Spray Painting Hazards and Air Line Respirator
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Historic video collection of Mark Catlin
Videos
- A Little Song About Noise
- Carelessness Causes Accidents We all Know That
- Blaming the Victims of Workplace Accidents
- Trench Collapse Hazard
- Construction Workers Recall Working Around Asbestos
- Asbestos in building construction
- Dr. Irving Selikoff Pioneering Asbestos Disease Researcher
- Uses of Asbestos: Examples from the 50s and 60s
- Testing an Asbestos Suit
- Canary used for testing for carbon monoxide
- Carbon Monoxide Death in an Underground Copper Mine
- Lead Exposure at the Bunker Hill Mine and Smelter
- Lead Palsy Wrist Drop
- Mold Problems after Flooding
- Radioactive Contaminated Turtles
- Decontamination after an Atomic Blast
- Radiological Site Cleanup Health and Safety Preservation Aviation Cleanup
- The Campaign to End Silicosis
- Silicosis Described
- Fire Safety in a Paint Shop
- Painting Health Hazards and Their Control
- Proper Posture
- Hand Arm Vibration Hazard Alice Hamilton
- Vibration Hazards and Control
- Man and Sound 1965 DOD
- Boilermaker's Ear
- Trench Collapse Hazard
- Application of Built Up Asbestos Roofing
- Canary used for testing for carbon monoxide
- Lead Properties and Uses
- Preventing Lead Poisoning in Bridge Construction Workers
- Childhood Lead Hazard Pioneer Researcher Herbert Needleman, MD
- Spray Painting Hazards and Air Line Respirator
Summary Statement
A conflict between industrialization and worker health developed in the painting industry during the early 1900s with the introduction of the spray machine. This technological innovation allowed the application of paint at greater speed and lower cost than hand painting and increased the rate at which painters were exposed to lead and other toxins contained in paint. By the mid-1920s, the spray machine was being used by painters for a wide variety of work. Although workers had expressed growing concern over the safety of the spray gun since World War I, painters and union leaders began to formally organize opposition to the device in 1924. At the core of their resistance was the belief that the spray machine was indeed hazardous to the health of workers. The first official recognition of the hazard of spray painting came in 1924, when the Wisconsin Industrial Commission investigated the spray machine and established guidelines for the regulation of its use within the state. The commission recommended a variety of regulations setting restrictions on the type of spray equipment that could be used, established mandatory use of ventilation and safety devices, and outlined limits on the number of hours per day painters could use the machines.
1930
