ID#: 9703
Caption:
Worker in a Connecticut hat making plant shrinks and shapes hat felt into the appropriate size for a hat. He does this by dipping the felt in hot water and kneading it on the rotating rollers of the apparatus pictured. Note the steam pervading the atmosphere, lit up by the photographer’s flash. This steam would contain mercury vapor, from carroted fur felt dipped in the kettles of hot water. The plant was part of the 1937-1938 PHS industrial hygiene and engineering study of mercury exposure and its health effects in the hatmaking industry, which was published as USPHS Public Health Bulletin No. 263, Mercurialism and its Control in the Felt-Hat Industry, 1941.
High Resolution: Click here for hi-resolution image (4.49 MB)
Content Provider(s): CDC/ Barbara Jenkins, NIOSH; USPHS
Creation Date: 1937
Photo Credit: U.S. Public Health Service
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Anthropology, Education, Sociology and Social Phenomena
Biological Sciences
Chemicals and Drugs
Diseases
Geographic Locations
Health Care
Technology and Food and Beverages
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