Wikipedia:Meetup/Virtual/Secret Origins of NIOSH

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A 1941 video about the Division of Industrial Hygiene. Click to play an excerpt.

The Secret Origins of NIOSH Edit-a-thon

part of Virtual WikiConference North America 2020

Next year, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) celebrates the 50th anniversary of its official creation in 1971. However, NIOSH's direct predecessor, the Division of Industrial Hygiene, has a little-known history that stretches all the way back to 1914, as it zig-zagged its way through the growth and maturation of the U.S. Public Health Service.

This edit-a-thon will include a presentation on the history of the Division of Industrial Hygiene. Suggested articles focus on biographies and historic buildings related to worker and public health in the early to mid-20th century.

when

Sunday, December 13, 2020, 1–4 PM

how

WikiConference North America is virtual this year, so anyone anywhere in the world can participate! Links will be posted soon.

Agenda

Register for the conference at https://register.wcna.wiki to get the Zoom link. Registration is free.

• Presentations (on Zoom)
  • 12–1: Optional Wikipedia 101 training for newcomers
  • 1–1:30: The Secret Origins of NIOSH talk: the history of the Division of Industrial Hygiene and its transformation into NIOSH
• 1:30–4: Editing (on wonder.me)

Historical overview

NIH campus in Bethesda, Maryland in 1949, with the Industrial Hygiene Laboratory at front right

NIOSH's main laboratories at 1014 Broadway in Downtown Cincinnati in 1974.

Robert A. Taft Laboratory in Columbia-Tusculum, Cincinnati in 1976, the year NIOSH occupied it

The U.S. Public Health Service Office of Industrial Hygiene and Sanitation was founded in 1914 at the Pittsburgh Marine Hospital. In 1918, it moved to Washington, D.C.

In 1937, it became part of the National Institute of Health (which was still singular at that time) and was renamed the Division of Industrial Hygiene.  Two years later, it moved into the Industrial Hygiene Laboratory, one of the first three buildings of NIH’s Bethesda campus.

In 1950, the Division of Industrial Hygiene's main functions moved to Cincinnati, occupying 1014 Broadway, a converted warehouse in downtown. PHS’s other environmental health programs had existed in Cincinnati since 1912. In 1953 it was renamed the Occupational Health Program, and in 1960, the Division of Occupational Health. As part of a major PHS-wide reorganization in 1968, it became the Bureau of Occupational Safety and Health within the new Environmental Control Administration, a predecessor of the Environmental Protection Agency.

In 1971, the Bureau became the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health as a result of the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970. In 1973, NIOSH was absorbed by the Center for Disease Control. NIOSH relocated in 1976 to the Robert A. Taft Laboratory, which the former PHS environmental health divisions had vacated for the newly constructed Andrew W. Breidenbach Center.

Resources

• Google Books and Internet Archive will find historical sources that are often missed on a web search. Within documents, search for "industrial hygiene" prior to 1953 and "occupational health" afterwards.
• Category:Division of Industrial Hygiene on Commons
• Search Cincinnati Enquirer articles on Newspapers.com
• General sources
  • The federal industrial hygiene agency: a history of the Division of Occupational Health by Henry N. Doyle
  • The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, 1971–1996: A Brief History by Lynne Page Snyder (Despite the title, it also covers the period back to 1914.)
  • Industrial Hygiene in the U.S. Public Health Service (1914–1968) by Lewis J. Cralley
  • Response to occupational health hazards: a historical perspective by Jacqueline K. Corn (focuses on history of occupational health more generally)
• Period-specific sources
  • The Public Health Service's Office of Industrial Hygiene and the transformation of industrial medicine by Christopher Sellers (focuses on 1910s and 1920s)
  • 70 Acres of Science: The NIH moves to Bethesda (focuses on 1930s and 1940s)
  • Category:Industrial Hygiene Newsletter (the Division's official newsletter in the 1940s and early 1950s)
  • A series of articles for the Division's 50th anniversary in 1964
• Draft:Division of Industrial Hygiene (mostly an outline with additional references)

Articles to work on

A 1942 poster from the Division of Industrial Hygiene

People

• Joseph W. Schereschewsky—first chief, 1914–1918; later moved to Harvard and did research instrumental to the founding of the National Cancer Institute (Photo)
• Anthony J. Lanza—chief, 1918–1920; known for his later work in the Army Medical Corps during WWII [1]
• Lewis Ryers Thompson—chief, 1921–1930; later became director of the National Institute of Health and then the Bureau of State Services (article exists, but lacks mention of his time as Office of Industrial Hygiene chief)
• Royd Ray Sayers—director, 1932–1940; later became director of the U.S. Bureau of Mines [2]
• J. G. Townsend—director, 1941–1951 [3] (featured in video above at 6:25)
• Seward E. Miller—director, 1951–1954, later director of Division of Special Health Services, then University of Michigan faculty [4]
• Harold J. Magnuson—director, 1956–1962, then University of Michigan faculty [5]
• Victoria Trasko—pioneer in state-based occupational health surveillance [6] Wikidata item Q104164809
• Olive M. Whitlock—first occupational nurse employed by the federal government [7] [8] [9]
• Tula Brocard—chief information officer for the Division of Occupational Health, later moved to NIH [10] Wikidata item Q104163611
• Anthony Robbins—NIOSH director, 1978–1981 (article is a stub)
• Lewis J. Cralley on the editorial board of Industrial Hygiene newsletter Wikidata item Q104164724

Buildings

• Butler Building—large Washington, D.C. mansion that served as headquarters of the Public Health Service from 1891 until 1929; it was demolished to construct the Longworth House Office Building. [11] (Photo)
• Industrial Hygiene Laboratory—One of the first three NIH buildings in Bethesda, and the first laboratory built solely for the study of industrial hygiene in the nation [12] (Commons)
• Check List of U.S. Public Health Service Hospitals and start or improve an article about the hospital in your favorite city [13] [14] [15]
  • Pittsburgh Marine Hospital—birthplace of industrial hygiene in the PHS, now Allegheny County Health Department headquarters [16] (Photo)
  • Cincinnati Marine Hospital—two unrelated hospitals: the first was seized by the military, the second was the converted Kilgour Mansion (currently a disambiguation page; linked articles have more information)
  • Boston Public Health Service Hospital—One of the last eight hospitals in the system when it ended in 1981; occupied six sites, the last is still in use as a private hospital [17] [18] (Photos)
  • New Orleans Public Health Service Hospital—Another of the last eight hospitals; occupied three sites, the second of which was abandoned before completion because it sank into the swamp [19] [20] (Photos)
  • Baltimore Public Health Service Hospital—Another of the last eight hospitals; recently saved from demolition to be renovated for Johns Hopkins offices [21] (Photos)
  • Norfolk Public Health Service Hospital—Another of the last eight hospitals; now U.S. Navy Lafeyette River Annex [22] [23]
• Robert A. Taft Laboratory—currently NIOSH's primary research facility, formerly home to the PHS environmental health divisions, expected to be vacated by NIOSH in the next decade [24]
• Alice Hamilton Laboratory—originally known as "5555 Ridge Avenue", secondary facility for occupational and environmental health divisions in Cincinnati, named for Alice Hamilton [25] [26] [27]
• Bruceton Research Center—Previously the main U.S. Bureau of Mines research facility, founded in 1910; now shared between NIOSH and the National Energy Technology Laboratory [28] [29]
  • Mine Roof Simulator—listed on the National Register, #100001251
  • Experimental Mine, U.S. Bureau of Mines—also listed on the Register (article exists, but mostly covers the research center as a whole rather than the historic mine itself)

Miscellaneous

• Bureau of Labor Standards - should be represented as a predecessor of Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Sources include Clara Mortenson Beyer;' Goldberg and Moye, 1985; [30] [31]

Other tasks

• Find and upload publications to commons:Category:Division of Industrial Hygiene (and create corresponding Wikidata items)
• Disambiguate authors of Division of Industrial Hygiene publications on Wikidata (query 1, query 2).

Articles closely related to NIOSH that might pose a conflict of interest should not be directly edited by NIOSH staff. This includes edits to articles about yourself, your employer, and others with which you have a relationship.

Outcomes

Congratulations! Your work will help others to learn about occupational safety and health topics! See this event's dashboard. Outcomes will be listed below.

Created

• Butler Building
• Bureau of Labor Standards
• Olive Whitlock Klump
• Wikidata items on 6 people, 1 publication, and 1 organization

Improved

• Experimental Mine, U.S. Bureau of Mines
• National Energy Technology Laboratory
• 1 file description page on Commons
• Wikidata items on 7 publications