The first mass-produced asbestos products in the United States were gas fireplaces, eventually joined by protective suits for firefighters and materials for roofing, felting, and boiler insulation. Asbestos became the standard material for applications as diverse as brake pad linings and insulation for electrical wiring. In the case of brake pad linings, asbestos was the only reliable material until well into the 1940s, and remains one of the few permitted uses in the United States today. Scientific American wrote in 1919 that ‘new uses of this material are being found almost daily’.
Production kept pace: prices fell from $128 per ton to $30 per ton in the United States from 1890–1904 following the discovery of commercially viable deposits in Canada and improved methods of refinement and transport. It was rapidly becoming price competitive in construction in the form of roofing tiles and in products where it could be blended with cheaper material, as in asbestos stucco and asbestos-cement shingles. One particularly clever product was asbestos paint, which made wooden structures flame-retardant. Patented in 1878, it was already on federal buildings, including the US Capitol, by 1879.
Asbestos became more important than ever in World War II. It was classified as a critical material by the US War Production Board, and its scope expanded from its traditional roles of fireproofing, friction reduction, and insulation to substituting other materials that were even more desperately needed elsewhere. It became the material of choice for aircraft hangars and ordnance stores, military prefabs, ductwork, and even common gutters and downspouts. Soon, conservation orders were issued limiting its use and privileging defense applications.
The Navy was at the forefront of asbestos use. Shipboard fires engulfed vessels that had limited means of fire suppression. Newer classes of ships such as the Essex featured asbestos curtains and fire doors, and no ships were lost to fire after 1942. In later years, as many as a third of all asbestos-related cancer cases in the US would be linked to US Navy ships or shipyards.
The postwar era combined a heightened awareness of the risk of fire with a massive wave of new construction. Asbestos was cheap enough to use in every building. America produced and imported asbestos at a fantastic rate. Asbestos consumption tripled between 1940 and 1950, increasing from 240,000 metric tons to 400,000 metric tons from 1940–1941 alone. At one point, as many as 4,000 products contained asbestos, including toothpaste. Things would soon change.
As early as 1898, factory inspectors noted the effects of asbestos on workers who breathed in its fibers, with one going so far as to call it ‘the evil dust’ (safety reports were a lot more colorful then). A 1918 report to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, ‘Mortality from Respiratory Diseases in Dusty Trades’, explained that ‘in the practice of American and Canadian life insurance companies asbestos workers are generally declined on account of the assumed health-injurious conditions of the industry’.