of soluble lead in the glaze by careful fritting; constructing the mix
ing, grinding, dipping, cleaning, and placing rooms with hard,
smooth floors easily kept clean; prevention of splashing from the
dipping tubs by properly constructed screens; catching the heavy
glaze scraped off by the cleaners in water and camming off the lighter
particles by means of air exhausts ; providing and requiring the use
of clean, washable working clothes and caps, and of properly
equipped wash rooms; forbidding the workmen to keep or eat food
in any room except the lunch room; subjecting all glaze workers and
decorators to a monthly medical examination.
All of these reforms could be introduced into potteries and tile
works in the United States without necessitating any change in
methods of manufacture.
LEAD PO ISO N IN G IN PO TTERIES, T ILE W O RK S, ETC.
LEAD POISONING IN BRITISH, GERMAN, AND AUSTRIAN POTTERIES.
The British regulations in the potteries have resulted in a great
reduction in the number of cases of lead poisoning among potters
and decorators. As the annual reports of the factory inspection
department of the Home Office give full statistics as to the numbers
employed, men and women, in the various occupations exposing them
to lead, and the number of cases of lead poisoning occurring each
year, it is easy to trace the effect of the sanitary control of this in
dustry in Great Britain. The regular monthly medical examination
insures the detection of early cases and of mild chronic cases, for
all authorities agree that unless all the working force comes under
the eye of a physician at regular intervals some of these cases will
escape discovery. As neither Germany nor Austria has this system
of medical control, it follows that their information concerning lead
poisoning in the pottery industry is incomplete. It would be very
interesting to compare the results of the different methods in these
countries as shown by the proportion of cases of lead poisoning
among the workmen in each, but German and Austrian reports are
not full enough to make this possible. A search for usable and
comparable statistics of lead poisoning in the German and Austrian
ceramic industries is bewildering and could be successful only if
one had unlimited time to devote to it, and after conference wTith
such authorities as Prof. Albrecht and Dr. Kaup, of the Centralstelle fiir Volkswohlfahrt in Berlin, Councilor Hlibener, of Dresden,
and Dr. Teleky, of the University of Vienna, it was decided to give
up the attempt.
It is not possible to discover from the published reports how many
ceramic workmen in Germany and in Austria are exposed to lead
and how many of them contract lead poisoning in the course of a
year. To ascertain these facts it would be necessary to visit all
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78
insurance office and pick out the cases. The yearly report of the
factory inspection department of Saxony (Jahresbericht des kordglich Sachsischen Geioerbe-Aufsichtsbeamten) for the year 1910
gives the number employed in 71 potteries as 6,760 and in 144 tile
factories as 4,146, but this includes workmen in all the departments
and also includes potteries which use a leadless glaze. Having only
this to go on, it is quite impossible to say whether the 22 cases of
lead poisoning which were reported as having occurred in potteries
and tile works during this year represent a small or a fairly large
proportion of those engaged in handling the glaze, yet nothing more
detailed than this can be found. It is not possible to find out from
the report to which sex the 22 cases belong, what sort of work they
were doing, or what sort of glaze they were handling.
In Prussia even the number of cases of lead poisoning occurring in
a year is not known, because there such cases are not reported. The
authorities who were interviewed said that there could not be much
lead poisoning in the potteries or the attention of the sickness insur
ance office would have been called to it and an inquiry instituted.
The use of well-fritted glaze in the Prussian tile works makes it prob
able that there is less trouble there than in Saxony.
Dr. Kaup, of the Centralstelle fur Yolkswohlfahrt in Berlin, has
made a study of lead poisoning in the ceramic industries in Germany,
collecting all the available information on this subject, and he be
lieves that the amount of industrial plumbism among this class of
people is not indicated by the reports of the sickness insurance office
or by the records of hospitals, because many workpeople do not seek
hospitals or even visit physicians unless they feel themselves to be
seriously ill. For instance, in the Freiburg region net one case had
been reported, but a factory inspector expressed the belief that 10
per cent of the women in the potteries were suffering from lead
poisoning. Dr. Kaup is thoroughly in favor of legislation requiring
regular medical examination and registration of all cases. He thinks
there is no evidence that the cases are diminishing. In Velten in
1901, 1,74s1 persons wTere employed in ceramic work and 4 cases of
lead poisoning are recorded in the sickness insurance office. In 1905
the number of workers had increased to 2,500, but the cases to 14.
Dr. Ludwig Teleky, who occupies the chair of social medicine
in the University of Vienna, estimated that there are 10,522 persons
employed in making tiles and cheap earthenware in Austria-Hungary,
and that 5,000 of these are exposed to lead, this large proportion
being explained by the fact that 84 per cent of the establishments
employ less than 5 persons, and in such small potteries all the
workmen must come in contact with the glaze. Lead glazes usually
1 These figures represent all employes, not glaze workers only.
LEAD PO ISO N IN G IN PO TTERIES, T ILE W ORKS, ETC.
79
contain from 40 to 80 per cent of lead oxides and are rarely fritted.
One advantage of the small pottery is that many of them buy their
glaze already prepared, thus escaping the dangers not only of mix
ing and grinding, but also of burning the lead to make the oxides,
a procedure which is common in the larger Austrian potteries as
it is in the Prussian. The cheapest ware does not require cleaning,
another advantage, but in general the small potteries are dusty,
crowded, and insanitary, and when the work is carried on in the
potters’ homes it endangers the health of the family as well as of the
workmen.1 It is in this part of the industry that Dr. Teleky sees
most need of legislative control. He states that, in the absence of
medical examination of the pottery workers and registration of cases
of lead poisoning, it is impossible to say how much of the latter is
present in the potteries and tile works of Austria-Hungary. In
Vienna, during five years’ time, 36 cases of plumbism came under
the care of the sickness-insurance physicians. These all came from
12 potteries, where the regular force employed in glaze work was
not over 25 persons.
PORCELAIN-ENAMELED SANITARY WARE.
It is not so easy to compare the factories making this ware in
the United States with foreign factories as it was in the case of
potteries and tile works, because the great majority of British and
German factories use a leadless glaze for porcelain enameled bath
tubs, sinks, and basins. In Great Britain it was stated that the
use of leadless enamel had been adopted in order to escape the onerous
requirements made by the factory inspection department when lead
enamel is used, but in Germany it is claimed that leadless enamel is
superior in durability; that while lead enamel is at first smoother and
more shining, it quickly loses these properties under the action of
soap and hot water, becoming roughened, dull, and hard to clean.
Leadless enamel is less beautiful to start with but lasts much better.
The factory at Thale, the Wuppermann Works in Pinneberg, and
the Eschebach works in Kadeburg are all said to use leadless enamel.
The same is said to be true of the Doulton works in Paisley, Scot
land. In neither Great Britain nor Germany is this trade looked
upon as a dangerous one, and very little is said of it in factory
inspection reports. German experts were surprised to hear it spoken
of as a lead trade at all.
In Austria, on the other hand, ironware is enameled with a dry
glaze rich in red lead, and in this country the industry is regarded
as decidedly dangerous. One Austrian stove works was visited in
1 For a description of the effects on the workers of home manufacture of pottery, see
article on “ Industrial lead poisoning in Europe,” by Sir Thomas Oliver, Bulletin of the
United
States Bureau of Labor, No. 95, pp. 55 to 58.
B U L L E T IN OF T H E B UEEAU OF LABOE.
80
which gas stoves are enameled by a process identical with that used
in the United States for sanitary ware and with no more care than
is seen in the latter. Both the enamelers who were interviewed had
had lead poisoning, one of them recurring attacks of colic, the other
of palsy.
The most valuable suggestions as to what can be done to protect
workmen against lead poisoning when they are dusting dry lead
enamel over a heated surface were obtained in an English bathtub
works; and the best system of mixing and grinding was seen in the
Dresden branch of Villeroy & Boch, where a fritted glaze is made,
which is, for all practical purposes, identical with the enamel used
in our hollow-ware factories and may serve as a model for the mill
department of the latter as well as a model for potteries.
In Villeroy & Boch’s pottery there is a separate building de
voted to the preparation of fritted lead oxide glaze, which is made
up in enormous quantities twice a year. For four or five weeks,
spring and fall, about 15 men are employed here. Beginning on the
top floor of this building we find a storeroom where all the ingre
dients of the glaze except the red lead are kept in bins and sent down
through chutes to closed receptacles in the room below, the mixitig
room. Here they are weighed on large scales which stand under a
hood with an exhaust. The red lead is kept and weighed in a small
room adjoining. This room is all tiled and the white walls would
show plainly any deposit of red-lead dust, but it is flushed daily, the
water running off through a drain in the floor. The red lead falls
from a storeroom above into a closed bin, the sliding door of which
opens under a hood with an exhaust. Here there is a shelf holding
the scales; the lead is weighed into a box and then carried into the
mixing room, to be added last of all to the ingredients of the glaze.
There are hoods with air exhausts over the intakes and the vents of
the mixer, and it is excellently inclosed so that no leaking can take
place. Mixing rooms and mill rooms have smooth tiled floors and
are washed, not swept.
The charging of the fritting ovens is said to be free from dust, but
this detail could not be observed. The fritted glaze runs out into
water. It is said to contain from 3 to 5 per cent of soluble lead.
In this factory, therefore, the lead oxide is handled as a poisonous
substance should be handled, and the result of this clear recognition
of the danger and careful precautions against it is seen in the fact
that no case of lead poisoning has been reported to the sickness insur
ance office for the last four years. It would be hard to find a greater
contrast than that presented by this glaze mill and the one in a cer
tain sanitary ware factory in the United States where every room
in the building and even the passages and stairways are thick with
enamel dust.
81
The porcelain enameled sanitary ware made by A. Hutchinson &
Son (Ltd.), London, has a lead enamel, but the firm is now experi
menting with a leadless one of unknown formula made in France.
This factory is interesting, because the methods employed are the
same as those in American factories making similar ware, and yet a
very small proportion of enamelers in this factory suffer from lead
poisoning, which shows that in order to protect his workmen an
American manufacturer would not be obliged to make radical changes
in his methods of work. About 20 enamelers, 2 slushers, and 4 mill
hands are employed in this factory, using an enamel containing
soluble lead, the amount of which lead was not stated, but the factory
comes under the rules prescribed for places using as much as 5 per
cent soluble lead. The average number of cases of lead poisoning
in this factory employing 26 men is one case in two years’ time,
as shown by the records of the doctor who examines all the men once
a month.
When one compares these figures with those given in the section on
lead poisoning among enamelers and mill hands in the United States
one is inclined to think that quite extraordinary precautions must be
taken in the English factory to bring about such a result, but in re
ality the means used are most simple and obvious. The enamelers
wear not only full suits of overalls, washed weekly, but hats made
of white duck, which are also washable. They have pieces of muslin
or thick cheesecloth folded in many layers, ivhich they tie over the
lower part of the face in such a way that it can be drawn up when
needed and slipped down in the intervals of work. When the cloth
is drawn up it meets the brim of the hat behind and leaves no part
of the hair exposed. Experience has shown that the use of these
cloths can be insisted on, while the men rebel against the hot, heavy
rubber, and sponge respirators.
The enamel rooms are small, and yet are cleaner, less dusty, than
are most of those in the United States,. Above the furnace, in the
wall, is a fan with a strong draft, about 4 feet above the men’s
heads. This draft is, of course, not strong enough to draw off all
dust, but it helps. After each enameling the men take long-handled
brushes and brush down the beams of the ceiling, so that no dust accu
mulates. No dry sweeping is ever allowed.
The men have a wash room with hot water, one basin for every 5
men, shower baths, soap and towels, and toothbrushes. One of the
most important features is the granting of two short pauses for
lunches, and one of an hour for the midday meal. The men leave
their workrooms, take off their overalls, wash hands and face, and
eat their lunch in a room free from enamel dust. Thus they avoid
two great dangers to which enamelers in the United States are ex
posed,
‘for our enamelers must either -eat food which has been kept
LEAD PO ISO N IN G IN PO TTERIES, TILE W ORKS, ETC.
55884°—12------6
82
B U L L E T IN OF TFfE BUREAU OF LABOR.
in an atmosphere of lead dust, and which they must take without
stopping to wash hands or faces, or else they must go fasting for the
six or eight hours of their shift, and it is hard to say which of the
two is more conducive to lead poisoning.
When the monthly medical examination of all the men engaged
in making and handling the enamel is added the list of measures
which are used in this factory for the protection of the men is com
pleted. They are not revolutionary nor extravagant, and it would
seem entirely possible to introduce them into factories in the United
States. If by so doing the amount of lead poisoning could be reduced
from one in three to one-half in 26, it is probable that the reforms
would eventually pay for themselves in the increased efficiency of the
men.
APPENDIX B.
REGULATIONS FOR FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS IN CERTAIN
INDUSTRIES USING LEAD.
GREAT BRITAIN.
PART II.—SPECIAL RULES.1
FOE
THE
M ANUFACTURE
AND
DEC O R A TIO N
OF
EARTHENW ARE
AND
C H IN A
.12
Amended special rules established, after arbitration, by the awards of the umpire, Lord
James of Hereford, dated December 30, 1901, and November 28, 1903.
Duties of occupiers.
1. Deleted.
2. After the first day of February, 1904, no glaze shall be used which yields
to a dilute solution of hydrochloric acid more than 5 per cent of its dry weight
of a soluble lead compound calculated as lead monoxide when determined in the
manner described below.
A weighed quantity of dried material is to be continuously shaken for one
hour at the common temperature, with 1,000 times its weight of an aqueous
solution of hydrochloric acid containing 0.25 per cent of IIC1. This solution
is thereafter to be allowed to stand for one hour and to be passed through a
filter. The lead salt contained in an aliquot portion of the clear filtrate is
then to be precipitated as lead sulphide and weighed as lead sulphate.
If any occupier shall give notice in writing to the inspector for the district
that he desires to use a glaze which does not conform to the above-mentioned
conditions, and to adopt in his factory the scheme of compensation prescribed
in schedule B, and shall affix and keep the same affixed in his factory, the
above provisions shall not apply to his factory but instead thereof the follow
ing provisions shall apply.
All persons employed in any process included in schedule A other than china
scouring shall be examined before the commencement of their employment or
at the first subsequent visit of the certifying surgeon, and once in each calen
dar month by the certifying surgeon of the district.
The certifying surgeon may at any time order by signed certificate the
suspension of any such person from employment in any process included in
schedule A other than china scouring, if such certifying surgeon is of opinion
that such person by continuous work in lead will incur special danger from the
effects of plumbism, and no person after such suspension sha'll be allowed to
work in any process included in schedule A other than china scouring without
a certificate of fitness from the certifying surgeon entered in the register.
Any workman who, by reason of his employment being intermittent or
casual, or of his being in regular employment for more than one employer,
is unable to present himself regularly for examination by the certifying sur
geon, may procure himself at his own expense to be examined once a month
by a certifying surgeon, and such examination shall be a sufficient compliance
1 Factory and Workshop Acts. Dangerous and Unhealthy Industries. Regulations and
Special Rules in force on Jan. 1, 1908. London, 1907.
N o t e . —This print contains the codes of regulations and special rules (subject to the
exception mentioned on p. 150) in force on Jan. 1, 1908, in places under the factory acts.
The regulations appear in Part I of the print. They have been made under the pro
cedure ^enacted by the Factory and Workshop Act, 1901 (secs. 79-88), in substitution
for the “ special rules ” procedure of the earlier factory and workshop acts. Regula
tions apply automatically to all places of the class for which they are made. The
special rules appear in Part II. They are made under the procedure enacted in the Fac
tors and Workshop Acts, 1891 and 1895, and are not in force at a factory or workshop
until they have been established individually for that factory or workshop. The codes
of special' rules are being gradually replaced by regulations under the act of 1901.
2 This code superseded those of 1894, 1898, and 1901, which, however, are still in force
in a few works. The question of making regulations to supersede all four codes is
under
consideration.
83
84
B U L L E T IN OF T H E BUREA U OF LABOR,
with this rule. The result of such examination shall be entered by the cer
tifying surgeon in a book to be kept in the possession of the workman. He
shall produce and show the said book to a factory inspector or to any employer
on demand, and he shall not make any entry or erasure therein.
If the occupier of any factory to which this rule applies fails duly to
observe the conditions of the said scheme, or if any such factory shall by
reason of the occurrence of cases of lead poisoning appear to the secretary
of state to be in an unsatisfactory condition, he may, after an inquiry, at
which the occupier shall have an opportunity of being heard, prohibit the
use of lead for such time and subject to such conditions as he may prescribe.
All persons employed in the processes included in schedule A other than china
scouring shall present themselves at the appointed time for examination by the
certifying surgeon, as prescribed in this rule.
In addition to the examinations at the appointed times, any person so
employed may at any time present himself to the certifying surgeon for examina
tion, and shall be examined on paying the prescribed fee.
All persons shall obey any directions given by the certifying surgeon.
No person after suspension by the certifying surgeon shall work in any
process included in schedule A other than china scouring without a certificate
of fitness from the certifying surgeon entered in the register. Any operative
who fails without reasonable cause to attend any monthly examination shall
procure himself, at his own expense, to be examined within 14 days there
after by the certifying surgeon, and shall himself pay the prescribed fee.
A register in the form which has been prescribed by the secretary of state
for use in earthenware and china works shall be kept, and in it the certifying
surgeon shall enter the dates and results of his visits, the number of persons
examined, and particulars of any directions given by him. This register shall
contain a list of all persons employed in the processes included in schedule A,
or in emptying china biscuit ware, and shall be produced at any time when
required by His Majesty’s inspector of factories or by the certifying surgeon.
3. The occupier shall allow any of His Majesty’s inspectors of factories to
take at any time sufficient samples for analysis of any material in use or
mixed for use:
Provided, That the occupier may at the time when the sample is taken, and
on providing the necessary appliances, require the inspector to take, seal,
and deliver to him a duplicate sample.
But no analytical result shall be disclosed or published in any way except
such as shall be necessary to establish a breach of these rules.
4. No woman, young person, or child shall be employed in the mixing of
unfritted lead compounds in the preparation or manufacture of frits, glazes,
or colors.
5. No person under 15 years of age shall be employed in any process in
cluded in schedule A, or in emptying china biscuit ware.
Thimble-picking, or threading-up, or looking-over biscuit ware shall not be
carried on except in a place sufficiently separated from any process included in
schedule A.
6. All women and young persons employed in any process included in
schedule A shall be examined once in each calendar month by the certifying
surgeon for the district.
The certifying surgeon may order by signed certificate in the register the
suspension of any such woman or young persons from employment in any
process included in schedule A, and no person after such suspension shall
be allowed to work in any process included in schedule A without a cer
tificate of fitness from the certifying surgeon entered in the register.
7. A register, in the form which has been prescribed by the secretary of
state for use in earthenware and china works, shall be kept, and in it the cer
tifying surgeon shall enter the dates and results of his visits, the number
of persons examined in pursuance of rule 6 as amended, and particulars
of any directions given by him. This register shall contain a list of all per
sons employed in the processes included in schedule A, or in emptying china
biscuit ware, and shall be produced at any time when required by His Majesty’s
inspector of factories or by the certifying surgeon.
8. The occupier shall provide and maintain suitable overalls and head cover
ings for all women and young persons employed in the processes included in
the schedule A, or in emptying china biscuit ware.
No person shall be allowed to work in any process included in the schedule,
Digitized foror
FRASER
in emptying china biscuit ware, without wearing suitable overalls and
LEAD PO ISO N IN G IN PO TTERIES, T IL E W ORKS, ETC.
85
Lead coverings: Provided, TLat nothing in this rule shall render it obligatory
on any person engaged in drawing glost ovens to wear overalls and head
coverings.
All overalls, head coverings, and respirators, when not in use or being
washed or repaired, shall be kept by the occupier in proper custody. They
shall be washed or renewed at least once a week, and suitable arrangements
shall be made by the occupier for carrying out these requirements.
A suitable place, other than that provided for the keeping of overalls, head
coverings, and respirators, in which all the above workers can deposit clothing
put oft during working hours, shall be provided by the occupier.
Each respirator shall bear the distinguishing mark of the worker to whom it
is supplied.
9. No person shall be allowed to keep, or prepare, or partake of any food,
or drink, or tobacco, or to remain during meal times, in a place in winch is
carried on any process included in schedule A.
The occupier shall make suitable provision to the reasonable satisfaction
of the inspector in charge of the district for the accommodation during meal
times of persons employed in such places or processes, with a right of appeal
to the chief inspector of factories. Such accommodation shall not be provided
in any room or rooms in which any process included in schedule A is carried
on, and no washing conveniences mentioned hereafter in rule 13 shall be main
tained in any room or rooms provided for such accommodation.
Suitable provision shall be made for the deposit of food brought by the
workers.
10. The processes of—
The towing of earthenware,
China scouring,
Ground laying,
Ware cleaning after the dipper,
Color dusting, whether on-glaze or under-glaze,
Color blowing, whether on-glaze or under-glaze,
Glaze blowing, or
Transfer making,
shall not be carried on without the use of exhaust fans, or other efficient
means for the effectual removal of dust, to be approved in each particular case
by the secretary of state, and under such conditions as he may from time to
time prescribe.
In the process of ware cleaning after the dipper, sufficient arrangements
shall be made for any glaze scraped off which is not removed by the fan, or
the other efficient means, to fall into water.
'In the process of ware cleaning of earthenware after the dipper, damp
sponges or other damp material shall be provided in addition to the knife or
other instrument, and shall be used wherever practicable.
Flat-knocking and fired-flint-sifting shall be carried on only in inclosed re
ceptacles, which shall be connected with an efficient fan or other efficient
draft unless so contrived as to prevent effectually the escape of injurious
dust.
In all processes the occupier shall, as far as practicable, adopt efficient meas
ures for the removal of dust and for the prevention of any injurious effects
arising therefrom.
11. No person shall be employed in the mixing of unfritted lead compounds,
in the preparation or manufacture of frits, glazes, or colors containing lead
without wearing a suitable and efficient respirator provided and maintained by
the employer; unless the mixing is performed in a closed machine or the ma
terials are in such a condition that no dust is produced.
Each respirator shall bear the distinguishing mark of the worker to whom
it is supplied.
12. All drying stoves as well as all workshops and all parts of factories shall
be effectually ventilated to the reasonable satisfaction of the inspector in charge
of the district.
13. The occupier shall provide and continually maintain sufficient and suit
able washing conveniences for all persons employed in the processes included
in schedule A, as near as practicable to the places in which such persons are
employed.
The washing conveniences shall comprise soap, nailbrushes, and towels, and
at
least
one wash (hand) basin for every five persons employed as above, with
Digitizedafor
FRASERsupply of water laid on, with one tap at least for every two basins,
constant
86
B U L L E T IN OE T H E BUBEAU OF LABOB.
and conveniences for emptying the same and running off the waste water on
the spot down a waste pipe.
There shall be in front of each washing basin, or convenience, a space for
standing room which shall not be less in any direction than 21 inches.
14. The occupier shall see that the floors of workshops and of such stoves
as are entered by the workpeople are sprinkled and swept d a ily ; that all dust,
scraps, ashes, and dirt are removed daily, and that the mangles, workbenches,
and stairs leading to workshops are cleansed weekly.
When so required by the inspector in charge of the district, by notice in writ
ing, any such floors, mangles, workbenches, and stairs shall be cleansed in such
manner and at such times as may be directed in such notice.
As regards every potters’ shop and stove, and every place in which any
process included in schedule A is carried on, the occupier shall cause the sufii
cient cleansing of floors to be done at the time when no other work is being
carried on in such room, and in the case of potters’ shops, stoves, dipping
houses, and majolica painting rooms, by an adult m ale:
P r o v i d e d , That in the case of rooms in which ground laying or glost placing
is carried on, or in the china dippers’ drying room, the cleansing prescribed
by this rule may be done before work commences for the day, but in no case
shall any work be carried on in the room within one hour after any such
cleansing as aforesaid has ceased.
15. The occupier shall cause the boards used in the dipping house, dippers’
drying room, or glost-placing shop to be cleansed every week, and shall not allow
them to be used in any other department, except after being cleansed.
When so required by the inspector in charge of the district, by notice in
writing, any such boards shall be washed- at such times as may be directed in
such notice.
D u tie s o f p e rso n s em p lo y e d .
16. All women and young persons employed in the processes included in schedule
A shall present themselves at the appointed time for examination by the certify
ing surgeon, as provided in rule 6 as amended.
No person after suspension by the certifying surgeon shall work in any process
included in the schedule without a certificate of fitness from the certifying
surgeon entered in the register.
17. Every person employed in any process included in schedule A, or in
emptying china biscuit ware, shall, when at work, wear a suitable overall and
head covering, and also a respirator when so required by rule 11 as amended,
which shall not be worn outside the factory or workshop, and which shall not
be removed therefrom except for the purpose of being washed or repaired.
Such overall and head covering shall be in proper repair and duly washed. *
The hair must be so arranged as to be fully protected from dust by the head
covering.
The overalls, head coverings, and respirators, when not being worn, and
clothing put off during working hours, shall be deposited in the respective places
provided by the occupier for such purposes under rule 8 as amended.
18. No person shall remain during meal times in any place in which is carried
on any process included in schedule A, or introduce, keep, prepare, or partake
of any food or drink, or tobacco therein at any time.
19. No person shall in any way interfere, without the knowledge and concur
rence of the occupier or manager, with the means and appliances provided by
the employers for the ventilation of the workshops and stoves, and for the
removal of dust.
20. No person included in any process included in schedule A shall leave the
works or partake of meals without previously and carefully cleaning and wash
ing his or her hands.
No person employed shall remove or damage the washing basins or conven
iences provided under rule 13.
20a. The persons appointed by the occupiers shall cleanse the several parts
of the factory regularly, as prescribed in rule 14.
Every worker shall so conduct his or her work as to avoid, as far as practica
ble, making or scattering dust, dirt, or refuse, or causing accumulation of such.
21. The boards used in the dipping house, dippers’ drying room, or glostplacing shop shall not be used in any other department, except after being
cleansed, as directed in rule 15.
22. If the occupier of a factory to which these rules apply gives with refer
to any process included in schedule A. other than china scouring, an
Digitized forence
FRASER
LEAD PO ISO N IN G IN PO TTER IES, T IL E W ORKS, ETC .
87
•undertaking that no lead or lead compound or other poisonous material shall
be used, the chief inspector may approve in writing of the suspension of the
operation of rules 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 15, 16, 17, and 21, or any of them in such process;
and thereupon such rules shall be suspended as regards the process named in
the chief inspector’s approval, and in lieu thereof the following rule shall take
effect, viz, no lead or lead compound or other poisonous material shall be used
in any process so named.
For the purpose of this rule, materials that contain no more than 1 per cent
of lead shall be regarded as free from lead.
S u p p l e m e n t a r y S p e c ia l R u l e s f o r t h e M a n u f a c t u r e o f E a r t h e n w a r e a n d
C h i n a i n F o r ce i n C e r t a i n W o r k s .
23. If the occupier of any factory to which these rules apply gives an under
taking in writing either to the effect that—
(a) No glaze shall be used which yields to a dilute solution of hydrochloric
acid more than 5 per cent of its dry weight of a soluble lead compound calcu
lated as lead monoxide when determined in the manner described in rule 2,
paragraph 2.
or to the effect that—
(&) No ware shall be cleaned after the application of glaze by dipping or
other process except in the moist condition;
The chief inspector of factories may, if satisfied that the other conditions are
sufficient for the safety of the persons employed, approve in writing of the
suspension in the factory or part of the factory of so much of rule 10 as requires
the provision of a fan or other efficient means, to be approved by the secretary
of state, for the removal of dust in the process of ware cleaning; and thereupon
the said part of rule 10 shall be suspended accordingly, and the said under
taking shall be deemed to be a special rule established in the factory.
24. If the occupier of any factory to which these rules apply gives an under
taking in writing to the effect that no glaze shall be used which yields to a
dilute solution of hydrochloric acid more than 2 per cent of its dry weight
of a soluble lead compound calculated as lead monoxide when determined in the
manner described in rule 2, paragraph 2, the chief inspector of factories may,
if satisfied that the other conditions are sufficient for the safety of the persons
employed, approve in writing of the modification of rule 5 in so far as it applies
to the processes of dipping, drying after dipping, and ware cleaning, in the
factory or part of the factory, by the substitution of 14 years for 15 years of
age, and thereupon rule 5 shall be modified accordingly, and the said under
taking shall be deemed to be a special rule established in the factory.
Any approval granted under rules 23 and 24 is liable to revocation in case
it shall appear to the secretary of state that, owing to the occurrence of lead
poisoning in any factory, such revocation is desirable.
25. No ware shall be cleaned after the application of glaze by dipping or other
process, except in the moist state, or with damp sponge or other similar damp
material, or with the use of an efficient exhaust draft.
So much of rule 10 as requires the provision of a fan or other efficient means
‘for the removal of dust in the process of ware cleaning after the dipper shall
pot apply.
S c h e d u l e A.
Dipping or other process carried on in the dipping house.
Glaze blowing.
Painting in majolica or other glaze.
Drying after dipping.
Ware cleaning after the application of glaze by dipping or other process.
China scouring.
Glost placing.
Ground laying.
Color b lo w h l|} whether on-S]aze or nnder-glaze.
Lithographic transfer making.
Making or mixing of frits, glazes, or colors containing lead.
Any other process in which materials containing lead are used or handled
in the dry state, or in the form of spray, or in suspension in liquid other than
oil or similar medium.
88
B U L L E T IN OF T H E BUBEAU OE LABOK.
S
N O T IC E TO W O B K M E N
EM PLOYED IN
ch edule
B .1
P R O C E SSE S N A M E D I N
C H IN A
SCH ED U LE A , OTHER T H A N
S C O U R IN G .
Conditions of compensation.
1. Where a workman is suspended from working by a certifying surgeon
of the district on the ground that be is of opinion that such person by continued
work in lead will incur special danger from the effects of plumbism, and the cer
tifying surgeon shall certify that in his opinion he is suffering from plumbism
arsing out of his employment, he shall, subject as hereinafter mentioned, be
entitled to compensation from his employer as hereinafter provided.
(a)
If any workman who has been suspended as aforesaid dies within nine
calendar months from the date of such certificate of suspension, by reason of
plumbism contracted before the said date, there shall he paid to such of his
dependents as are wholly dependent upon his earnings at the time of his
death or upon the weekly compensation payable under this scheme, a sum
equal to the amount he has earned during a period of three years next preceding
the date of the said certificate, such sum not to be more than £300 [$1,459.95]
nor less than £150 [$729.98] for an adult male, £100 [$486.65] for an adult
female, and £75 [$364.99] for a young person.
(&) If the workman does not leave any dependents wholly dependent as afore
said, but leaves any dependents in part dependent as aforesaid, a reasonable
part of that sum.
(c)
If he leaves no dependents, the reasonable expenses of his medical at
tendance and burial, not exceeding £10 [$48.67].
2. With respect to such payments the following provisions shall apply:
(a)
All sums paid to the workman as compensation since the date of the said
certificate shall be deducted from the sums payable to the dependents.
(■ &) The payment shall, in case of death, be made to the legal personal repre
sentative of the workman, or, if he has no legal personal representative, to or
for the benefit of his dependents, or, if he leaves no dependents, to the person
to whom the expenses are due; and if made to the legal personal representative
shall be paid by him to or for the benefit of the dependents or other person
entitled thereto.
(c) Any question as to who is a dependent, or as to the amount payable to
each dependent, shall in default of agreement be settled by arbitration as here
inafter provided in clause 9.
( d ) The sum allotted as compensation to a dependent may be invested or
otherwise applied for the benefit of the person entitled thereto, as agreed, or
as ordered by the arbitrator.
(e) Any-sum which is agreed or is ordered by the arbitrator to be invested
may be invested in whole or in part in the Post-Office Savings Bank.
3. Where a workman has been suspended and certified as provided in condi
tion 1, and while he is totally or partially prevented from earning a living by
reason of such suspension, he shall be entitled to a weekly payment not exceed;
ing 50 per cent of his average weekly earnings at the time of such suspension*,
such payment not to exceed £1 [$4.87]. The average may be taken over such
period, not exceeding 12 months, as appears fair or reasonable, having regard to
all the circumstances of the case.
4. In fixing these weekly payments, regard shall be had to the difference be
tween the amount of the average weekly earnings of the workman at the time
of his suspension and the average amount, if any, which it is estimated that he
will be able to earn afterwards in any occupation or employment, and to any
payments (not being wages) which he may have received from the employer
in respect to the suspension, and to all the circumstances of the case, including
his age and expectation of life.
5. If it shall appear that any workman has persistently disobeyed the special
rules or the directions given for his protection by his employers, and that such
disobedience has conduced to his suspension, or has not presented himself for
examination by the certifying surgeon, or has failed to give full information
and assistance as provided in condition 6, his conduct may be taken into con
sideration in assessing the amount of the weekly payments.*8
1 Provision has since been made for compensation in case of lead poisoning by section
Act, 1906.
8 of
the Workmen’s Compensation
LEAD PO ISO N IN G IN PO TTERIES, T IL E W O RK S, ETC.
89
6. It shall be the duty of every workman at all times to submit to medical
examination when required and to give full information to the certifying
surgeon and to assist to the best of his power in the obtaining of all facts
necessary to enable his physical condition to be ascertained.
7. Any weekly payment may be reviewed at the request either of the employer
or of the workman, and on such review may be ended, diminished, or increased,
subject to the maximum above provided, and the amount of payments shall, in
default of agreement, be settled by arbitration.
8. Any workman receiving weekly payments under this scheme shall submit
himself if required for examination by a duly qualified medical practitioner
provided and paid by the employer.
If the workman refuses to submit himself to such examination, or in any way
obstructs the same, his right to such Weekly payments shall be suspended until
such examination has taken place.
9. If any dispute shall arise as to any certificate of the certifying surgeon
or as to the amount of compensation payable as herein provided, or otherwise
in relation to these provisions, the same shall be decided by an arbitrator to
be appointed by the employer and workman,or in default of agreement by
the secretary of state. The said arbitrator shall have all the powers of an
arbitrator under the arbitration act and his decision shall be final.
The fee of the arbitrator shall be fixed by the secretary of state, and shall
be paid as the arbitrator shall direct.
10. No compensation shall be payable under these provisions unless a claim
in writing is made within six weeks of the date of the certificate of suspen
sion, or of the death: Provided,That the want of such notice shall not bar the
claim if in the opinion of the arbitrator there was reasonable excuse for the
want of it.
A claim for compensation by any workman whose employment is intermittent,
or casual, or who is regularly employed by more than one employer, shall only
arise against the employers for whom he has worked in a process included in
schedule A within one month prior to his suspension. The said employers shall
bear the compensation among them in such proportion as in default or agree
ment shall be determined by an arbitrator as herein provided.
11. “ Employer ” includes an occupier, a corporation, and the legal representa
tives of a deceased employer. “ Workman ” includes every person, male or
female, whether his agreement be one of service or apprenticeship or otherwise,
and is expressed or implied, orally or in writing, and shall include the personal
representatives of a deceased workman. 44Dependents ” has the same meaning
as in the Workmen’s Compensation Act, 1897.1
The terms contained in this notice shall be deemed to be part of the contract
of employment of all workmen in the above-named processes.
(Occupier’s sig n atu re.)------------------.
FOR T H E
M A N U F A C T U R E OF T R A N S F E R S FOR E A R T H E N W A R E A N D C H I N A .
Duties of occupiers.
1. No person under 15 years of age shall be employed in making transfers for
earthenware or china.
2. All women and young persons employed shall be examined once a month
by the certifying surgeon for the district, who shall after May 1, 1899, have
power to order suspension from employment.
No person after such suspension shall be allowed to work without the written
sanction of the certifying surgeon.
3. A register, in the form which has been prescribed by the secretary of state
for use in earthenware and china works, shall be kept, and in it the certifying
surgeon will enter the dates and results of his visits, the number of persons
examined, and particulars of any directions given by him. This register shall
contain a list of all persons employed, and shall be produced at any time when
required by His Majesty’s inspector of factories or by the certifying surgeon.
4. The occupier shall provide and maintain suitable overalls and head cover
ings for all women and young persons employed in rooms in which color
processes are carried on.
All overalls and head coverings shall be kept by the occupier in proper custody
and shall be washed at least once a week, and suitable arrangements shall be
made for carrying out these requirements.
A suitable place shall be provided in which the above workers can deposit
clothing
put oft during working hours.
1 60, 61 Viet., ch. 37.
90
B U L L E T IN OF T H E BUREAU OF LABOR.
It shall be a sufficient compliance with the requirements of this rule as to
head coverings if they are made of suitable glazed paper and renewed once a
week. The head coverings shall be made so as completely to cover the hair and
to the satisfaction of the inspector.
5. No person shall be allowed to prepare or partake of any food or drink, or
to remain during mealtimes, in any place in which is carried on the making of
transfers.
The occupier shall make suitable provision to the reasonable satisfaction of
the inspector in charge of the district for the accommodation during mealtimes
of persons employed in such places or processes, with a right of appeal to the
chief inspector of factories.
6. Transfer making shall not be carried on without the use of exhaust fans
for the effectual removal of dust, or other efficient means for the effectual
removal of dust, to be approved in each particular case by the secretary of
state, and under such conditions as he may from time to time prescribe.
7. The occupier shall provide and maintain sufficient and suitable washing
conveniences for all persons employed, as near as is practicable to the places in
which such persons are employed.
The washing conveniences shall comprise soap, nailbrushes, and towels, and
at least one wash hand basin for every five persons employed as above, with a
constant supply of water laid on, with one tap at least for every two basins, and
conveniences for emptying the same and running off the waste water on the spot
dowm a waste pipe.
Duties of persons employed.
8. All women and young persons employed shall present themselves at the
appointed time for examination by the certifying surgeon as provided in rule 2.
No person after suspension by the certifying surgeon shall work without the
written sanction of the certifying surgeon.
9. Every person employed in any room in which color processes are carried on
shall, when at work, wear an overall suit and head covering, which shall not be
worn outside the factory or workshop, and which shall not be removed there
from except for the purpose of being washed. All overalls and head coverings
shall be washed or renewed at least once a week.
The overalls and head coverings, when not being worn, shall be deposited in
the place provided for the purpose under rule 4.
Clothing put off during working hours shall be deposited in the place provided
for the purpose under rule 4.
It shall be a sufficient compliance with the requirements of this rule as to
head coverings if they are made of suitable glazed paper and renewed once a
week. The head coverings shall be made so as completely to cover the hair and
to the satisfaction of the inspector.
10. No person shall remain during mealtimes in any place in which is carried
on the making of transfers; or prepare or partake of any food or drink therein
at any time.
11. No person shall in any way interfere, without the knowledge and concur
rence of the occupier or manager, with the means and appliances provided by
the employers for the ventilation of the workshops and for the removal of dust.
12. No person employed shall leave the works or partake of meals without
previously and carefully cleaning and washing his or her hands.
REGULATIONS FOR VITREOUS ENAMELING OF METAL OR GLASS.1
Whereas the process of vitreous enameling of metal or glass has been cer
tified in pursuance of section 79 of the Factory and Workshop Act, 1901,12
to be dangerous;
* * * The following regulations * * 51 shall apply to all factories
and workshops in which vitreous enameling of metal or glass is car
ried on.
Provided that nothing in these regulations shall apply to—
(a) the enameling of jewelry or watches; or
(b) the manufacture of stained glass; or
(c) enameling by means of glazes or colors containing less than 1 per
cent of lead.
These regulations shall come into force on 1st April, 1909.
%
1 Those regulations were gazetted December 22, 1908.
7, c. 22.
2 1 Edw.
LEAD PO ISO N IN G IN PO TTER IES, T ILE W ORKS, ETC.
91
D E F I N IT IO N S .
In these regulations—
“ Enameling ” means crushing, grinding, sieving, dusting or laying on,
brushing or wooling oh', spraying, or any other process for the pur
pose of vitreous covering and decoration of metal or glass ;
“ Employed” means employed in enameling;
“ Surgeon ” means the certifying factory surgeon of the district or a
duly qualified medical practitioner appointed by written certificate of
the chief inspector of factories, which appointment shall be subject
to such conditions as may be specified in that certificate;
“ Suspension ” means suspension by written certificate in the health
register, signed by the surgeon, from emj)loyment in any enameling
process.
DUTIES.
It shall be the duty of the occupier to observe Part I of these regulations.
It shall be the duty of all persons employed to observe Part II of these regu
lations.
Part /.—Duties of employers.
1. Every room in which any enameling process is carried on—
(a) shall contain at least 500 cubic feet of air space for each person
employed therein, and in computing this air space no height
above 14 feet shall be taken into account;
(b) shall be efficiently lighted, and shall for this purpose have efficient
means of lighting both natural and artificial.
2. In every room in which any enameling process is carried on—
(a) the floors shall be well and closely laid, and be maintained in good
condition;
(b) the floors and benches shall be cleansed daily and kept free of col
lections of dust.
3. No enameling process giving rise to dust or spray shall be done save
either—
(a) under conditions which secure the absence of dust and spray; or
(b) with an efficient exhaust so arranged as to intercept the dust or
spray and prevent it from diffusing into the air of the room.
4. Except in cases where glaze is applied to a heated metallic surface, dust
ing or laying on, and brushing or wooling off, shall not be done except
over a grid with a receptacle beneath to intercept the dust falling
through.
5. If firing is done in a room not specially set apart for the purpose, no
person shall be employed in any other process within 20 feet from the
furnace.
6. Such arrangements shall be made as shall effectually prevent gases gen
erated in the muffle furnaces from entering the workrooms.
7. No child or young person under 16 years of age shall be employed in any
enameling process.
8. A health register, containing the names of all persons employed, shall be
kept in a form approved by the chief inspector of factories.
9. Every person employed shall be examined by the surgeon once in every
three months (or at such‘intervals as may be prescribed in writing by
the chief inspector of factories) on a date of which due notice shall be
given to all concerned.
10. The surgeon shall have power of suspension as regards all persons em
ployed, and no person after suspension shall be employed without writ
ten sanction from the surgeon entered in the health register.
11. There shall be provided and maintained for the use of all persons em
ployed—
(a) suitable overalls and head coverings, which shall be collected at
the end of every day’s work, and be cleaned or renewed at least
once every week;
(b) a suitable place, separate from the cloakroom and meal room, for
the storage of the overalls and head coverings:
(c) a suitable cloakroom for clothing put off during working hours;
(d) a suitable meal room separate from any room in which enameling
processes are carried on, unless the works are closed during meal
hours.
92
B U L L E T IN OF T H E BUREAU OF LABOR.
12. There shall be provided and maintained in a cleanly state and in good
repair, for the use of all persons employed, a lavatory, under
cover, with a sufficient supply of clean towels, renewed daily,
and of soap and nailbrushes, and with either—
(a) a trough with a smooth impervious surface, fitted with a waste
pipe without a plug, and of such length as to allow at least
two feet for every five such persons, and having a constant sup
ply of warm water from taps or jets above the trough at inter
vals of not more than two feet; or
(b) at least one lavatory basin for every five such persons, fitted with
a waste pipe and plug or placed in a trough having a waste
pipe, and having either a constant supply of hot and cold water
or warm water laid on, or (if a constant supply of heated water
be not reasonably practicable) a constant supply of cold water
laid on and a supply of hot water always at hand when required
for use by persons employed.
13. The occupier shall allow any of H. M. inspectors of factories to take
at any time sufficient samples for analysis of any enameling
material in use or mixed for use.
Provided, that the occupier may at the time wdien the sample is taken, and
upon providing the necessary appliances, require the inspector to take, seal and
deliver to him a duplicate sample.
No results of any analysis shall be published without the consent of the
occupier, except such as may be necessary to prove the presence of lead when
there has been infraction of the regulations.
Part II.—Duties of persons employed.
14. Every person employed shall—
(a) present himself at the appointed time for examination by the
surgeon as provided in regulation 9;
(b) wear the overall and head covering provided under regulation
11 (a), and deposit them and clothing put off during working
hours, in the places provided under regulation 11 (b) and (c) ;
(c) carefully clean the hands before partaking of any food or leaving
the premises;
(d) so arrange the hair that it shall be effectually protected from dust
by the head covering.
15. No person employed shall—
(a) after suspension, work in any enameling process without written
sanction from the surgeon entered in the health register;
(b) introduce, keep, prepare, or partake of any food, drink, or tobacco,
in any room in which an enameling process is carried on;
(c) interfere in any way, without the concurrence of the occupier or
manager, with the means and appliances provided for the re
moval of dust or fumes, and for the carrying out of these
regulations.
IN D E X .
A.
American and British potteries, lead poisoning in, comparison as to frequency and
severity of cases of___________________________________________________________53-56
American and foreign potteries, comparison of conditions in______________________76, 77
Art and utility ware potteries, United States :
Danger in glazing and decorating work, degree of________________________ ___
23
Employees, conditions of, compared with those in white-ware potteries_______ 22, 23
Employees, number and distribution of_______________________________________ 6, 25
Glazes, composition of___________________________________________________ 12-14, 24
Lead poisoning cases found, number of_____________________________________ 51, 52
Lead poisoning, frequency of______________________ _________________________ 52, 53
Lead poisoning, frequency of, general belief as to____________________________ 49-51
Lead poisoning, frequency of, in men and in women_________________________ 56-58
Lead poisoning in, and in tile works_________________________________________48-58
Lead poisoning, workers and wages in relation to, character of______________^8, 49
Nationality of workers in___________________________________________________ 48, 49
Sanitary conditions________________________________________________________
30
Art tiles. { S e e Tile works.)
Austrian potteries and tile works_______________________________________________
76
Austrian, German, and British porcelain enameled sanitary ware factories________ 79-82
B.
British and American potteries, lead poisoning in, comparison as to frequency and
severity of cases of___________________________________________________________53-56
British, Austrian, and German porcelain enameled sanitary ware factories_______ 79-82
British potteries and tile works__________________________________________________69-72
British regulations for the manufacture of earthenware and china_________ *_____83-90
British regulations for vitreous enameling of metal or glass______________________90-92
C.
China and earthenware, British regulations for the manufacture of_______________ 83-90
Color work, description of, white-ware potteries--------------------------------------------------- 19, 20
D.
Dangers in pottery industry, character of------------------------------------------------------------ 6, 7
Decorating and glazing:
Art and utility ware potteries---------------------------------------------------------------------------22—25
Tile works_____________________________
25-28
White-ware potteries_________________________________________________________14—22
Dippers’ helpers, white-ware potteries,work of______________________
16—18
Dipping, white-ware potteries, description of process------------------------------------------16
E.
Earthenware and china, British regulations for the manufacture of_______________ 83-90
Employees, nationality of. { S e e Nationality of workers.)
Employees, number and distribution of :
Art and utility ware potteries------------------------------------------------------------- -------- 6, 25
Porcelain enameled iron sanitary ware factories--------------------------------------------- 6, 39
Tile works-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6, 28
White-ware potteries----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6, 22
Enamel, composition of, iron sanitary ware_________________________________________31-33
Enamel, process of mixing, iron sanitary ware factories----------------------------------------33-35
Enamelers, iron sanitary ware factories, description of work and character of------ 37-39
Enameling of iron sanitary ware, method of_____________________________________ 35, 36
Enameling, vitreous, of metal or glass, British regulations for----------------------------- 90-92
Establishments studied in present investigation, number of---------------------------------- 5, 6
Exposure in lead-poisoning cases, length of______________________________________ 62-64
F.
Factories and workshops engaged in manufacture of earthenware and china, British
regulations for________________________________________________________________ 83-90
G.
German, Austrian, and British porcelain enameled sanitary ware factories-----------79-82
German potteries and tile works_________________________________________________72-76
Glass or metal, vicieous enameling of, British regulations for----------------------------- 90-92
Glazes, composition o f:
Art and utility ware potteries___________________________________________ 12-14, 24
Formulas used in Austria and Prussia---------------------------------------------------------68
Tile
works____________________________________________________ ________ 12-14, 25, 26
White-ware potteries________________________________________________________ 12-14
93
94
INDEX.
Glazing and decorating :
Art and utility ware_________________________________________________________ 22-25
Tile works_______________ i __________________________________________________ 25-28
White ware__________________________________________________________________ 14-22
Glost-kiln men, white-ware potteries,work of_____________________________________ 18, 19
Great Britain and America, frequency of lead-poisoning cases in potteries of,
compared----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 53-55
Great Britain and America, severity cf> lead-poisoning cases in potteries of,
compared______________________________________________________________________ 55, 56
Great Britain, potteries and tile works-_______ :_________________________________ 69-72
Great Britain, regulations for the manufacture of earthenware and china_________ 83-90
H.
Hygienic conditions and regulations in potteries, tile works, and enameled sanitary
ware works, Austria, Germany, andGreatBritain_______________________________ 66-82
Hygienic conditions. ( S e e a l s o Sanitary conditions.)
Xi.
Lead, per cent of, used in enamel and glazes----------------------------- 12, 13, 24-26, 31-33, 68
Lead poisoning:
Danger of, whether increasing in industries studied__________________________
65
Extent of, among pottery workers----------------------------------------------------------------- 8, 9
In British, German, and Austrian potteries_________________________________ 77-79
Symptoms and progress of--------------------------------------------------------------------------- 9, 10
Typical cases o f ____________________________________________________________ 10, 11
Lead poisoning. ( S e e a l s o Art and utility ware potteries; Porcelain enameled iron
sanitary ware factories; Potteries; White-ware potteries.)
M.
Metal or glass, vitreous enameling of, British regulations for_____________________90—92
Mill hands, iron sanitary ware factories, description of work and character of___
37
N.
Nationality of workers in :
Art and utility ware potteries and tile works________________________________48, 49
Sanitary-ware factories-------------------------------------------------------------------------------37
White-ware potteries----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 20—22
P.
Plants studied in present investigation, number of------------------------------------Porcelain enameled iron sanitary ware factories :
Austria, Germany, and Great Britain__________________________________
Employees, description of work and character of______________________
Employees, number and distribution of----------------------------------------------Enamel, composition of---------------------------------------------------------------------Enamel, process of mixing______________________________1------------------Enamelers, description of work and character of_____________________
Enameling, dangers involved in work of_________________________ ______
Enameling, process of________________________________________________
Lead, effect of, with reference to nature of work______________________
Lead poisoning---------------------------------------------------------------------------------Lead poisoning, intensive study of 148 men having-----------------------------Lead poisoning, length of exposure in cases of------------------------------------Lead poisoning, severity of cases of---------------------------------------------------Mill hands, description of work and character of---------------------------------Nationality of workers in------------------------------------------------------------------Plants studied, number of_____________________________________________
Sanitary conditions---------------------------------------------------------------------------Potteries :
American and foreign, comparison of conditions in-----------------------------Dangers to workers in, character of---------------------------------------------------Glazes, composition of------------------------------------------------------------------------Glazes, formulas for, used in Austria and Prussia.--------------.----------------Lead poisoning________________________________________________________
Lead poisoning, extent of_____________________________________________
Lead poisoning’, history of each of 10 typical cases of--------------------------Lead poisoning, sources of information----------------------------------------------Lead poisoning, symptoms and progress of-----------------------------------------Sanitary conditions ------------------------------- ------------------------------------------Tile works and, in Austria, Germany, and Great Britain---------------------Potteries. ( S e e a l s o Art and utility ware potteries; White-ware potteries )
R.
5,-6
79-82
37-39
6, 39
31-33
33-35
37-39
36
35, 36
64, 65
5859- 62
62-64
64
37
37
31
39-41
76, 77
6, 7
12-14
68
41-58
8
,9
10 , 11
41-43
9, 10
7, 8
66-79
Regulations and hygienic conditions in potteries, tile works, and enameled sanitary
ware works, Austria, Germany, and Great Britain---------------------------------------------66-82
Rockingham ware. ( S e e Art and utility ware.)
S.
Sanitary conditions :
American and foreign potteries, comparison of---------------------------------------------- 76, 77
Art and utility ware potteries, United States-----------------------------------------------30
Porcelain enameled sanitary ware factories, Austria, Germany, Great Britain- 79-82
Porcelain enameled sanitary ware factories, United States---------------------------39-41
Potteries and tile works, Austria------------------------------------------------------------------76
Potteries and tile works, Germany--------------------------------------------------------------- 7 2-ab
Potteries and tile works, Great Britain---------------------------------------------------------69-* 2
Potteries, general statement of--------------------------------------------------------------------- t 8
Tile works, United States----------------------------------------------------------------------------^1
http://fraser.stlouisfed.org/
White-ware potteries, United States--------------------------------------------------------------29, oo
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis
INDEX,
95
Page.
Sanitary conditions. ( S e e a l s o Hygienic conditions.)
Sanitary ware factories. ( S e e Porcelain enameled iron sanitary ware factories.)
Symptoms and progress of lead poisoning________________________________________ 9, 10
T.
Tile works :
And potteries, in Austria, Germany, and Great Britain----------------------------------- 66-79
Employees, number and distribution of----------------------------- .--_----------------------- 6, 28
Glazes, composition of_______________________________________________ 12-14, 25, 26
Glazes, formulas for, used in Austria and Prussia----------------------------.------------68
Plants studied, number of_______________________________________ .__________
25
Processes of glazing and decorating, description of__________________________ 26-28
Sanitary conditions, United States__________________________________________ 30, 31
V.
Vitreous enameling of metal or glass,British regulations for------------------------------------ 90-92
W.
White-ware potteries :
Color work, description of___________________________________________________19, 20
Dippers’ helpers, work of____________________________________________________ 16-18
Dipping, process of__________________________________________________________
16
Employees, description and distribution of------------------------------------------------6, 20-22
Glazes, composition of------------------------------------------------------------------------------------12-14
Glost-kiln men, work of---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 18, 19
Lead poisoning_______________________________________________________________ 43-48
Lead poisoning, female employees---------------------------------------------------------------47
Lead poisoning, frequency of_________________________________________________52, 53
Lead poisoning, frequencyof, in men and women---------------------------------------------- 47, 48
Lead poisoning, male employees_____________________________________________ 44-46
Mixing the glaze, process of___________________________________________ _____ 15, 16
Nationality of workers in___________________________________________________ 20-22
Processes of glazing and decorating, description of------------------------------------------14-20
Sanitary conditions------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------29, 30
Workshops and factories engaged m manufacture of earthenware and china, British
regulations for__________________________________________________________________83-90
Y.
Yellow ware.
(See
Art and utility ware.)
@FedFRASER