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U . S. D E P A R T M E N T

BUREAU

OF

O F

LABOR

LA B O R

S T A T IS T IC S

ROYAL MEEKER, Commissioner

B U L L E T IN O F T H E U N IT E D STA TES )
f
B U R E A U O F L A B O R S T A T IS T IC S f • • • • \ i> |U .
INDUSTRIAL

ACCIDENTS

AND

HYGIENE

SERIES

WOMEN IN THE LEAD
INDUSTRIES




ALICE HAMILTON, M . D.

FEBRUARY, 1919

WASHINGTON
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
1919

L,JJ




CONTENTS.

Page.

What is industrial lead poisoning or plum bism ?......................................................
Individual susceptibility...............................................................................................
Lead poisoning in women..............................................................................................
Lead compounds used in industry, and their comparative danger.......................
How does lead enter the b o d y ? ....................................................................................
Lead industries in the United States..........................................................................
Lead m ining...................................................................................... .......................
Lead smelting and refining....................................................................................
Trades in which metallic lead is used.................................................................
The printing trades..........................................................................................
Women in the printing trades..............................................................
Type founding..................................................................................................
Summary of the metallic-lead industries....................................................
Manufacture of white lead.....................................................................................
Grinding of paint.....................................................................................................
Painting trade..........................................................................................................
Commercial artists or retouchers...........................................................................
Lithotransfer work, or decalcomania...................................................................
Manufacture of red lead and litharge, or “ roasting o x i d e s ...........................
Manufacture of storage batteries........-..................................................................
Glazing of pottery and tiles...................................................................................
Manufacture of porcelain enameled sanitary ware............................................
Compounding of rubber..........................................................................................
Prevention of lead poisoning.........................................................................................




3

5-8
8-10
10-12
13,14
14,15
15-37
17
17-19
19-27
22-26
25, 26
26
27
27-29
29
29-31
31
31
32
32-35
35-37
37
37
37, 38




B U L L E T IN
U .

no.

S .

B U R E A U

253.

O F

O F

T H E

L A B O R

W A S H IN G T O N .

S T A T I S T I C S .

F ebru ary,

1919

W O M E N IN T H E L E A D IN D U S T R IE S .
Lead is by far the most common industrial poison, being respon­
sible, according to Teleky,1 for no less than 95 per cent of all the
poisoning due to occupation. Layet2 tells us that there are 111 occu­
pations in France in which lead poisoning may occur, and at the time
the Commission on Occupational Diseases in Illinois made its report
(January, 1911), more than 70 occupations carried on in that State
had been found to give rise to lead poisoning. Not only in Europe,
but also in this country, industrial lead poisoning is a fairly familiar
occurrence; but while in Europe women have been long employed in
the lead trades and have suffered from the effects of lead, in America
there have been but few women in such occupations, and lead poison­
ing among them is not at all common. Now, however, women are
beginning to enter the occupations in which exposure to lead is inevi­
table, and it is very important to look carefully into the question of
their employment in such occupations, and to determine whether it
will be better to safeguard them by requiring employers to use every
known means to reduce or eliminate the hazard of lead poisoning or
by prohibiting the emplo37ment of women entirely in those occupa­
tions in which lead poisoning constitutes a considerable hazard.
W H A T IS IN DU STR IAL LEAD POISONING OR PLUMBISM?

It is well to begin with a brief description of what lead does to the
human system. When a person is exposed to lead-laden dust, or
habitually eats his food with lead-soiled hands, the poison accumu­
lates in his system and usually attacks the digestive tract and the
blood first. It seldom happens nowadays that very acute or severe
forms of lead poisoning are caused by exposure to lead during work.
Some years ago men did at times develop severe symptoms of colic
and ev.en convulsions after only a few weeks’ exposure to lead dust in
1 Teleky; Handwortorbuch der Sozialen Hygiene.

2 L a yet: Hygiene des Professions et des Industries.




Leipzig, 1912, Vol. II, p. 737.
Faris, 1875.

5

6

B U L L E T I N O F T H E B U R E A U O F L A B O R S T A T IS T IC S .

the smelters or white-lead works, or in storage-battery plants, or in
enameling sanitary ware. But the improvements in factory hygiene
that have been made of late years have caused such distressing oc­
currences to become almost- a thing of the past. A typical case of in­
dustrial Jead poisoning comes on slowly. The man acquires a peculiar
pallor which foremen and workmen soon learn to recognize, and
which is caused partly by poverty of tl>e blood because of destruction
of the red blood corpuscles, and partly by contraction of the surface
blood vessels. He begins to lose his appetite, especially for break­
fast, for his mouth is foul when he first gets up and he may vomit if
he tries to eat solid food. A peculiarly disagreeable sweetish taste
is one of the early symptoms and increases the repugnance to food.
Then he begins to lose strength, to get tired easily, and to have head­
aches, and pains in his limbs. He is almost always constipated, and
this trouble increases till it may culminate in an attack of agonizing
colic, with complete stoppage of the bowels. This so-called lead colic
is what the men themselves and many physicians mean when they
speak of acute lead poisoning, although a man has usually been
suffering from lead poisoning for some time before the colic develops,
and may be severely poisoned without ever having colic.
If, after an attack of acute lead colic, the man goes into more health­
ful work he will probably recover completely from the effects of
the lead, though there are authorities who insist that even one attack
leaves permanent, even if slight, 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 lead poisoning is essentially a disease of the blood
vessels, leading to degeneration of the organs, the liver, kidneys, and
heart especially, to atrophy of the digestive glands, and to prema­
ture old age.
With either the acute or the chronic form of lead poisoning there
may be involvement of the nervous system. If the poison attacks the
nerves and their endings, paralysis comes on, most commonly in the
arms and wrists, sometimes in the shoulders and legs. If it attacks
the brain there are severe^headaches, disturbances of sight, dizziness
or loss of consciousness, with convulsions which may be fatal, or
which may be followed by mental derangement, more or less lasting.
These forms of lead poisoning are fairly easy to recognize, but there
are others less clear. Indeed, there is no known poisonous substance
which can give rise to such a variety of symptoms as lead. The rule
laid down by specialist^ is that the occupation must always be con­
sidered in making a diagnosis of lead poisoning; that is, that if
a patient is known to be working in lead, symptoms which would not
be considered of great significance ordinarily must be taken seriously,




W O M E N I N T H E L E A D IN D U S T R IE S .

7

because they may point to the beginning of lead poisoning. Oliver1
says that pallor and sallowness, with metallic taste, especially in the
morning, are common early symptoms. If the distaste for food is in­
creasing, the individual should retire or be suspended from work,
for it is one of the earliest indications that the resistance to lead has
become diminished. Obstinate constipation and a sense of tiredness
out of proportion to the amount of energy expended are also compladned of.
The typical paralysis of the lead worker is known as “ painter’s
palsy,” because it is much more common in painters than in any other
class of lead workers. It begins in the wrist, affecting the muscles
that lift the hand* so that as it increases the hand tends to fall and
hang helplessly, a condition known as “ wrist-drop.” The reason
painters get wrist-drop is that they use the muscles of the wrist more
than any others, and this overuse determines the localization of the
palsy. Men who use other muscles, such as those of the shoulders or
legs, get the paralysis in those muscles. Among white-lead workers
weakness of the muscles of the leg and ankle is quite as common as
weakness of the wrist, for these men dc not make fine movements
with the arms as painters do. They may also have a widely dis­
tributed paralysis involving the muscles of tlie trunk, back, and
shoulders.
Lead poisoning of the central nervous system is a very distressing
form, fortunately much less common now than it was a few years
ago. It is more likely to develop after excessive exposure to lead
dust, such as used to occur in the making of white lead and red lead,
in mixing paste for storage batteries, in shaking lead enamel over redhot bathtubs and sinks, in cleaning out the flues and bag houses of
lead smelters, or even in putting lead glaze on pottery and tiles. The
victim would suffer from something resembling an attack of epilepsy,
or would become delirious and regain consciousness only partially
or be out of his head for some days, or death might occur during the
convulsion or during the unconsciousness that followed it.
Another form of lead poisoning of the central nervous system is
very much more gradual in its development, and is seen chiefly in
men who follow a lead trade for many years and suffer from a slow
chronic poisoning. In such cases the blood vessels of the brain
gradually harden, and the brain tissue is starved for blood, so that
mental deterioration takes place, and the man becomes increasingly
helpless and demented. It is among painters that this lead insanity
most often occurs.
1 U. S. Bureau of Labor, Bui. No. 95 ; Industrial lead poisoning, with descriptions of
lead processes in certain industries in Great Britain and the western States of Europer by
Sir Thomas Oliver, M. D., p. 9S.




8

B U L L E T I N O F T H E B U R E A U O F L A B O R S T A T IS T IC S .

One more rather obscure form of lead poisoning should be men­
tioned, namely, the neurasthenia of chronic lead poisoning. Accord­
ing* to Hirsch 1 this is quite a common condition, but one often not
recognized by the ordinary physician. The victim suffers from obsti­
nate headaches, from morning vomiting, and from pain that is not
typical colic. He is depressed and irritable, sleeps badly, has tremors
of the muscles, and is easily exhausted. Such cases are very apt to be
regarded as ordinary neurasthenia, but they do not clear up unless
the patient is taken away from lead work.
Lead lowers the .resistance of the body to infections, especially such
infections as tuberculosis and bloocl poisoning. Certain industries,
as, for instance, tlie typographical trades, have -always had a far
larger proportion of tuberculosis than can be accounted for in any
way except on the ground of a lowered resistance to tuberculosis
caused by the absorption of lead. Suppurative inflammations also
are more common among lead workers than among men not exposed
to lead. The men themselves say that if a lead worker cuts himself
tlie cut always festers, because the lead gets in and poisons the cut.
What really occurs is that the germs of suppuration get in and the
tissues, being affected by the lead, do not offer much resistance to
them.
IN D IV ID U A L SU SCEPTIBILITY.

The most superficial study of lead poisoning in industry is enough
to show how widely men differ in their susceptibility to this poison.
Every foreman knows that there are men who can stand hardly any
exposure to lead, while others can handle it for years with impunity.
In even the worst factories there are at least one or two old workmen
who have apparently breathed and swallowed lead compounds for
from 25 to 40 years, and yet have remained apparently healthy. In
one white-lead factory the records show that one of the employees
began to feel symptoms of lead poisoning at the end of two weeks’
time. He died of acute plumbism after five and a half months’ work.
In the same factory was a man who had worked in clouds of whitelead dust for 32 years, ever since he was a boy of 12, and had felt no
ill effects.
Hirt, who had long experience in industrial lead poisoning, says
that 20 to 30 per cent of all lead workers are not susceptible. Of the
remaining TO to 80 per cent a little over one-half (about 40 per cent
of the whole number) sicken quickly, the others more slowly. This
means that in every force of workmen there will be some who will be
seriously injured by the poison if they remain in the industry, and
who ought to be weeded out as soon as this fact is recognized, others
1 Hirsch, in Deutsche medizinische Wochenschiift, vol. 40, 1014, p. 369.




W O M E N I N T H E L E A D IN D U S T R IE S .

9

who will not seem to be harmed by it at all, and still others who prob­
ably can be protected from poisoning if all proper precautions are
taken, but who must be watched and examined by a physician occa­
sionally to make sure that the}" are being adequately protected.
It is wholly inadmissible for employers to*hold that because some
employees of unusual resistance escape poisoning employers are not
responsible for those who fall victims to it. Individual suscepti­
bility plays a large part in many forms of sickness. If there is
typhoid-infected water in a village of 500 inhabitants, there will not
be 500 cases of typhoid fever, even though everyone drinks the water.
There may not even be 50 cases. But for all the typhoid fever that
does develop the infected water must be held responsible.
It may be well to give some illustrations of unusual susceptibility
to lead poisoning. Such cases are not typical, of course, but they
do occur often enough to make it necessary for us to take cognizance
of them. For instance, painters usually do not develop symptoms
of lead poisoning till after several years, sometimes even 15 or 20
years in the trade. Yet, out of 100 painters with lead poisoning
whose histories were secured, 12 had sickened in less than a year’s
time. Among 167 cases of lead poisoning among smelters the ma­
jority were exposed for more than three months before they became
poisoned, but 18 sickened after only one to three weeks’ exposure.
Among 186 sanitary-ware enamelers the majority had worked for
more than five years before they were poisoned, but 21 had worked
less than six months. A wliite-lead worker in Philadelphia went to
a hospital with acute lead poisoning after three days’ work emptying
Hie dry pans in a very insanitary factory. Another very rapidly
developing case w^as a bathtub enameler who came down with lead
colic after four days’ work.
Work in a tin shop is not regarded as involving much danger of
lead poisoning, yet a record was obtained of one tin-shop worker who
was treated not only for lead colic but for lead rheumatism and
anemia, after only two months’ work. A storage-battery worker,
who mixed lead oxides into paste by hand, was a tall and strongly
built man, who said that he had never been sick in his life before;
but after two weeks’ work he began to feel ill, with loss of appetite,
headache, and digestive disturbances, and at the end of 11 weeks he
went to the hospital with typical lead colic.
There are other instances which show an unusually severe re­
action to the entrance of lead into the system. A Hungarian found
in a Pittsburgh hospital had worked for four years in a paint factory
near Pittsburgh. He came to the hospital with colic, vomiting, and
diarrhea. He was emaciated, dull, and apathetic, understanding
what was said to him, but answering sluggishly. He was anemic,
94261°— 19-—Bull. 253-------2




10

B U L L E T I N O F T H E B U R E A U O F L A B O R S T A T IS T IC S .

with 70 per cent hemoglobin; his limbs were soft and flabby; his
muscles were wasted. The most serious change, however, was a gen­
eral hardening of the arteries, one consequence of which had been
hemorrhages into the retina, impairing his sight.
Another instance is that of a man who was employed in insanitary
white-lead works for eight weeks. He also said that he had had no
illness since childhood. He went to the hospital with colic, consti­
pation, pains in his shoulders, arms, and legs, and increasing loss of
power in the limbs. He remained in the hospial four weeks, and
when discharged he had double wrist-drop and partial paralysis
of the ankles. A strong, young Slavic workman was employed for
five months pouring lead glaze over roof tiles. He began to feel
sick, had a bad taste in his mouth, was nauseated, could not eat, felt
weak, and “ no good.” He kept on working, however, for eight
weeks more, and then one day, just as he had reached home after
work, a violent attack of colic came on and he lost consciousness.
This was followed by maniacal delirum for 48 hours, during which
time he seemed to be in great pain. After this passed over he was
dazed and confused, with loss of memory and impairment of vision,
for about two weeks. His mind then cleared, but three months later
he was still pale and had not recovered his strength.
It is a generally recognized fact, based on wide experience in the
older countries, that the young of both sexes are more susceptible
to lead poisoning than are fully developed men and women. Legge
and Goadby1 say with regard to this: “ The clinical conclusions of
appointed surgeons in the various lead factories would be, we be­
lieve, that the susceptibility of young persons is at least twice that
of adults, and there is some ground for supposing that the tissues of
an adult, when growth has ceased, more readily adapt themselves
to deal with the absorption and elimination of poisonous doses of
lead than do the tissues of a young person.-’
LEAD POISONING IN W O M E N .

British observers who have had much experience with women
exposed to lead in the white-lead industry, and even more in the
potteries, hold that women are more susceptible to lead than are
men. Oliver2 says: “ So far as occupation exposure to lead is con­
cerned, my opinion is (1) that women are more susceptible than
men; (2) that while female liability is greatest between the ages
of 18 and 23 years, that of men is later: and (3) that, while females
rapidly break down in health under the influence of lead, men can
work a longer time in the factory without suffering, their resistance
apparently being greater.”
1 Legge and Goadby : Lead poisoning and lead absorption.
* Oliver : Dangerous Trades. London, 1902, p. 296.




London. 1912, p. 35.

W O M E N I N T H E L E A D IN D U S T R IE S .

11

Legge and Goadby1 also hold that women are more susceptible
to poisoning by lead than men. Legislation in Great Britain has
followed these authorities, and women are barred from some of the
most dangerous lead work. On the other hand, the Germans believe 2
that the apparently greater susceptibility of women to lead poison­
ing is to be explained not by their sex, but by the fact that they are
usually more poverty-stricken than the men, are undernourished and
obliged to do work for their families in addition to their factory
work. Then, a l s o , a woman’s skill and hair collect the lead dust,
so that she carries it home with her after work. Observations in the
pottery industry in this country3 seemed to bear out the German
theory, for while a much larger proportion of women than of men
were found suffering from lead poisoning in the East Liverpool and
Trenton districts, it was also found that in these districts the men
are members of a strong union, are well paid, and have good living
conditions, while the women are unorganized, underpaid, poorly
housed, poorly fed, and subject to the worry and strain of support­
ing dependents on low wages. In the unorganized pottery fields, in
the tile works, and in the Tirt potteries of the Zanesville district the
men and women were in the same economic class, all making low
wages, with everything which that implies, and here the rate of
lead poisoning was slightly greater among the men.
Whether or not women are more susceptible to lead poisoning than
men, it seems to be true that they are more likely to have the nervous
form of lead poisoning than are men. Women suffer more from lead
convulsions and lead blindness, men from lead paralysis and lead
colic. The following are some figures that Prendergast,4 a British
physician, who practiced many years in the Staffordshire pottery
district, has published. They are based on 640 cases of lead poison­
ing:
Men.

C o l i c ___________
P a ra ly sis________
Lead convulsions.
Blindness (total)
Blindness (partial)

.— 77. 6 per cent
__ 57. 0 per cent
__ 15. 0 per cent
___2. 3 per cent
__ 3. 5 per cent

Women.

69. 8 per
30. 0 per
34. 9 per
7. 7 per
10. 2 per

cent
cent
cent
cent
cent

But the most disastrous effect that lead has upon women is the
effect on the generative organs. Women who suffer from lead poison­
ing are more likely to be sterile or to have miscarriages and still­
births than are women not exposed to lead. If they bear living cliil1 Legge and Goadby : Lead poisoning and lead absorption. London, 1902, p. 35.
2 Agnes Bluhm, in Weyl’s Handbuch der Hygiene, vol. 8, 1897, p. 88.
s U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Bui. No. 104 : Lead poisoning in potteries, tile works,
and porcelain enameled sanitary ware factories, by Alice Hamilton, M. D., pp. 56-58.
4 Prendergast, in British Medical Journal, vol. 1, 1910, p. 1164.




B U L L E T I N O F T H E B U R E A U O F L A B O R S T A T IS T IC S .

12

clren these are more likely to die. during the first year of life than are
the children of women who have nevfer been exposed to lead; This
means that lead is a race poison, and that lead poisoning in women
affects not only one generation, but two generations. Very striking
proof of this fact is given by English authorities on industrial disease.
Legge 1 abstracted from the reports of British factory inspectors for
the year 1897 the following statistics concerning woman lead workers:
Out of 77 married women, 15 never became pregnant. Of the 62
who became pregnant, 15 never bore a living child. Among all the
62 there were 212 pregnancies, but these resulted in only 61 living
children; the stillbirths numbered 21, the miscarriages 90, and of the
101 children born alive, 40 died soon after birth.
Another striking report comes from the British factory inspection
service. Oliver 2 gives the following figures:
Miscarriages
and
s t illb ir t h s .

100
100
100
100

mothers
mothers
mothers
mothers

in housework_______________
in millwork, not lead________
in lead work before marriage.
in lead work after marriage.

43.2
47.6

86.0
133.5

In a recent English publication 3 the case is described of a woman
employed since marriage in making capsules colored with lead colors.
She had’been pregnant eight times, the children had all been born
- prematurely, and all died in the first year of life.
A French authority, Tardieu,4 reported to the French Government,
in 1905, that 608 out of 1,000 pregnancies in lead workers resulted in
premature birth. In certain Hungarian villages, where pottery
glazing has been a home industry for generations, children born of
lead-poisoned parents are not only subject to convulsions, but, if they
live, often have abnormally large, square heads, and this condition
is associated with a lowered mentality.5
It is unnecessary to emphasize the importance of these facts. Every
one will admit that a poison which may destroy or cripple a woman’s
children is a far more dangerous poison than one which only injures
the woman herself. This is why it is necessary to forbid the entrance
of women into the more dangerous kinds of lead work and to sur­
round their employment in the less dangerous ones with all possible
precautions.
1 Legge, in Journal of Hygiene, vol. 1, 1901, p. 96.
2 Oliver, in British Medical Journal, vol. 1, 1911, p. 1906.
8 Woman's Industrial News. London, July, 1918, No. 81, p. 11.
* Tardieu : Poisons Industrielles. Paris, 1905.
•Chyzer. Chirurgische Presse. Budapest, vol. 44, 1908, p. 906.




W O M E N I N T H E L E A D IN D U S T R IE S .

13

LEAD COMPOUNDS USED IN IN DU STR Y, A N D THEIR
COM PARATIVE DANGER.

Formerly it was thought that the more soluble a lead compound
the more poisonous it is, but experience shows that the physical
properties of a lead compound are also important. Of two com­
pounds which are about equally soluble in human gastric juice, the
dustier one is the more dangerous. English experts believe that a
less soluble lead salt may be actually more dangerous than one
which is more soluble, but less easily powdered. For instance, lead
acetate is very soluble, but it has a disagreeable taste, so that the
workman can not swallow it unawares, and it is stifcky, not powdery,
so that in handling it he is not exposed to dust-laden air. On the
other hand, the oxides, the basic carbonate, the chromate, sulphate,
and monosilicate are all dusty and some of them are very light and
fluffy. Tliey are also almost tasteless, and the workman who handles
them dry breathes into his mouth and swallows quantities without
noticing. The English authorities, Oliver, Goadby, and Legge,
regard the lead salts as dangerous in proportion to their dustiness.
They concentrate their efforts on the abolition of dust and with
amazing practical success.
Probably the most poisonous lead compound used in industry is
the suboxide (Pb20 ) , that fine, light-gray powder given off in fumes
from heated lead. This is so light that it is carried into the air by the
waves of heat, and so finely divided that it is easily absorbed when
breathed and swallowed. It is this oxide which causes poisoning in
lead smelters, zinc smelters, brass molders, and, to a less extent, in
workers with molten lead such as lead molders, lead burners, stereo­
typers, electrotypers, and those employed in making lead pipe and
wire, sheet lead, shot, and the makers and users of solder. It is this
same oxide that forms a grayish coating on solid lead, and rubs off
on the hands. Men who handle solid lead sometimes get a very
slow chronic form of poisoning from this oxide.
It is a question whether second place should be given to the
higher oxides of lead, litharge (PbO) and red lead (Pb30 4 or Pb40 5),
or to the basic carbonate, white lead. The last namecTis decidedly
more soluble, and dose for dose it is more poisonous, but it is not so
light and fluffy as red lead and litharge and it seems to be somewhat
less harmful. In those American factories in which both white lead
and oxides are manufactured, the rate of poisoning in 1911 was
higher in the oxide than in the white-lead department and the aver­
age period of employment shorter.1 White lead is much the best
known of the lead salts, and probably is responsible for more indus1 U. S. Bureau of Labor, Bui. No. 9 5 : White-lead industry in the United States, by
Alice Hamilton, M. D., p. 259.




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B U L L E T I N O F T H E B U R E A U O F L A B O R S T A T IS T IC S .

trial poisoning than the oxides, because it is used in great quantities
in the painting trade and m the glazing of pottery, and its manufac­
ture has always been considered one of the most dangerous lead
trades; paint grinding, unless very carefully dcme, is also a dangerous
trade. The oxides, litharge, and red lead are used very largely in
making storage batteries^ and they enter into the composition of rub­
ber, glass, varnish, certain kinds of pottery glaze, the enamel used on
sanitary ware, and the/paint used to cover iron and steel on bridges,
ships, structural-iron work, and certain parts of railway cars.
Lead sulphate is beginning to displace white lead to a certain
extent in paints. It is also used in compounding rubber, and is pro­
duced in large quantities when lead ores containing sulphur are
smelted. It is not nearly so soluble as the lead compounds already
mentioned, but it is poisonous and has given rise to a good many
cases of plumbism in American industry. Lead chromate used in
paint is about as poisonous as the sulphate, 'ffie least harmful lead
compound found in industry is the sulphide, which makes up the
greater part of the lead ore now being mined. This was long con­
sidered quite harmless, but we know now 1 that it can be absorbed
by the human stomach and set up poisoning.
H O W DOES LE A D ENTER TH E B O D Y ?

The popular idea about lead poisoning, held especially by foremen
and superintendents, is that the workman poisons himself by jtatmg
his lunch without carefully washing his hands. There is not space
tS'lpWTiere all of the experiments that liave been made to test this
theory, but it is safe to say there is abundant proof that lead dust
and lead fumes, not lack of personal cleanliness, are responsible for
most of the industrial lead poisoning in this country, as in all coun­
tries. If a man employed in lead smelting, for instance, were to get
into his mouth every bit of the soluble lead that is clinging to his
hands at the end of his day’s work he would not get so much lead as
he breathes in during two hours’ exposure to the dust and fumes in
the air.2
It may be laid down as an absolute rule that the dustier the work
the greater will be the amount of lead poisoning. In the pottery
trade in the United States the writer found one case of lead poison­
ing for every seven women employed in lead work, while in the Brit­
ish potteries the proportion of cases to those employed was only 1 ,
in 64. The American women were scraping and brushing dry whiteleaTgiaze, and letting it fly about in the air and fall on the floor and
on their clothes and hair; the English women were scraping off damp
1 U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Bui. No. 141 : Lead poisoning in the smelting and
refining of lead, by Alice Hamilton, M. D., pp. 82-84.
2 Idem, pp. 50-53.




W O M E N I N T H E L E A D IN D U S T R IE S .

15

glaze, and letting it fall into troughs of water. In the smelting in­
dustry the rate of poisoning among the blast-furnace men exposed to
fumes and dust was found to be 31.1 per cent, and among the men
who had to clean out the flues where dust is excessive, 62.5 per cent,
while the refiners and deliverers handling pure lead but not exposed
to much dust or fumes had a rate of only 14.3 per cent.
The lead dust and fumes (lead fumes consist of a very fine suspen­
sion of lead dust) do not produce their effect through the lungs, for
less than one-fourth ever reaches the lungs. The rest is caught in
the nose and throat, is mixed with the mucous secretions* and is
swallowed.1 Absorption through the skin may be practically ignored
in considering industrial lead poisoning. In England, under the
leadership of Oliver, Legge, and Goadby, all of the efforts of the
Government inspectors are directed toward the prevention of dust
and fumes and provision for thorough washing before meals and at
the end of work. In the summer of 1910, during a visit to three
white-lead factories in England, the writer observed men smeared
with white lead up to their shoulders, but these men were made to
wash thoroughly at noon and when they quit work. In the whole
district of Newcastle-on-Tyne, where 1,320 men were employed, there
were only 5 cases of lead poisoning during that year. The German
regulations of the lead industries are also based on the theory that
lead enters the body by way of the mouth, not the skin. In France,
Gauthier2 reported in 1901 that “ while out of 1,000 white-lead
workers who work with wet white lead, 50 have had lead poisoning,
of 1,000 who handle it dry, or grind dry lead in oil, 105 have had
lead poisoning.
LEAD INDUSTRIES IN THE UNITED STATES.

American industry differs a good deal from industry in other
countries, and it is not safe to assume that what European writer's
say about the dangers of certain kinds of work is true of the same
sort of work in this country. What follows relates closely to Amer­
ican experience, though sources of information are scanty.
It is impossible to give a list of all the occupations in the United
States which involve exposure to lead in some form. Every year
cases of lead poisoning from hitherto unknown sources are reported
in the medical journals. Aside from the well-known lead industries,
there are certain ones which are not ordinarily thought of as lead
trades, yet which involve quite as much poisoning as do the more
familiar ones. For instance, in the enameling of sanitary ware a
very high rate of poisoning was found, sometimes even 36 per cent, a
rate hardly equaled in any other industry. Lithotransfer work is
recognized in Europe as a dangerous lead trade, but its danger is so
1 Saito, in Archiv fiir Hygiene, 1912, vol. 75, p. 134.
2 Gauthier, in Breton’s Maladies Professionelles. Paris, 1911, p. 154.




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B U L L E T I N O F T H E B U R E A U O F L A B O R S T A T IS T IC S .

little known in this country that cases of lead poisoning due to it are
sometimes not recognized. Of five girls who were treated in a public
hospital for supposed appendicitis (two of them even were operated
on because of this mistaken diagnosis) all had been poisoned with lead
from the colors they dusted on the lithotransfer paper. Many cases
of brass poisoning have been reported which proved on investigation
to be lead poisoning. Brass contains varying quantities of lead, and
when brass is poured the thick white fumes which rise and fill the
room contain lead oxide. A few instances have been observed of
brass polishers becoming poisoned with lead, because the exhaust 0 11
their wheels did not carry off the dust, and this dust contained lead.
^fTead colors are known to cause poisoning in makers and handlers,
of artificial flowers and of w^all papers. Commercial artists, whose
work is retouching photographs for catalogues and advertisements,
often use white lead paint, frequently in the form of a very fine
spray, without knowing that it is poisonous. They also have a habit
of bringing their brush to a point by sucking it. Their physicians
do not know that they have been exposed to lead when they complain
of colic or weakness of the wrists. Fifteen cases of lead poisoning
were found among members of this profession in Chicago, one of
whom had died palsied after having had three abdominal operations
on various wrong diagnoses.
Another source of lead poisoning, not usually recognized, is the
polishing of cut glass with so-called putty powder, which is com­
posed of 3 parts oxide of lead to 1 part oxide of tin. This powder,
made into a paste, is applied to the glass, and the glass is held
against a polishing wheel, so that the thin paste scatters in all
directions and dries and forms a light dust. E. E. Pratt,1 of the
New York State Factory Investigating Commission, found many
cases of lead poisoning from the use of lead as a hardening and tem­
pering agent, especially in the making of magnetos. The steel mag­
nets are hardened in a bath of molten lead, plunged into water to
cool, and then rubbed with sandpaper to remove the lead. A
similar process is used in the making of piano wires and springs.
Pratt also found lead poisoning in linoleum and oilcloth man­
ufacture, for litharge is used in compounding and the paints consist
largely of lead colors.
The following are brief descriptions of tlie principal lead indus­
tries as they are carried on in the United States, together with state­
ments as to which occupations are specially hazardous and should
not be given to women, and which may be rendered safe enough to
permit of women’s employment. Only the danger from lead is dis­
cussed in what follows. No attempt is made to pass 0 11 the different
1 New York -State Factory Investigating Commission Preliminary Report, Albany, 1012,
Vol. I, pp. 428—430.
v




W O M E N IN

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17

occupations as far as muscular effort involved, or exposure to heat, or
other harmful features are concerned. It may be that an occupation
free from the danger of lead poisoning is too heavy for a woman to
undertake, or that for some other reason it is not suitable for women.
The statement that “ a woman may do this work” means only that
she may do it without much risk of lead poisoning, not that she is
strong enough to do it.

LEAD MINING.

Probably lead mining is the least important of the lead industries
so far as the employment of women is concerned, and yet it is possible
that women may find employment in some such work as emptying ore
cars. It is enough to say, however, that there is little danger of lead
poisoning here, unless the mined ore is so handled in the course of
concentrating it or transporting it as to expose the workers to a very
great deal of dust. The lead ore now mined is chiefly lead sulphide,
the least poisonous compound of lead found in industry, and though
cases of lead poisoning have been found among miners in the Mis­
souri lead belt1 they are rare. Western ores still contain some oxides
and sulphate and carbonate, all of them more soluble than the sul­
phide, and western miners are more likely to have lead poisoning.
The danger in handling lead ores can be prevented by sprinkling to
keep down the dust.

LEAD SMELTING AND REFINING.
Women have never been employed in lead smelting and refining
and probably never will be employed in smelting; but it is not so
certain that they may not be employed in refineries before long.
The dangers in a smelting or refining plant come from the fumes
and dust, and in most plants every employee is more or less exposed
to them, though in a clean, well-managed place there are parts which
are almost free from danger. As a rule, a refinery is worse than a
smelter. This should not be the case, for the smelting of ore requires
a great deal more heat and produces far more fumes than does the
refining of bullion and scrap. But a smelter is usually a large plant,
and managed with a good deal of care, while a refinery is often in­
significant in size, very neglected and dirty, and carelessly managed.
In handling the ores as they reach the smelter, dust is the dan­
ger, and this varies according to the dampness of the ore, and its
composition, i. e., whether it is sulphide or mixed compounds. The
ore is then either smelted at once on open hearths with great produc­
tion of poisonous fumes, or it is first prepared by preroasting. In
preroasting, in roasting, and in smelting there is danger from dust
while the charges for the furnaces are being prepared and while the
1 U, S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Bui. No. 1 4 1 : Lead poisoning in the sm elting and
refining o f lead, by Alice Hamilton, M. D., pp. 82-84.

94261°— 19— Bull. 253------ 3




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B U L L E T IN OF T H E B U R E A U OF LABOR STATISTICS.

furnaces are charged, and there is great danger from fumes during
roasting and smelting, and’of both when the furnaces are emptied
of their dusty and fuming product. In the later processes of refin­
ing the danger is chiefly from fumes. An effort is made to save the
lead that passes off in the fumes by means of flues and bag houses,
where the fine lead powder collects and has to be cleaned out and
transported back to the furnaces. This is the most dangerous kind
of work in the industry.
The occupations in a smelter which could not be held by women
without great risk are: The tending and discharging of the Hunt­
ington-Heberlein pots; the tending and discharging of hand-rabbled
reverberatory furnaces; the tapping of blast furnaces; work on the
Scotch hearths or open hearths; and work in the flues and bag houses.
Occupations which they might undertake, if conditions were made as
safe as they have been in the best plants, are the following: The
handling of damp ore; the feeding of blast furnaces, provided the
charges are damp, the feed floor is open and clean, the charge automatically dumped, and the suction into the furnace sufficient to pre­
vent any escape of fumes; the tending of the sinter-roasting machine
(Dwight-Lloyd), provided the charge is damp, the suction exhausts
strong enough to carry off the fumes, and the discharge automatic
and not productive of dust. Grate cleaning for the Dwight-Lloyd
machines, however, should not be given to women.
In refining there are several processes that might be undertaken
by women under proper conditions, but such conditions are almost
never present in American refineries. Refineries handle not only
clean lead bullion, but usually great quantities of lead scrap of ali
kinds, dross, dirty white-lead powder, poorly roasted oxides, old
storage batteries, dusty stuff of all kinds, which is bad to handle and
usually fills the place with poisonous dust. This is why a refinery is
often a more dangerous place to work in than a good smelter, though
it need not be. If, however, great care were used to keep the place
free from dust, and to carry off fumes, women might be employed in
some of the processes. They should not do any of the furnace work
nor handle the dross. Where the electrolytic process is used they
might be employed in the battery room, though not on the dross
furnaces, nor in handling the “ anode mud,” the product of elec­
trolysis. Desilverizing may be so carried on as practically to be free
from dust or fumes; in fact it is probably the safest work in the
whole industry, and women might be employed here. By-product
and residue furnaces are not safe for women to work at, and it would
be even less advisable to employ women on copper converters. On
the other hand, retorting and cupeling has, in one American plant
at least, been rendered free from dust and fumes. As a general thing,
however, the dangers in this part of refining are fairly great, and
with the exception of the plant mentioned none have been observed




W O M E N IN

T H E LEAD IN D U ST R IE S .

19

in which women could be properly employed. They should never be
put to breaking up the cakes of litharge from the cupels.
In considering the employment of women in smelting and refining
lead it must be remembered that even in the best plants accidents may
occur which suddenly change a safe place into a very dangerous one.
Flues fail to work and gases are driven back into the plant, the fur­
nace gets out of order and not only do fumes escape but it is neces­
sary to shut down and clean out the furnace, causing a great deal of
dangerous dust. Even under the best management this industry can
not be regarded as one in which women can be employed without
risk.

TRADES IN WHICH METALLIC LEAD IS USED.

Lead in its metallic form is not absorbed by the human body, but
after only a short exposure to the jair it becomes covered with a coat­
ing of gray oxide, which is soluble in the human body. Heat greatly
quickens this oxidizing process, and molten lead always has a more
or less thick covering of what is called dross, which gives off, when it
is stirred, those delicate bluish-gray clouds that are quite visible if
one watches the stirring or ladling or skimming of a lead pot. The
lead poisoning that takes place in those occupations that require the
handling of lead in solid or in molten form is usually slow and
chronic, and often the symptoms are not very marked or typical.
Very rarely, in an oversusceptible person, typical acute lead poison­
ing may occur.
The dangers in connection with the metallic-lead trades come from
the presence of fine lead oxide’ in the air near the melting pots and
of dust containing lead, which rises from the floor and workbenches
and contaminates the air, and also from the grayish oxide which
rubs off from the lead onto the hand and may reach the worker’s
mouth if he handles his food or chewing tobacco without washing his
hands. It is almost universally believed by men in the lead indus­
tries that molten lead does not contaminate the air unless it is heated
to the fuming point, and that therefore there is no need of having
hoods over melting pots unless the heat in the pot is at least 800° F.
To substantiate this theory a number of foreign reports could be
quoted, for several lead experts in Germany and Austria have col­
lected the air over melting pots and have failed to show the presence
of lead even at a temperature of 1,000° F.1 This is true, however,
only when the molten lead is left quite undisturbed. If it is skimmed
or stirred or ladled out and poured into molds, the fine coating of
oxide is detached and floats up into the air on the currents of heat,
and its presence can be shown by chemical tests. Experiments prov­
ing this were carried on by Dr. Earle D. Phelps, of the Hygienic
1 Bureau o f Labor Statistics, Bui. No. 209 : Hygiene o f the printing trades, by A lice
Hamilton, M. D., and Charles H. V errill, pp. 21-26.




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B U L L E T IN OF T H E B U R E A U OP LABOR STATISTICS.

Laboratory of the United States Public Health Service,1 and he
was able to prove that if lead is heated to 590° F. lead fumes are
given off when the melting pot is agitated in any way. These experi­
ments justify the rulings made by the British factory inspection
service and by some State labor departments, which require that all
receptacles of molten lead be covered with a hood having a suction
pipe to carry off the lead in the fumes.
Dross from the lead pot is skimmed off and thrown usually on the
floor, though sometimes into a receptacle, but even in the latter case a
good deal of it often splashes on the floor. Here it is ground up by
the feet of the workmen passing to and fro, and every draft of air
lifts a little of it and blows it about, so that if dust is gathered
from surfaces where no lead has been handled this dust may be found
to contain an appreciable quantity of lead. For instance, lead can
be found in the dust from the tops of cabinets in printing shops, or
from the surface of the magazine of a linotype machine, or from the
tops of flue pipes in type foundries. Another source of lead dust
is lead scrap and trimmings, which are allowed to fall on the floor,
and which the workmen tread on and grind into dust. While there is
probably never a large quantity of lead in the air of such workshops,
it must be remembered that lead is a cumulative poison and that very
minute doses repeated day after day may result in a quantity suffi­
cient to cause quite as serious symptoms as would larger doses given
at intervals.
There are so many industries in which metallic lead is used that it
is impossible to give a list even approximately complete. The follow­
ing are occupations in which industrial lead poisoning has been
known to occur in the United States, sometimes in quite serious form:
Lead burning.
The making of solder and Babbitt.
Soldering.
The making of lead pipe, sheet, wire, machine parts, plumbers’ goods.
Lead tempering of machine parts.
The making and laying of electric cables.
The making of leaden trimmings for coffins.
The making of leaden picture frames.
The polishing of diamonds embedded in a lump of lead.
The making of tin foil, which is really extremely thin sheet lead.
The using of tin foil as wrapping.
The making of car seals and can seals.
Brass founding.
Brass and nickel buffing.
Tinsmithing.
Plumbers’ trade. (This is increasingly a brass industry, but lead is still
used and lead poisoning still occurs among plumbers. Nineteen out of 560
eases of lead poisoning in Illinois were in plumbers.)
1 Bureau o f Labor Statistics, Bui. No. 2 0 9 : Hygiene o f the printing trades, by Alice
Hamilton, M. D., and Charles H. Verrill, pp. 21-26.




W O M E N IN

T H E LEAD IN D U ST R IE S .

21

The use of solder and Babbitt is productive of much more lead
poisoning than would be expected from the nature of the work. The
Illinois factory inspectors’ report for the year 1913-14 gives the
record of 184 cases of lead poisoning from four establishments
in which tin cans were soldered. In one crowded workroom, with
12 soldering machines, 100 persons were employed, and here 18 cases
of lead poisoning developed during one winter month, when the
windows were closed. Another industry in Illinois—the making of
car seals and bearings—has a disproportionate amount of lead poison­
ing. There were 28 cases of lead poisoning in one year among
an average force of 188 employees. Both these industries employ
women chiefly, and many of these women are under 21 years of age.
The percentage of cases is far beyond that reported by the notori­
ously dangerous lead trades in Illinois.
A few instances may be given of serious lead poisoning in occupa­
tions that are not usually considered by employers as involving any
particular danger, but in which metallic lead is used. For instance, a
man was treated in a Chicago hospital for lead poisoning who had
for two months been employed in sweeping up the shavings from
casting and finishing machines in a factory making lead fixtures.
Another man sickened after four weeks’ work. He had been gather­
ing up and wheeling away dross from melting pots. In a Philadel­
phia hospital a man was treated for acute lead poisoning who had
worked for only three weeks, making lead stoppers and perforated
filters for washbasins. Again, in the same Chicago hospital, there
were treated for lead poisoning a man who had handled lead, copper,
and brass junk in a refinery; another who had lifted pig lead in a
shipping room; a lead filer; a brass filer; and a lather and shingler
who had the habit of holding lead-covered nails in his mouth.
Lead burning is a notoriously dangerous trade. Skilled lead
burners almost never escape the effect of the lead fumes given off
when they apply a hot flame to melt together the seams of the lead
lining in tanks or other receptacles. The lead burner is obliged to
hold his head close to his work and to climb into the tank he is
lining, or to put his head into the receptacle if it is too small for him
to enter. This is the work generally understood when the term lead
burning is used, namely, making lead linings for receptacles which
are to contain corrosive substances. But there are other forms of
lead burning that do not require so much skill and are not nearly so
dangerous. The burning of lead connectors in storage-battery manu­
facture is a typical example. Here the worker uses a tiny flame and
lets it play over the pure lead that is used to connect the battery
plates. A certain amount of lead fume is given off in the course of
this work,1 but the amount is not large and, with abundant ventila­
1 See section on storage-battery manufacture, pp. 32-35.




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B U L L E T IN OF T H E B U R E A U OF LABOR STATISTICS.

tion, it can be diluted to a point of safety for all but those very
susceptible to lead.
THE PRINTING TRADES.

Probably the most important of the industries using metallic lead
is the printing industry, including the allied branches of linotype
casting, monotype casting, stereotyping, electrotyping, and ordinary
type founding. In all countries the printers’ trade has long been con­
sidered as productive of more illness than would be expected in an
industry in which wages are high, hours usually not long, and in
which there is no great contamination of the air, nor exposure to
excessive heat or cold, nor excessive muscular effort.
The unhealthful features of the industry are the following: It is
an indoor occupation, often carried on in vitiated air; it does not re­
quire much physical exertion, and in consequence the printer’s circu­
lation is likely to be sluggish, and he is oversensitive to cold; the
nervous strain is great; the printer exposed to the effects of various
poisonous substances, the most important of which is lead. How im­
portant lead is as a factor in the ill health of printers can not be
stated with any positiveness. Yet the evidence gathered from all
civilized countries and extending over a number of years tends to
show that it is important as a cause of sickness. An examination of
200 working printers in Boston and Chicago showed that 18, or 9
per cent, were suffering from chronic lead poisoning; 107 of the 200
had symptoms of ill health.
Lead poisoning may be acquired by printers if they handle food
or tobacco with hands which have become smeared with lead, or if
they breathe lead dust and fumes. The sources of lead dust are: In
the composing room, the dust from type cases; in the linotype room,
the scraps of lead from the machine which fall on the floor and are
ground up by the feet of passers-by, and the dust from cleaning the
linotype machines and plungers; in stereotyping and electrotyping,
the scraps from trimmers, routers, and saws, and the dross from the
kettles. In addition, most shops melt and recast their old type and
scrap, and this is another source of lead dust.
The sources of lead fumes are: All pots of molten metal, if the
metal is agitated by stirring or by skimming off dross, or by ladling
and pouring. In stereotyping, electrotyping, and remelting and
casting type there is enough agitation of the molten lead to cause
lead contamination of the surrounding air, but in linotype and mono­
type work the metal in the pot is hardly disturbed at all, and re­
peated tests made of the air over these machines shows that lead
fumes are not given off.1 This does not mean that linotypists may
not suffer from a slowly developing chronic lead poisoning. But
1 U.*S. Bureau o f Labor Statistics, Bui. No. 2 0 9 : Hygiene o f the printing trade, by A lice
Hamilton, M. D., and Charles H. Verrill, p. 37.




W O M E N IN

THE

LEAD IN D U ST R IE S.

23

this is a result of lead dust, or of fumes coming from pots in the
linotype room where scrap is melted. If the linotype composing
room were kept clean and no work were carried on there except hand
composition and machine composition, there would be no risk of
lead poisoning except from the cleaning of machines and plungers.
Linotype casting.—Linotypists insist that unless the fumes from
the pots are carried off they suffer from symptoms of ill health, and
that in shops where exhausts have been installed the failure of the
air current to work for a single day will be enough to bring on head­
ache, lassitude, dullness, and inability to work at the usual speed;
but the fumes of lead in as small quantities as those given off from
molten lead never produce symptoms quickly, their effect being very
slow and subtle. What the linotypist complains of is really the con­
tamination of the air by carbon monoxide from the naked gas
burners under the melting pots, and there should always be a fume
pipe with an exhaust over such a burner. It is probably unnecessary
to install exhausts over type-metal pots in which the melting is done
by electric current.
Hand composition.—In the composing room there should be very
little risk of lead poisoning. The danger in the work of the type­
setter should be limited to the handling of lead type. That risk is
inherent in the trade, and can not be done away with. If it were
the only risk, it would be possible to protect the compositor fully
from all danger of slow chronic lead absorption simply by providing
him with ample^washing facilities. Then, if he did get lead poison­
ing, it could be assumed that he was eating his lunch or handling his
chewing tobacco without washing his hands. But the case is in
actual practice not nearly so simple as that. A typesetter may be a
man of scrupulously cleanly habits, and yet he may get lead poison­
ing because there is lead dust in the room where he works, or because
he has to blow the dust out of old type cases, or work near a melting
pot or near a pile of lead skimmings blown about by drafts of air.
Monotype casting.—Like linotype casting, monotype casting does
not result in lead fumes except when the dross is skimmed off. but
gas is almost always used for heating and all that has just been said
in the section on linotype work about the evils of gas fumes and the
need of carrying them away applies to monotype casting machines.
Monotype machines drop lead scrap continually on the floor, but as
a usual thing casting is carried, on in a segarate room, and the lead
scrap is not scattered beyond this room. As a rule, also, the mono­
type casting room is well placed and well ventilated. Indeed this
department seems to be planned and managed better than any other
in job printing and newspaper work.
Stereotyping.—The reverse is the rule in stereotyping, for this
department is likely to be the worst housed and the worst tended of




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B U L L E T IN OP T H E BU R E A U OP LABOR STATISTICS.

any in the printing shop. The evils in stereotyping are the very
disagreeable and indeed harmful fumes given off when old plates
are being melted down or 66burned off,” fumes which come from the
ink and contain acrolein, an irritating poison; the lead oxide which
experiments have shown to be given off at the temperatures often
used in stereotyping; the dust caused by trimming and routing the
plates; and the heat from the kettles. All these evils are avoidable,
and all have been avoided to a large extent in a few model plants.
This has been done by placing hoods with strong exhausts so that
they will carry off not only the disagreeable fumes at the beginning
of the process, but the more dangerous though less noticeable lead
fumes that come off later on, or by placing a powerful fan in an outer
wall of the room. Dust is prevented by careful gathering up of the
scrap and trimmings, and by throwing dross into a receptacle instead
of on the floor.
Electrotyping.—The important features in this work are the pot
in which the lead is heated for the backing of plates, the hot pans on
which the molten lead is poured, the trimming and routing of the
plates, and the sawing and beveling. As in other departments in a
printing shop, old plates have to be remelted and the metal used
again. When these ink-covered plates are melted down, the same
sort of gases are given off as in melting stereotype plates. The
lead in the melting pots in an electrotype foundry is often allowed to
run up to a higher temperature than is necessary, because it is easy
to cool it down to just the right temperature m the backing pans.
Experiments show that lead fumes are given off at these higher tem­
peratures when the lead is agitated, and, therefore, to make electro­
typing safe some method for carrying off these fumes is necessary.
An electrotype foundry can be made free from lead fumes, and the
lead scrap can be so carefully handled that lead dust will be but a
slight danger. In the majority of electrotype foundries little or no
attention is given to carrying off the poisonous fumes. A disagree­
able feature of the work is the use of black lead, which is very light
and flies about, darkening walls and ceilings and settling on the
windows. Other disagreeable features are the heat, and the blast of
steam that in some places is used to clean plates.
There is an increasing tendency, now that the price of lead has
risen so high, for newspaper plants and large job houses to refine the
dross skimmed off the melting pots instead of selling it to junk
dealers. Sometimes they simply remelt it, recover a small part of
the lead, and sell the rest, but in some plants a cupeling furnace is
installed and the dross is actually smelted. This is work attended
with all the dangers described under lead smelting, and it should be
safeguarded by the methods described there. It should always be
done quite apart from any other work.




W O M E N I N T H E L E A D IN D U S T R IE S .

25

Women in the Printing Trades.

Women found their way long ago into the printing trades, though
not into monotype casting, stereotyping, or electrotyping, nor are
they as yet employed in large numbers in any branch of actual
printing. They are accepted as members of the typographical union
on exactly the same terms as men, and must go through the same
apprenticeship, and, after becoming journeymen, they have the same
hours and receive the same pay as men. They are found in large
numbers as proof readers, and are usually the operators on the mono­
type keyboards, but do not work in the monotype casting room. In
nonunion shops they are press feeders, sometimes doing all of that
work. As compositors and linotypists they are not numerous. In
the course of an investigation made in 1916 of the printing industry
in seven American cities, only 14 woman linotypists were found out
of a total of about 1,532 operators, and only 103 hand compositors
out of a total of about 3,800.
As is true of so many of the skilled trades, a wide.difference of
opinion exists concerning the entrance of women into the printing
trades. This difference was brought out clearly at the meeting of
the International Association for Labor Legislation in Lugano, in
1910, and at the following meeting in Zurich, in 1912. The Italian
delegates took the stand that, for the good of the race, women must
not be allowed to work in this industry, since the danger of lead
poisoning is too great; they admitted, however, that they had no evi­
dence of an undue amount of lead poisoning among the few women
employed* in Italy. The Austrians also were in favor of forbidding
women to work at any occupation in printing in which contact with
lead is involved, and the regulations'now in force in Austria contain
this provision. The British delegates, on the other hand, main­
tained that it was entirely possible to do away with tlie danger of
lead poisoning in the printing trade, and that efforts should be di­
rected toward making the industry healthful for both men and
women, rather than toward shutting women out from occupations in
which they had long been employed, and which wTere in many ways
suited to their powers. The French and the American delegates
stood with the British.
The typographical industry is not the only one in which efforts
have been made to prohibit the entrance of women on very insuffi­
cient grounds. The danger to health in this industry is avoidable,
and the logical thing to do is to institute such sanitary measures in
printing shops as will make them safe for both sexes. The Austrian
statistics of lead poisoning in woman printers, on which so much
stress has been laid, depend on the fact that Austrian women used to
be employed in the type foundries, finishing type by hand, and this
work is dangerous for men as well as women, and should be replaced




26

B U L L E T I N O F T H E B U R E A U O F L A B O R S T A T IS T IC S .

by machinery. Machine composition, hand composition, monotype
casting, and electrotyping can be carried on, and in the best shops
are carried on, in such a way as to reduce the danger of lead poison­
ing to a minimum. In stereotyping this would be more difficult,
but the greater physical strength needed by the stereotyper makes
it highly improbable that this occupation will ever be given to women.
TYPE FOUNDING.

Type founding is closely connected with the printing trade, and
indeed a few newspaper offices have their own type-founding ma­
chines in addition to the monotype and linotype machines. As a
usual thing, however, type founding is a separate business in the
United States, though in Europe it is often carried on in connection
with printing.
Statistics of lead poisoning in the printing trades in Europe al­
ways show a high percentage among the women employed in type
founding. In Austria the woman foundry helpers have much the
highest rate o f lead poisoning in the whole industry, 1 case out of 9
women employed, while the compositors have only 1 out of 85
employed. In Germany five times as many founders as compositors
have lead poisoning. In this country the only cases reported of lead
poisoning among women engaged in the printing and allied trades
have been among type-foundry employees. The danger of work in a
type foundry is very much like that in stereotyping, except that
there is far more fine lead dust. The heat in the casters often runs
up to the point at which lead oxide is given off, and it is not customarj^ to place hoods over the molten lead. The evil of gas fumes
is the same as that described under linotype work. But the worst
feature in the type foundry is the lead dust from the hand finishing
of type. The type cast by the older kind of machine, the Bruce
machine, has to go through various processes of filing, “ dressing,”
or grooving, and “ kerning,” or smoothing, and inspecting, assort­
ing, and packing. This is fine work and all of it is productive of
dust. The woman finishers sit bent over their benches, with their
heads close to their machines or tools. They use pads of plush to
hold the type, and these get full of lead dust and are shaken and
beaten clean from time to time, and the fine gray powder that col­
lects on the benches is brushed off. This finishing work is often
carried on* in the same room with the casting machines, with their
gas fumes and possibly lead fumes.
So long as casting machines of the old pattern are used and hand
finishing has to be done, type founding will be the worst branch of
the printing trade. The newer make of caster, known as the Barth
machine, casts type which is already finished, and needs no further
handling.




W O M E N I N T H E L E A D IN D U S T R IE S .

27

SUMMARY OF THE METALLIC-LEAD INDUSTRIES,

To sum up the features which are common to all the trades in
which lead in metallic form is used: The form o f poisoning found
in these occupations is slow and insidious and sometimes shows itself
only in an increased tuberculosis rate, because the resistance of the
body to infection has been lowered by mild chronic lead poisoning.
The dangerous feature is lead oxide in the form of fine dust, which
rises from the surface of molten lead and is rubbed off from the
surface of solid lead. It is perfectly, possible to prevent all, or
almost all, air contamination by this oxide dust. When it can not
be entirely prevented the proportion in the air can be reduced to
the margin o f safety for all but the oversusceptible by ample ven­
tilation. The employment of women in these industries can be per­
mitted, because there is no reason why the risk of lead poisoning in
working with lead metal should not be reduced to a minimum.

MANUFACTURE OF WHITE LEAD.
This is probably the most notoriously dangerous of the lead indus­
tries, the ojie that has attracted more attention than any other, in
European countries, and that has led to special legislation for the
protection of the men and women engaged in it. It can net be as­
sumed that the description of the white-lead industry in Great
Britain or France or Germany applies to conditions in America,
because our methods of manufacture differ in several important re­
spects from theirs. On the one hand, we use a dry method where
they use water, and this means more danger from dust in our plants;
but on the other hand, we have developed machinery to a far higher
point than they have, thus doing away with hand work and reduc­
ing the number of employees required.
Old Dutch process.—The Old Dutch process is still the one most
commonly used in the United States. The lead is cast in thin disks
or “ buckles.'’ Women may properly work at casting provided only
clean lead is used, not scrap with white-lead dust clinging to it, and
provided the precautions described in the last section are observed.
These buckles are packed in pots with acetic acid and stacked in
layers in old tan bark where they are left for about 100 days to
a corrode ” or change from the metallic form into the basic carbonate,
white lead. This work is known as “ stack setting” or “ setting the
blue beds,” and the English law allows w omen to do it. So long as
only clean blue buckles are used for the blue beds there seems no
reason why women should not do the work. Unfortunately in some
of our plants it is the custom to mix with this blue lead parts of
buckles which have been imperfectly corroded and which are more
or less covered with white lead. When this is done, the character of
the work is quite different, for the stack setters then are handling not




• 28

B U L L E T I N O F T H E B U R E A U O F L A B O R S T A T IS T IC S .

only clean metallic lead, but white lead, which is often dusty. W o­
men should not be allowed to work in the blue beds when old buckles
are used.
When corrosion is complete the tan bark has to be taken off, and
the pots lifted and emptied. In England and Germany the white
lead must be sprinkled with water before emptying to keep down
the dust, yet even so the English law forbids the employment of
women in “ stack stripping ” or “ stripping the v/hite beds,” as this
work is called. In our factories we can not sprinkle the Avhite lead,
because the corroded buckles must go through a series of grinders
and screens to separate the white lead from the unchanged metal in
the center of the buckle, and dampness would result in clogging the
screens. Great improvements have been made of late years to do
away with the dust in American stack stripping, but in spite of that
the work is dangerous, and does not admit of the employment of
women.
D ry-fan room.—The second danger point in white-lead manufac­
ture is the dry-pan room, where the white lead, after repeated
washings, is pumped into great hot pans, and left to dry for many
hours, then conveyed by various methods to the barrel packing ma­
chines, or to the place where it is to be ground in oil. In some fac­
tories the white lead, still suspended in water, is ground as “ pulp
lead,” the oil displacing the water gradually and no drying process
being needed. Work in the dry-pan rooms has been very much im­
proved of late years in the best factories. Where formerly the dry
white lead was shoveled out and dropped into trucks, it is now drawn
to the edge of the pan by a long-handled hoe, and falls into a con­
veyer which carries it to the barrel packer or to the place where it
is to be mixed with oil. Both pans and conveyers are covered except
for a small opening during the time that emptying takes place, and
under this cover is an exhaust which prevents the dust from
escaping.
In spite of these improvements, however, nobody would advise the
employment of women in the dry-pan room of a white-lead factory,
nor in the two following processes: Packing the dry white lead,
which, no matter how carefully done, is inevitably dusty work, and
grinding white lead in oil. The department in which they may be
employed, provided conditions are as they should be, is the final
filling of small kegs or pails with lead and oil. I f women are to be
allowed to do this, however, the work must not be carried on in the
same room wTith the grinding of dry lead, nor with barrel packing,
nor must any other source of white-lead dust be permitted there.
The record was obtained of a young girl who contracted lead poison­
ing doing this very wTork, and it was assumed that she had absorbed
the lead paint through her hands. But when closer inquiry was made
it was discovered that she was working near the door of the grinding
room, and she said that very often clouds of white dust would come




W O M EN IN

T H E LEAD IN D U S T R IE S .

29

blowing in through that door. Her poisoning is attributed to the
inhaling of dust, not to the absorption through the skin.
C arter p rocess.— Another process for corroding lead is gaining
ground in the United States. This is the so-called Carter process,
based on the same principle as the Old Dutch process, but bringing
about corrosion in two weeks’ time, while the Old Dutch process
takes about 100 days. This rapid corrosion is effected by atomizing
melted lead in a blast of superheated steam, and subjecting this fine
ieacl powder to the action of acetic acid in large revolving cylinders.
Streams of carbon dioxide are driven into the cylinder, and a spray
of acetic acid is introduced from time to time. The first corroding
period lasts five or six days and the lead is then in little balls of
carbonate with uncorroded particles in the center. This must now be
ground and corroded again. The final corrosion over, the white lead
is ground in water.
The advantage of the Carter process is that, being largely me­
chanical, it reduces the number of employees who must be exposed
to poisoning during the process; and from year to year mechanical
improvements make actual contact with the lead less and less neces­
sary. The disadvantages are that the* lead is in the form of powder
from the very beginning, and that there are certain points in the
process where it is hard to avoid dust, even when everything goes well,
and where it is impossible to do so if anything goes wrong with the
machinery. It would not be advisable to employ women in connec­
tion with the atomized blue lead, nor in the cylinder room, nor on the
thrashers. In fact, the only place in which they should be employed
is in packing lead in oil, provided the precautions given above are
observed.

GRINDING OF PAINT.

The only risk in this work is in handling the lead compounds—•
white lead, lead chromate, or chrome yellow, and red lead— or in
breathing air contaminated with these compounds. In a well-man­
aged paint factory, weighing of lead colors is done in such a wav as
to make the escape of dust impossible, and grinding in oil takes place
in covered chasers. These processes are carried on in rooms separate
from that in which the keg filling is done. Under such circum­
stances there is no reason why women should not work at keg filling.
It is very important to separate the dusty work from the safe work.
In a Chicago paint house a girl engaged in pasting labels on the
paint cans contracted lead poisoning because they had put her to
work so near the open scales where the white lead was weighed as
to expose her to the dust from the dry white lead.

PAINTING TRADE.
It is so very improbable that women will ever engage in house
painting or ship painting that these two branches of the painting
industry need not be dwelt on. But there seems no reason why, so




SO

B U L L E T IN OF T H E B U R E A U OF LABOR S T A T IST IC S.

far as their strength is concerned, they should not be employed in
much of the painting that is carried on in factories* especially in
painting furniture, picture frames, moldings, etc. They may also
undertake the painting of wheels for wagons and carriages. This
sort of painting has, up to now, been done very largely by unorgan­
ized and more or less unskilled painters, and the substitution of ma­
chinery for hand work has increased very greatly in recent years.
Much of the painting of carriages, w agons, automobiles, and agricul­
tural implements is done by mechanical dipping into tanks o f paint,
and painting by hand is sometimes limited to the decorations on the
last coat. A great deal o f leadless paint also is used for these
articles. The painting of furniture, picture frames, moldings, and
other small objects is of very little importance from our point of
view, because leadless paints are used almost entirely.1
The danger in the branches of painting in which women are likely
to be employed lies in the process of sandpapering dry paint which
contains lead. Even when the actual painting is done by machinery
the paint, after drying, is often rubbed w7ith sandpaper to prepare it
for the next coat. This is especially true in painting wheels. Car­
riage and wagon wheels are sometimes given several coats of paint
rich in white lead or red lead, and each coat except the last is rubbed
with sandpaper and the dust is brushed off with a soft brush. The
body of the vehicle, though painted chiefly with leadless paint, may
be given first a coat of white-lead paint and white-lead putty to
fill in the inequalities of the wood, and these are rubbed with sand­
paper.
Not only white lead, but red lead and a lead oxide known as
orange mineral, and yellow lead chromate, and the mixture of
ehromate and Prussian blue called chrome green, are used in paints.
Finally, lead sulphate, sometimes called sublimed white lead, has
come into increasing use of late years as a substitute for white lead.
The most soluble, and consequently the most poisonous of these forms
o f lead, is white lead. Next come the oxides, and work with oxide
paint may be more dangerous than with white-lead paint, because
red-lead paint does not keep well and is usually mixed fresh each
day by the painter. The chromates and lead sulphate are less solu­
ble, but quite poisonous enough to require all possible precautions
in handling.
The most important of these precautions is the avoidance of dust
from dry sandpapering. In Germany, France, Belgium, and Aus­
tria the law7 forbids dry rubbing of lead paint. I f it is to be sand­
papered, the sandpaper must first be moistened in some mineral oil
1 A s stated a t the begin ning, lead is the on ly poisonous sub stance considered here.
C beap p a in t is u su a lly leadless, but m ay contain h a rm fu l vola tile liquids, such a s benzene
and naphtha,, w hich set up- a train o f sym p to m s w hen these p a in ts are use<l in poorly ven­
tilated room s.




W OM EN IN

T H E LEAD IN D U S T R IE S .

31

to prevent the dust; but rubbing with pumice stone and water is
much more usual in those countries, except for the first coats of paint,
where water can not be used, for it would raise the grain of the wood
and cause metal to rust. Other sources of dust in connection with
painting are the chipping off of old paint that contains lead, the
wearing of dirty working clothes, and the shaking out of drop cloths
that are full of lead paint. It is absolutely necessary for painters
to have good washing facilities for their use at noon and on quitting
work, because paint clings to the hands and can easily contaminate
the food unless it is carefully washed off before the lunch pail is
opened.
In employing women in any branch of the painting trade it will be
necessary to prohibit dry rubbing down of lead paint, mixing dry
lead compounds with paint, using dirty drop cloths, and chipping
off old lead paint. It will also be necessary to insist on the provision
of hot water, nailbrushes, soap, and towels for their use.

COMMERCIAL ARTISTS OR RETOUCHERS.
This highly skilled branch of* painting, which gives employment
to many women, has already been mentioned. It is enough to say
here that every effort should be made to substitute zinc white for
white lead in the work of retouching, and that where white-lead
paint is used it should not be used in an air brush. The artists
should know, as they often do not, that they are using white-Jead
paint, and they should be warned never to put the paint brush into
the mouth. Several instances have occurred of men and women
who, severely poisoned with lead, have assured their physicians that
they were using only zinc white, and in consequence the source of
their symptoms was not discovered and they were allowed to keep on
with their work until seriously poisoned.

LITHOTRANSFER WORK, OR DECALCOMANIA.
This consists inv preparing transfer paper which is used in im­
pressing patterns on pottery. The colors used are largely lead colors,
and they are ground dry and dusted dry onto prepared paper.
When the work is done by hand even at a table provided with a glass
screen and an exhaust there is decided danger of poisoning from the
fine, light dust. Fortunately, machine dusting of colors has been
introduced of late, and this has lessened the dust, though it does not
entirely prevent the escape of dust. Lithotransfer work is regarded
in Europe as one of the most dangerous lead trades. No recent in­
formation is available concerning the industry in this country. In
1910 eight girls and one man were found in Chicago who had suffered
from acute lead poisoning during employment in one large litho­
transfer factory.




32

B U L L E T IN OF T H E B U R E A U OF LABOR ST A T ISTIC S.

MANUFACTURE OF RED LEAD AND LITHARGE, OR “ ROASTING OXIDES.”
In the United States the roasting of oxides is not carried on in
connection with lead smelting, as it is in most other countries, except
for one smelting plant. It is either done separately or in connection
with the making of white lead. The dangers in the work consist in
the fumes from the furnaces, and in the dust from dumping, grind­
ing, screening, and packing the oxides. There is 110 lead industry in
the country which shows such a variety of conditions as does the
roasting of oxides. There are grinding rooms so free from dust
that one would never know red lead was manufactured there, while
there are others covered with scarlet powder from ceiling to floor.
There are also furnace rooms practically free from fumes, with
mechanical rabblers, with hoods over the feed doors, and with
mechanical discharging under cover, and again there are furnace
rooms with no devices for carrying oft the fumes that escape when
the furnace man opens the door and works the charge back and forth
or rakes the oxides out into an open truck.
The charge for the furnace is not always pig lead; much of it may
be dry scrap, dross, refuse from white-lead works, and imperfectly
roasted oxides, and this dusty stuff lies in heaps on the floor of the
furnace room. An almost invariable source of dust is the dump into
which trucks of oxide from the furnaces are emptied, to be ground
and screened, and another is the dump from the screening and bolting
machines. In rare cases grinding takes place in water, but this has
the disadvantage of necessitating the use of drying pans like those
described in the section on white lead (p. 28), the emptying of which
is always dusty and dangerous.
Lead oxides are very light and fluffy, and it is hard to prevent
dust in dry grinding and bolting and packing. Even where me­
chanical barrel packers are used the work is dusty, and packing
small kegs by hand is very Unsafe work. In an intensive study of
the white and red lead industries, in 1911, there was found a great
deal of lead poisoning in connection with white-lead work, for the
safety devices now found in that industry had not vet been intro­
duced.1 There was, however, an even higher rate among the work­
ers in red lead, and the manufacture of red lead and litharge has
not undergone as much improvement in the years that have elapsed'
since then as has the manufacture of white lead. It does not seem
safe to recommend the employment of women in any department of
the manufacture of lead oxides.

MANUFACTURE OF STORAGE BATTERIES.
This is the trade in which lead oxides are used in great quantities,
and in which women have already entered and wTill probably entef

1

U. S, B ureau o f Labor, B ui. N o. 95 : W h ite -le a d indu stry in ,tlie U nited S tates, by Alice
H a m ilto n , M . D ., p. 2 5 9 .




W O M EN IN

T H E LEAD IN D U S T R IE S .

33

in very considerable numbers in the near future. It is regarded in
European countries as one of the most dangerous of the lead trades,
and strict regulations are in force both as to the sanitation of the
places in which the work is done and as to the methods of work per­
mitted in them. It is only rather recently that we in America have
awakened to the knowledge of the danger involved in this work. In
1913 it was found that in five storage-battery factories, at least 17.9
men in every hundred employed in work exposing them to lead had
suffered from lead poisoning, and this figure was far below the
truth, because it was impossible to get anything but very scanty
information from three of these factories.1 In one factory where
records had been kept, the rate in a single department was as high as
40 per cent. This department has been made much safer in the
five years since the study was made. The type of lead poisoning
found is usually acute, with colic, and in severe instances lead con­
vulsions, but not palsy except sometimes a slight form. This is
explained by the fact that the employees are a shifting force. They
seldom remain long in this kind of work and if they become pois­
oned it is because they have been exposed to large quantities of
soluble lead, which is quickly absorbed and causes acute symptoms.
The work in a storage-battery factory is fairly complicated, but
for the purpose of this study the processes may be divided into three
classes: Those which have to do with acids or paint, not lead; those
in which metallic lead only is handled; and those in which lead ox­
ides, litharge, and red lead are handled. The first class may be ig­
nored, for there is no lead danger involved so long as these processes—>
forming and charging and painting— are carried on, as th^y usu­
ally are, in rooms separate from the lead rooms. The second class
includes casting or molding the lead grids for the Faure plates,
trimming them of superfluous lead, casting and “ spinning ” the
Plantee plates, and lead burning the final connections on the recepta­
cle. This last is a soldering process in which pure lead is used in­
stead of ordinary solder, and the heat is applied by means of an air­
ily drogen, gas-hydrogen, or oxy-hydrogen flame. The third class
covers the mixing of oxides with various liquids to form a paste,
the rubbing of this paste into the lead grid to make a Faure plate,
and the inspection, cleaning, assembling, and lead burning of these
pasted plates.
By far the most dangerous work is mixing the paste and applying
it to the plates. There is no need of describing these processes fully,
because the employment of women in such work should never be al­
lowed. However, exposure to lead-oxicle dust is not confined to
1
U. S. B ureau o f Labor S ta tistic s, B ui. N o. 1 05 : L ead poison ing in the m an u factu re o f
storag e, batteries, by A lice H a m ilto n , M . D ., p. 2 3 .




34

B U L L E T IN OP T H E B U R E A U OF LABOR ST A T IST IC S.

these two departments. The pasted plates are dried, and though the
surface after drying is hard and firm, yet the plates can not be han­
dled without raising dust, the shelves on which they rest are always
covered with dust, and the work of lifting them from the racks and
carrying them to the assembling room is dusty. The work in the as­
sembling room involves handling these pasted plates in various ways.
The two departments in which women are likely to be employed,
and, indeed, are already employed, are the molding and casting of
grids and the assembling of formed plates. In the molding room
there is only metallic lead, and the dangers here can be dealt with
fairly easily. Melting pots must be properly hooded; molding
should, if possible, be mechanical, not hand work; the lead scrap
from saws and trimmers should be caught in receptacles, not allowed
to fall on the floor, and dross from the~melting pots should be handled
in the same way. The room should be large and amply ventilated,
especially if gas is used under the kettles. In short, the employer
should act on the principle that melting and molding lead, no matter
how well done, results in some contamination of the air, and the only
safe thing is to dilute this contaminating lead to the greatest possible
extent with quantities of fresh air.
In the assembling room it is not so easy to do away with the danger
of lead poisoning, because here is found not only metallic lead butv
more or less dry lead oxides from the pasted plates. These plates are
inspected and the imperfect ones are rejected, or straightened,
trimmed, and filed. -Sm all plates, which have been pasted in pairs,
are sawed apart. The edges and the projecting piece of the grid
called the “ lug 55-are cleaned to get rid of the paste and leave a
shining metallic surface, so that good connections may be made by
the lead burner. This work may be done by hand or by machine.
The actual assemblers also handle these dry oxide plates, but not in
such a way as to involve much dust. They' group the plates together
and slip a thin wood or rubber separator between each pair of plates.
Then these groups are fastened together by the lead burners.
In 1913, in two factories employing 6*20 men in lead work, the
proportion of cases of lead poisoning in these different classes of
work was as follows:1
Casting—metallic lead only______________________________
1. 7
Mixing paste—dry lead oxides 2___ *______________________ 40. 0
Pasting plates—lead oxides, dry and wet________________ 19. 4
Assembling and lead burning____________________________ 10. 7
This .shows how much greater is the risk in assembling and lead
burning than in casting, the added element of risk being the presence
1 U. S. B ureau o f Labor S ta tistic s, B ui. No. 1 65 : L ead p o ison ing in the m anu facture o f
Storage batteries, by A lice H a m ilto n , M . D ., p. 24.
2 T h is included the m en w ho filled so-called “ ironclads ” w ith dry oxides, a t th a t tim e
Tery d u sty, dangerous w ork, but m uch less so a t present.




W O M EN IN

T H E LEAD IN D U S T R IE S .

35

of lead-oxicle dust. I f women are to be employed in tlie assembling
and lead-burning department great precautions will have to be taken.
The space allotted to each worker must be much more generously cal­
culated than in an ordinary factory. Not only must there be no
overcrowding, but there must be a very ample supply of air. No
oxide dust must be allowed to accumulate on floors or benches, and
no dry cleaning must be allowed. Benches must be wiped off with
moist cloths and the floors mopped or flushed. Sacks of dry plates
must never be stored in this room, nor the drying cabinets be placed
in this room. After the dried plates have been removed from a rack
this rack must be wiped with a wet cloth before it is used again. L u g ,
cleaning must be done by machine and the dust carried off by suction.
It is far better to separate the actual processes of assembling from the
work of inspection, trimming, sawing, and lug cleaning. I f tjiis is
done, assembling and lead burning will probably prove to be as free
from danger as the work in the molding room.

GLAZING OF POTTERY AND TILES.
The pottery industry of the United States has never, up to now,
given employment to large numbers of women in those occupations
where lead poisoning is a danger. In 1910 and 1911 the white-ware
industry, which was carried on chiefly in the region around East
Liverpool, Ohio, and in and about Trenton, N. J., had 393 women
engaged in lead work in 68 potteries, while 2,11*2 men were working
in these same processes.1 At that time lead poisoning in the potteries,.
so notorious in England and Germany, had attracted no attention at
all in this country, perhaps because the industry was not large and
was concentrated in two regions. Many improvements have taken
place in American potteries since that date, especially in white-ware
potteries where the labor is strongly organized. The so-called yellow
ware, and art and utility ware, is made in the Zanesville, Ohio, dis­
trict chiefly, and the labor is entirely unorganized. Tile factories
are much more scattered, being found in many States. Here, too, the
labor is unorganized.
The glaze used in the white-ware potteries which were visited con­
tained from 1.75 to 33.3 per cent of white lead. In the potteries
making art and utility ware (yellow ware) and in the tile factories
the glazes contain from 5 to 60 per cent of white lead. The dangerous
processes are mixing the glaze, dipping ware into glaze, cleaning the
dipped ware to get rid of thfc excess of glaze and stacking it on
boards or trays to be fired, and decorating it by the processes known
as color blowing, or tinting, and ground laying.
Mixing is done by unskilled laborers under the direction of a
skilled foreman. The mixed glaze is poured into tubs for the dip1 U. S. B u reau o f L abor S ta tistic s, B u i. N o. 1 04 : Lead poison ing in potteries, tile w orks,
and porcelain enam eled sa n ita ry w are factories, by A lice H a m ilto n , M . D ., p. 6.




36

B U L L E T IN OF T H E B U R E A U OF LABOR ST A T IST IC S.

per, who is a highly skilled workman. He immerses the ware in the
glaze, brings it out in such a way that the coat of glaze is evenly
distributed all over the surface, and puts it on a board or tray to
dry. This work is not done by women in the United States except
sometimes in art-ware potteries when the vase is both dipped and
brushed with glaze. The dippers’ helpers, however, are women, ex­
cept in sanitary-ware potteries, where the large and heavy ware
could not be lifted by women. The women do what is called finish­
ing, that is, they remove the excess of glaze either by sponging or by
rubbing it with a dry, rough fabric, or by scraping with a knife, and
blowing or brushing away the dust. These women also stack the
ware on boards for the glost-kiln men, they clean the boards on which
the dipped ware is carried, sometimes by sponging, but sometimes
by pounding against the floor or wall to shake the dust off, and they
sweep up the glaze room. The rate of lead poisoning among these
women employed in the potteries in 1911 was just below 20 per cent,
while among the men dippers it was only 6.5 per cent. In the art
and utility ware potteries this difference between the two sexes did
not appear. The rate there was a little over 20 per cent for both
sexes. The workers in the latter industry are exposed to greater
dangers than those in white ware, because the glaze is richer in lead,
more decorating is done with lead colors, and a lower standard of
living, due to wages being decidedly lower than in the white-ware
potteries, makes them more susceptible.
The glazing of tiles is sometimes fairly safe work, sometimes very
bad. For white tiles the glaze may contain as little as 5 per cent of
lead, and it may be applied by machinery. But colored glazes may
contain 50 or even 60 per cent of lead, and dipping is done by hand.
“ Fettling,” that is, scraping off the excess of glaze, is more dangerous than the actual glazing of the tiles because it is dustier. In
all English tile works and in many German ones it is the rule to
scrape the excess glaze w-hile it is damp and let it fall into a pan of
Avater. In all the tile works visited in this country much of the
fettling, if not all, is done after the glaze is dry, and the glaze dust
is allowed to fall anywhere.
Color blowing, or “ tinting,” has given way largely to decalcotnania— decoration by means of lithotransfer paper. Though the
making of lithotransfers is dangerous w^ork, their application to pot­
tery ware is perfectly safe. In tinting, the colors are applied in the
form of a spray driven through ail atomizer by compressed air.
The ware is held under a hood, and an exhaust is supposed to carry
off all the spray that does not fall on the surface of the wTare. Ground
laying consists in dusting dry colors on a prepared surface by means
of pads of cotton. Both kinds of work involve a good deal of* risk
unless great precautions are taken.




W OM EN IN

T H E LEAD IN D U S T R IE S .

37

A visit to an English pottery or tile works will convince anyone
that it is possible so to construct dipping rooms as to allow of
thorough flushing down, and to carry on dipping in such a way that
the room is kept clean, and finishing in such a way that the women
who scrape the glaze from ware and tiles run very little risk of lead
poisoning. In English potteries in 1910 the rate of plumbism was
0.8 per cent for men and 1.5 per cent for women, while in 68 Ameri­
can potteries and tile works in 1911 the rate was 8 per cent for men
and 14 per cent for women— almost exactly ten times as much. The
difference between the two countries at that time was very striking,
but conditions in American potteries have improved since then and
the contrast is not so great now.1

MANUFACTURE OF PORCELAIN ENAMELED SANITARY WARE.
This is a very dangerous lead trade, in which women have never
been employed and probably never will be, for the work requires
a good deal of physical strength. The processes involving exposure
to lead are grinding the enamel, which contains varying proportions
of soluble lead, and sifting it thickly over red-hot ironware, in the
course of which great clouds of dust are given off. The work is
done on piecework basis; the firing of the ware is heavy work and
very hot, both the heat and the great exertion increasing the sus­
ceptibility of the enamelers to lead poisoning. The rate of poisoning
among 1,012 men employed during 1911 was 21.4 per cent, but 148
men who were examined carefully showed a rate of 36 per cent.

COMPOUNDING OF RUBBER.
The compounding of rubber is the only process in the rubber in­
dustry that involves exposure to lead. Litharge (lead oxide), lead
sulphate (commonly called sublimed lead), and in rare instances white
lead are sifted or bolted, weighed, and mixed in mixing mills with
the crude rubber. The risk here is from lead dust, and it can be
minimized by careful handling, scrupulous cleanliness of the prem­
ises, and the use of exhausts at the scales and mixing mills. This
work has never yet been done by women and it is not advisable that
they should be employed in it.
PREVENTION OF LEAD POISONING.

It is not hard to remember the rules for protecting workers against
lead poisoning, if one bears in mind the fact that lead enters the
human body chiefly through the mouth, either in the form of dust and
fumes or smeared on the surface of food and tobacco. A ll the rules
formulated for the lead trades by sanitary experts are based .on the
prevention of lead dust and fumes and the necessity for bodily clean­
1
Ohio S tate B oard o f H ealth .
A survey o f in d u stria l health hazards and occupation al
diseases in Ohio, by E. R. H a y h u rst. C olum bus, 1 9 1 5 , pp. 2 2 9 - 2 5 6 .




38

B U L L E T IN OF T H E B U R E A U OF LABOR ST A T IST IC S.

liness on the part of the workers. Briefly stated, the following rules
should be enforced in every lead industry where women are to be
employed:
Scrupulous cleanliness of floors, walls, workbenches, window sills,
tops of pipes, and all other surfaces where dust might collect. Clean­
ing should be done wherever possible with water or oil. Dry clean­
ing should be forbidden during working hours.
Ventilation should be more ample than that required for work that
is free from lead.
A ll dusty work should be carried on under cover, or with an ex­
haust so placed as to catch the dust at its point of origin.
A ll receptacles for molten lead should be hooded, and the hood con­
nected with an air exhaust; dross skimmings should be thrown into
a receptacle.
Lead scrap and trimmings should be caught in receptacles, not
allowed to fly over the floor.
No dry rubbing of lead paint and no scraping or brushing of dry
lead glaze should be allowed.
A full suit of working clothes of washable material should, be
worn by every woman engaged in leadwork. This suit should be
laundered at least once a week. I f there is any exposure to lead dust
a washable cap should be worn and laundered at least once a week.
So far as the work permits, gloves, preferably washable, should be
worn and should be washed at frequent intervals.
No food should be taken into a workroom; no worker should eat
lunch without first washing her hands thoroughly with soap and hot
water and the use of a nailbrush. Women should be advised to rinse
the mouth or brush the teeth before eating lunch.
A physician should be employed to supervise the woman lead em­
ployees. He.should examine on employment, or shortly after em­
ployment, every woman who is to engage in leadwork, and should
reject those who are anemic or show evidence of disease of lungs,
heart, or kidneys, or who are pregnant. It is advisable to reject also
women suffering from obstinate constipation, women with very
defective teeth, and married women who are in the childbearing
period. The physician should reexamine women engaged in lead­
work at frequent intervals. It is better to make a cursory examina­
tion once a week than a more thorough one once in two months.
In deciding as to the length of the workday for woman lead workers
it must be remembered that the longer the hours the greater the dose
of lead absorbed, and the shorter the period for elimination of the
dose before the next workday. It must also be remembered that
fatigue increases susceptibility to lead poisoning, and so does a heated
or humid atmosphere.