" Cater to the children": the role of the lead industry in a public health

January 2000, Vol. 90, No. 136 American Journal of Public Health

Public Health Then and Now

A major source of childhood leadpoisoning, still a serious problem in theUnited States, is paint. The dangers oflead were known even in the 19th cen-tury, and the particular dangers to chil-dren were documented in the English-language literature as early as 1904.During the first decades of the 20th cen-tury, many other countries banned orrestricted the use of lead paint for interiorpainting. Despite this knowledge, thelead industry in the United States didnothing to discourage the use of leadpaint on interior walls and woodwork. Infact, beginning in the 1920s, the LeadIndustries Association and its membersconducted an intensive campaign to pro-mote the use of paint containing whitelead, even targeting children in theiradvertising. It was not until the 1950s thatthe industry, under increasing pressure,adopted a voluntary standard limiting theamount of lead in interior paints. (Am JPublic Health. 2000;90:36–46)

A B S T R A C T Gerald Markowitz, PhD, and David Rosner, PhD, MSPH

“Cater to the Children”: The Role of The Lead Industry in a Public Health Tragedy, 1900–1955

According to the Centers for DiseaseControl and Prevention, it is estimated that 1of every 20 children in the United States suf-fers from subclinical lead poisoning,1 and arecent article in Science argues that “paintappears to be the major source of childhoodlead poisoning in the United States.”2 Yet it isonly during the past 15 years that the history ofthis tragic situation has been addressed in anydetail,3–7 primarily through the documentationof childhood lead poisoning in the publichealth and medical literature of the first half ofthe 20th century. Here we analyze the role andinfluence of the lead industry in shaping popu-lar and professional opinion about lead andlead paint products. Specifically, we discusshow the Lead Industries Association (LIA, thetrade group representing lead pigment manu-facturers) and its member companies sought toassuage growing public and professional con-cerns about the dangers to children of lead-based paint. Often employing the image ofchildren themselves, the LIA and its membersengaged in aggressive marketing and advertis-ing campaigns to persuade the public of theirproduct’s appropriateness for indoor use.

While some readers of the Journal mightput the onus on the public health communityfor not doing more to stop the use of lead-based paint in homes, schools, hospitals, andother interior spaces where children wereexposed, we argue that primary responsibilitylies elsewhere. The continuing use of leadpaint into and after the 1950s cannot be under-stood without an appreciation of the enormousresources the lead industry devoted to allayingpublic health concerns from the 1920s throughthe early 1950s. Whatever responsibility thepublic health community had for this tragedypales in comparison with the power and deter-mination of the industry in perpetuating theuse of lead-based paint. The lead industry, as asponsor of research and as a clearinghouse ofinformation about lead, was positioned to be inthe forefront of efforts to prevent lead expo-sure in children. Instead, the industry placed its

own economic interests ahead of the welfareof the nation’s children.

Medical Knowledge of the Dangersof Lead-Based Paint

Historians have shown that knowledge ofthe dangers of lead poisoning to workers andchildren can be traced back into the 19th cen-tury8,9 and that in the first third of the 20th cen-tury a broad scientific literature on the subjectaccumulated in Australia, England, and theUnited States. Alice Hamilton and others doc-umented lead hazards among American work-ers in the pigment manufacturing, battery,painting, plumbing, ceramics, pottery, andother industries.10,11 In 1921 the president ofthe National Lead Company, Edward J. Cor-nish, wrote to David Edsall, the dean of Har-vard Medical School, saying that lead manu-facturers, as a result of “fifty to sixty years”experience, agreed that “lead is a poison whenit enters the stomach of man—whether itcomes directly from the ores and mines andsmelting works” or from the ordinary forms ofcarbonate of lead, lead oxides, and sulfate andsulfide of lead.12

At the same time, others began to sys-tematically document the dangers of lead tochildren. In 1904, J. Lockhart Gibson, anAustralian, was among the first English-lan-guage authors to directly link lead-based

Gerald Markowitz is with the Department of His-tory, John Jay College and Graduate Center, CityUniversity of New York, New York, NY. David Ros-ner is with the Program in the History of PublicHealth and Medicine, Joseph L. Mailman School ofPublic Health, Columbia University, New York, NY.

Requests for reprints should be sent to DavidRosner, PhD, Program in the History of PublicHealth and Medicine, Joseph L. Mailman School ofPublic Health, Columbia University, 100 Haven Ave,Suite 17H, New York, NY 10032 (e-mail: [email protected])

paint to childhood lead poisoning, specifi-cally noting the dangers to children frompainted walls and verandas of houses.13 Ayear later, he urged, “[T]he use of lead paintwithin the reach of children should be pro-hibited by law.”14(p753) In 1908 another Aus-tralian, Jefferis Turner, delivered a presi-dential address to the Section of Diseasesof Children of the Australasian MedicalCongress in which he noted that lead poi-soning was due to paint powder that stuckto children’s fingers, which they then bit orsucked.15 In 1914, Americans Henry Thomasand Kenneth Blackfan, the latter a physicianat Johns Hopkins Department of Pediatrics inBaltimore, detailed the case of a boy fromBaltimore who died of lead poisoning afteringesting white lead paint from the railing ofhis crib.16 In 1917, Blackfan reviewed theEnglish-language literature on lead poisoningin children, noting specifically cases of chil-dren who chewed the white paint from theircribs.17 By the mid-1920s, there was strongand ample evidence of the toxicity of leadpaint to children, to painters, and to otherswho worked with lead as studies detailed theharm caused by lead dust, the dangers ofcumulative doses of lead, the special vulnera-bility of children, and the harm lead caused tothe nervous system in particular.18

Outside the United States, the dangersrepresented by lead paint manufacturing andapplication led to many countries’ enactingbans or restrictions on the use of white lead forinterior paint: France, Belgium, and Austria in1909; Tunisia and Greece in 1922; Czechoslo-vakia in 1924; Great Britain, Sweden, and Bel-gium in 1926; Poland in 1927; Spain andYugoslavia in 1931; and Cuba in 1934.19 In1922, the Third International Labor Confer-ence of the League of Nations recommendedthe banning of white lead for interior use.20 Inthe United States and Canada, there were callsfor the use of non–lead-based paints in interi-ors. As early as 1913, Alice Hamilton wrotethat “the total prohibition for lead paint for usein interior work would do more than anythingelse to improve conditions in the paintingtrade.”21 By the early 1930s, a consensusdeveloped among specialists that lead paintposed a hazard to children.22–27 Robert Kehoe,medical director for the Ethyl Gasoline Corpo-ration and director of the Kettering Laborato-ries of the University of Cincinnati, perhapsthe nation’s leading expert on lead poisoning,concluded that “strenuous efforts must bedevoted to eliminating lead from [children’s]environment,”28 especially since safer alterna-tives to lead, specifically titanium- and zinc-based paints, existed throughout the late 19thand early 20th centuries. In 1914, the directorof the scientific section of the Paint Manufac-turers’ Association noted with approval the

development of “sanitary leadless” paints andpredicted that “lead poisoning will be doneaway with almost entirely.”29

Despite the accumulating evidence oflead paint’s dangers to young children, theindustry did nothing to discourage the use oflead paint on walls and woodwork or to warnthe general public or public health authoritiesof the dangers inherent in the product. In fact,it did the opposite: it engaged in an energeticpromotion of lead paint for both exterior andinterior uses from the 1920s through the Sec-ond World War. For a portion of that period,

white lead in paint was “the most importantoutlet for pig lead metal,”30 according to theLIA, which was organized in 1928 to promotethe use of lead.31 A can of pure white leadpaint was composed of huge amounts of lead,creating a large market for mining companiesand pigment manufacturers.32

Within 6 months of the LIA’s founding,its secretary, Felix Wormser, noted, “Of latethe lead industries have been receiving muchundesirable publicity regarding lead poison-ing.”33 A year later, the United States Daily,a newspaper “Presenting the Official News

American Journal of Public Health 37January 2000, Vol. 90, No. 1


Source. Dutch Boy Painter (January/February 1918): advertising section.

FIGURE 1—“Cater to the Children.” From 1907, when the Dutch Boy logo wasadopted by the National Lead Company, children were a centralelement in the company’s advertising campaigns.

of the Legislative, Executive and JudicialBranches of the Federal Government,” ran afront-page story on lead poisoning and chil-dren: “Lead poisoning as a result of chewingpaint from toys, cradles and woodwork is nowregarded as a more frequent occurrenceamong children than formerly.”34

The reaction of the lead industry to grow-ing negative publicity was to assure the publicas well as the public health community thatsuch fears were unfounded and that there wasno reason to suspect that toys were being

painted with lead pigments. In 1933, CharlesF. McKahnn and Edward C. Vogt, pediatri-cians at Harvard Medical School and Boston’sInfants’and Children’s Hospitals, published anarticle in the Journal of the American MedicalAssociation in which they mentioned a per-sonal communication from Felix Wormser thatled them to believe that “the lead industry andthe manufacturers of cribs and toys . . . havecooperated by substituting other types of pigments for the lead pigments formerlyused.”35(p1131) Two years later, a major toy com-

pany acknowledged that it had been assuredthat its toys were safe but had found that thetoys had been painted with lead. On investiga-tion, the company found that the paint manufac-turers were “willing to sign an agreement thatthe paint furnished would be non-poisonous,but only a few agreed that they would furnishmaterials that were entirely free of lead.”36

Another company responded to an inquiryfrom the Children’s Bureau by informing thebureau that “we found that lead in the form ofLead Chromate was being used extensively incolored finishes [of toys].”37

Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, con-tinuing reports of poisoned children andworkers caused heightened concern amongthe lead pigment manufacturers, despite theLIA’s assurances to the public health commu-nity. At the annual meeting of LIA membersin June 1935, Wormser noted, “Hardly a daygoes by but what this subject receives someattention at the headquarters of the Associa-tion.” The threat of negative publicity aboutthe health problems associated with lead wasso serious that Wormser told the members,“[I]f all other reasons for the establishment ofa cooperative organization in the lead indus-tries were to disappear, the health problemalone would be sufficient warrant for itsestablishment.”38,39 The LIA responded to theundesirable publicity by seeking to rebutresearch findings and other news of lead’stoxicity, whether to children or adults.

Sometimes even major corporations wereintimidated. In the early 1930s, the Metropoli-tan Life Insurance Company had reported onthe potential hazards to children from lead, andshortly thereafter Louis Dublin, the respectedstatistician at the Metropolitan, wrote to theUS Children’s Bureau requesting that becauseof the “strong remonstrance by the LeadIndustries Association” about the publicityresulting from the earlier article, the Bureaurefrain from mentioning “[t]he Metropolitan,either directly or by inference, in connectionwith whatever releases you may make.” TheMetropolitan official explained that “you willreadily understand that we wish to avoid anycontroversy with the lead people.”40

In 1939, the National Paint, Varnish andLacquer Association (NPVLA), a trade grouprepresenting pigment and paint manufacturers,among others, privately acknowledged its“responsibility to the public and the protectionof the industry itself with respect to the use oftoxic materials in the industry’s products.”41 Ina letter marked “CONFIDENTIAL Not forPublication,” the association informed itsmembers that “the vital factor concerningtoxic materials is to intelligently safeguard thepublic.” The letter said that manufacturersshould apply “every precautionary measure inmanufacturing, in selling and in use where



Source. Dutch Boy Painter (August 1920): 126.

FIGURE 2—“Painting the House That Jack Built.”The Dutch boy, carrying abucket of white lead, reminds retailers to court customers throughtheir children by offering children’s “paint books.”

toxic materials are likely to or do enter a prod-uct” and noted that “children’s toys, equip-ment, furniture, etc. are not the only considera-tion.” It warned NPVLA members that toxicmaterials “may enter the body through thelungs . . . through the skin, or through themouth or stomach.” The letter specificallypointed out that lead compounds such as whitelead, red lead, litharge, and lead chromate“may be considered as toxic if they find theirway into the stomach.”

The NPVLA reproduced for its membersa set of legal principles established by theManufacturing Chemists’ Association regard-ing the labeling of dangerous products. Thefirst principle was “A manufacturer who putsout a dangerous article or substance withoutaccompanying it with a warning as to its dan-gerous properties is ordinarily liable for anydamage which results from such failure towarn.” Even when a product was widelyunderstood to be dangerous, the Manufactur-ing Chemists’ Association suggested thatwarnings be included. Further, the legal princi-ples stated, “The manufacturer must know thequalities of his product and cannot escape lia-bility on the ground that he did not know it tobe dangerous.” The NPVLA letter concludedby calling on NPVLA members to make a“sincere effort in taking advantage of everypossible precaution in the use of toxic materi-als in manufacturing, selling and in use.”42

Do Not Forget the Children

The lead pigment manufacturers did notact on the NPVLA’s advice. Rather, theyactively sought to promote the use of lead ingeneral and the safety of lead for interior usesin particular. Sherwin-Williams’ logo was acan of paint poured over the entire globe,with the slogan “Covers the Earth.” TheDutch Boy logo of National Lead Companypaints was a familiar symbol in the first halfof the 20th century and was an essential partof the company’s marketing strategy forwhite lead. In addition to appealing to masterpainters, homeowners, wives, and mothers,National Lead sought to influence genera-tions of owners by marketing directly to chil-dren. In fact, children were a prime target ofthe company’s advertising campaign fromearly on, even before the LIA was founded.In a promotion to paint distributors, the com-pany advised store owners, “Do Not Forgetthe Children.”43 In the 1920s, National Leadproduced “A Paint Book for Girls and Boys”titled The Dutch Boy’s Lead Party. Its covershowed the Dutch Boy, bucket and brush inhand, looking at lead soldiers, light bulbs,shoe soles, and other members of the “leadfamily.”44 The Dutch Boy also promoted the

use of lead paint in schoolrooms, suggest-ing that summer was the best time to “getafter the school trustees to have each roomrepainted” with “flat paint made of DutchBoy white-lead and flatting oil.”45

By the late 1920s and into the Depression,as information about lead paint’s danger tochildren continued to accumulate—and afterthe LIA had acknowledged the inappropriate-ness of using lead paint on children’s toys andfurniture—the National Lead Company usedthe Dutch Boy to promote the use of lead inchildren’s rooms. In one of its several paint

books for children, National Lead suggestedthat its paint “conquers Old Man Gloom”:

The girl and boy felt very blueTheir toys were old and shabby too,They couldn’t play in such a place,The room was really a disgrace.• • • • • • • • • • • •This famous Dutch Boy Lead of mineCan make this playroom fairly shineLet’s start our painting right awayYou’ll find the work is only play.

The booklet shows the Dutch Boy mixingwhite lead with colors and painting walls andfurniture.46



Source. Dutch Boy Painter (January/February 1929): 20.

FIGURE 3—“Dutch Boy Conquers Old Man Gloom.”The advertised bookletshows how paint can be used on toys and in children’s rooms to liftchildren’s moods.

To emphasize the benign qualities oflead paint, a National Lead Company’sadvertisement depicted a child in a bathtubscrubbing himself with a brush. His DutchBoy cap, clothes, and shoes were slungon a chair, and a can of Dutch Boy All-Purpose Soft Paste and paintbrush saton the floor next to him. The captionread, “Takes a Scrubbing with a Smile.”47

Another promotion showed a crawlinginfant touching a painted wall. The cap-tion proclaimed, “There is no cause for

worry when fingerprint smudges or dirtspots appear on a wall painted with DutchBoy white-lead.”48 The explicit messagewas that it was easy to clean the wall; theimplicit message was that it was safe fortoddlers to touch woodwork and walls cov-ered with lead paint. The theme of childrenpainting appeared in numerous advertise-ments and articles.49,50(p77)

Even in 1949, National Lead remainedparticularly proud of its marketing campaigndirected at children.

Thousands of homes and offices still havesouvenir figures [of the Dutch Boy Painter]in the form of paper weights, statuettes, etc.The appeal was particularly strong to chil-dren and the company has never overlookedthe opportunity to plant the trademark imagein young and receptive minds. One of the mostsuccessful promotions for many years was achild’s paint book containing paper chips ofpaint from which the pictures (including, ofcourse, several Dutch Boys) could be colored. . . . The company still will loan a Dutch Boycostume—cap, wig, shirt, overalls and woodenshoes—to any person who writes in and asksfor it for any reasonable purpose, and the littlepainter has graced thousands of parades andmasquerades.51

This marketing of the Dutch Boy image wasseen as an essential element of National LeadCompany’s increasing profitability; the com-pany’s sales rose from $80 million in 1939 tomore than $320 million in 1948. The continu-ing use of the Dutch Boy image was under-stood by the broader marketing industry as aclever method of improving the image ofNational Lead. In 1949, one marketing journalnoted that “putting the boy, with his woodenkeg and brush, in the attitude of a housepainter, gave animation to the subject, tied himup with the product and suggested that thequality of the paint was so good that even achild could use it.”52

In addition to portraying children inits advertisements, the pigment industryemphasized lead paint’s “healthful” quali-ties. As early as 1923, National Lead adver-tisements in National Geographic Maga-zine promoted the idea that “lead helps toguard your health.”53 Throughout the 1920s,National Lead advertisements in The ModernHospital called the company’s tinted paint“the doctor’s assistant” because of its cheerfulcolor and the fact that it could be washed withsoap and water. The ads assured readers thatwalls covered with National Lead paint “donot chip, peel or scale.”54 In 1930 the ads sug-gested, “Every room in a modern hospitaldeserves a Dutch Boy quality painting job.”55

In the early 1930s the LIA produced abook, Useful Information About Lead, thatsuggested that the “prospective paint user”would be well advised to use paints contain-ing a high percentage of lead, “the higherthe better.” A section called “White Lead inPaint” stated that “well painted buildings,both inside and out, go hand in hand withimproved sanitation.” The book included nowarnings about the dangers of lead, despitethe fact that the book was produced “to dis-seminate accurate information regardinglead products and how they best may beused.” It included pictures of home andhotel interiors with captions such as “Whitelead paint is widely used for home interi-ors.”56 The theme of safety continued to be



Source. Dutch Boy Painter (August 1927): 117.

FIGURE 4—“Finger Prints.”This ad, one of several suggested to paint dealers,conveys to parents that white lead on interior walls is not only easyto clean but sanitary for young children.

used to promote lead paint through the earlywar years. In 1943 Eagle Picher advertise-ments in National Painters Magazine urgedprofessional painters to use “four argumentswith prospects—you’ll find they really sellpaint jobs.” The fourth argument was that“Eagle White Lead is just about the purest,safest, most fool-proof paint you or anybodyelse can use.”57

The White Lead PromotionCampaign

In addition to specific companies’ ads,in 1938 the lead industry as a whole, throughthe LIA, began its White Lead PromotionCampaign, the single largest activity under-taken by the LIA up until that date. The pur-pose of the campaign was to increase interestin white lead in paint because the LIA recog-nized that “white lead is also constantly sub-ject to attack from the health standpoint.”58

The LIA thought that there was a “moraleproblem” and that advertising would help “tooffset the stigma attached to lead because ofattacks made upon it by consumer organiza-tions.” The association believed the campaignwould “help to dispel fear or apprehensionabout its use.”59

Early in the promotion campaign, LIAsecretary Felix Wormser made it clear thatwhite lead was being promoted for use ininteriors.60 In a 1938 article, the LIA’s Leadmagazine produced an elaborate economicrationale for using lead paint in residentialhousing, specifically in low-cost construc-tion.61 The magazine continued to promotewhite lead for interiors of low-cost homes inits July 1939 issue. In an article on decoratingplywood structures, the magazine showedpictures of a recreation room and a kitchenpainted with white lead.62

Two representatives of the LIA, SeldonBrown and W.L. Frazee, traveled throughoutthe country visiting officials of public andprivate institutions in efforts to convincethem to use white lead. The LIA specificallytargeted markets in urban areas. In mid-October 1940 the LIA reported, “In thecourse of his work with government offi-cials in the neighborhoods of New YorkCity, our representative also conducted asurvey of painting practices of 36 real estatedevelopments. A separate report of this sur-vey has been sent to interested members.”63

Brown reported his success with the Brook-lyn Brewcourt Management Company:“Through a demonstration of the true costsof white lead as compared with mixed paintfor interiors, Mr. Kilman plans to use whitelead on several jobs and probably all futureworks.”64

In 1940 the campaign was expanded toinclude municipal, state, and county institu-tions. Brown specifically marketed whitelead paint for public schools, noting inreports to the association whether institutionshe visited used mixed paint or white lead onboth exterior and interior walls. The LIAclaimed that Brown made a total of 427 callsin his first 2 years on the job, of which 380were to state, county, and miscellaneous insti-tutions. Brown was particularly insistent onpushing white lead for interior use. When hevisited one superintendent of maintenancefor Seattle’s public school system, Brown ini-

tially met with resistance. The superinten-dent, he reported, was “completely sold onwhite lead for exteriors, but can’t see thevalue of white lead for interiors and [I] wasnot able to convince him. It was suggestedthat a demonstration of white lead and flatwall paint be [run] for this department by alead salesman.”65 Brown also reported on hisability to sell the virtues of white lead to thosewho knew little about it.66–69 In Flint, Mich,the superintendent of maintenance for theBoard of Education was “very interested inour description of the qualities of interiorwhite lead. [He] said that he thought that



Source. The Modern Hospital 38 (February 1932): 15.

FIGURE 5—“Sunshine Stimulates.”This ad shows the cheering effects of apainted hospital interior.

white lead was going out because he hasheard so little about it. [He knew] nothingabout white lead for interiors. [But he] plansto run comparative tests between white leadand present mixed paint used on interiors.”70,71

In addition to selling to schools, the LIAmarketed lead paint to cities, hotels, and evenhealth departments. Frazee reported that hehad visited Little Rock, Ark, where he con-vinced a local hotel manager to have “hisentire hotel, inside and out, done with leadand lead reducing oil.”72,73 In Pierce County,Washington, the LIA representative visited

the county health department, where he“explained properties of interior white leadpaint, stressing sanitary aspects of a highlydesirable and washable surface.”74

In addition, the White Lead PromotionCampaign comprised an advertising cam-paign, the placement of articles promotingthe use of white lead in trade and popularjournals, and mailings. In 1939, Dutch BoyPainter magazine announced a “big, new,cooperative advertising effort in behalf ofwhite-lead. . . . A series of large-size adver-tisements in such widely read magazines as

the Saturday Evening Post, Colliers, Ameri-can Home, Country Gentleman, and BetterHomes and Gardens will bring the white-lead story to the public in general and tohome-owners in particular.” The magazinecampaign would produce “67,570,526 sepa-rate messages that will be carried in the pub-lications named.”75,76

In 1940, the secretary of the LIA praisedthe campaign’s success in countering concernsabout lead’s effect on human health:

One beneficial result of our campaign is thegood will it is building up for lead in general. Ihave always felt that the cultivation of goodwill for our metal and publicity about theindispensable work it does for mankind issomething that lead needs more than othercommon metals because lead in many forms isconstantly under attack on account of its toxicqualities. Our campaign helps to meet thisissue.77

The LIA saw its promotional campaign as animportant antidote to the negative publicitythat lead was receiving in the national press:“[I]n the long run [the campaign] will share indispelling anxiety about [lead’s] use. In anyevent the problem remains serious for ourindustry. Hardly a day passes but what thisoffice has to devote some attention to lead poi-soning,” said Wormser in 1941.78

The Dangers of Lead PaintBecome National News

In December 1943 the issue of lead poi-soning from paint among children, alreadyfamiliar to those in the industry and tosome pediatricians and public health pro-fessionals, became national news. Timemagazine reported on an article by pediatri-cians Randolph Byers and Elizabeth Lord inthe American Journal of Diseases of Chil-dren. The Time article noted that parents’ lackof understanding of the dangers of lead-basedpaint led many to use this toxic material ontoys, cribs, and windowsills. When childrenchewed the painted surfaces, a variety ofphysical and nervous disorders resulted.“All but one child, Dr. Lord discovered, wereschool failures. Only five had normal I.Q.s,and four of the five were so erratic that theycould not learn easily.”79 The reaction of theLIA secretary was to deny the reliability ofByers and Lord’s data; he went so far as topay a personal visit to Byers in Boston. In apreliminary report on the Time piece, the LIAmaintained that the assumption regarding therelationship between lead poisoning in earlyinfancy and later mental retardation had notbeen proven and that many of the cases oflead poisoning had “never been conclusivelyproven.”80



Source. The Modern Hospital 38 (February 1932): 16.

FIGURE 6—“Keep Maintenance Costs Down.” Here National Lead touts whitelead’s durability (“insoluble in water”) and attractiveness forhospital interiors.

The LIA’s denials of the dangers posedby lead paint came despite detailed warningsfrom Robert Kehoe that the association’s posi-tion was indefensible. Shortly after publica-tion of the Byers and Lord article and theTime article, Robert Kehoe wrote to Wormser,“I am disposed to agree with the conclusionsarrived at by the authors, and to believe thattheir evidence, if not entirely adequate, isworthy of very serious consideration.” Heinformed the head of the LIA that in his ownwork he had seen “serious mental retardationin children that have recovered from lead poi-soning.”81 Kehoe left no doubt that he wouldbe willing to assist the board of LIA, but heobjected to Wormser’s denial of the impor-tance of paint in causing lead poisoning inchildren. Kehoe argued that the position of theLIA was insupportable. “Unfortunately forWormser’s thesis, comparable results havebeen obtained in almost every other area ofthe United States where there have been facil-ities that enable accurate investigation of thistype to be made.”82 “Small children crawlabout on the floor and contaminate them-selves pretty generally with every kind of dustor dirt that is within their environment. Even-tually everything they get on their hands goesinto their mouths, and therefore considerablygreater opportunities exist for the dangerousexposure of small children of a variety ofmaterials.”83,84

But the LIA refused to accept the mount-ing research and evidence of lead poisoning.In December 1945, the association proposed acampaign to counteract the “medical and pub-lic misinformation usually amounting toactual prejudice against lead, because of itstoxic qualities, [and which] is a subject ofvital importance to all the lead industries inthe United States.” The LIA complained, “Ifanything, the problem has become even moreserious in the last five years than ever before,owing primarily to the spread of considerableanti-lead propaganda and also to occasionalfaulty medical research which has penetrateddeep into medical annals and caused manyphysicians and hospitals to assume erroneouspositions on the question of lead poisoning.”The LIA believed that the issue was “so fun-damental” to the future welfare of the leadindustries and the continued manufacture anduse of many important lead products, such aswhite lead, red lead, litharge, sheet lead, andpipe lead, that unless immediate attentionwere paid to the problem “the opposing forcesmay grow strong enough to do us injurywhich it would take years of work to correct.”As a result, the LIA outlined a safety andhygiene program, one purpose of which wasto address the existing literature saying thatlead represented a health hazard to the workerand the consumer.85

In 1946 the problem intensified: Worm-ser reported to the LIA that

attention to the serious problem faced by allthe lead industries because of the toxic natureof our metal is occupying a growing ratherthan a diminishing amount of the Association’stime. This is largely owing to attacks upon leadthat cannot be ignored for, if unchallenged,they may very easily lead to the sponsoringof totally unwarranted State and Federallegislation of a regulatory or prohibitivecharacter. . . . Suffice it to say here that this isan unending battle from which we can onlywithdraw at our peril.86

In general, Wormser continued to argue thatthe danger to the public was minimal.87

As late as 1952, the LIA continued topromote the usefulness of white lead in bothinterior and exterior coverings. In its bookLead in Modern Industry, the LIA noted that“white lead adds more desirable qualities topaint than any other white pigment and haspractically no undesirable qualities to nullifyits advantages.” The book continued, “theprofitable application of white lead is notconfined to exterior use. Pure white leadpaints can be utilized to advantage for inte-rior decoration, particularly in public and tra-ditional buildings where elaborate decorationis used and it is very expensive and inconve-nient to repaint often.”88

In summaries of his activities in 1952,the director of health and safety of the LIA,Manfred Bowditch, called childhood leadpoisoning “a major ‘headache’ and a sourceof much adverse publicity.” He counted197 reports of lead poisoning in 9 cities, ofwhich 40 cases were fatal, although he notedthat this was an “incomplete” estimate,especially for New York City.89 In New York,44 cases were reported, of which 14 werefatal. Between 1951 and 1953, according toGeorge M. Wheatly of the American Pedi-atrics Association, “there were 94 deaths and165 cases of childhood lead poisoning . . . inNew York, Chicago, Cincinnati, St. Louis,and Baltimore.”90

Reports from health departments, publi-cized in the popular press, were demonstratingthe widespread nature of the lead paint hazard.In 1952 the LIA collected “nearly 500 news-paper clippings featuring lead poisoning, oftenin sizable headlines.”91 In 1956 the LIA notedthat a headline in the New York Daily News,“Lead Poisoning Killed 10 Kids in Brooklynin ’55, Highest Toll in the City,” was “basedlargely on data from the Health Department.”92

In addition to “the common run of newspaperstudies on childhood and other types ofplumbism,” the LIA noted 2 “items of adversepublicity transcending [them] in importance.”In July 1956 Parade magazine, which reachedmore than 7 million readers of 50 newspapersacross the country, ran an article titled “Don’t

Let YOUR Child Get Lead Poisoning,” and theCBS television network carried a broadcast onchildhood lead poisoning.93

Blaming the Victims

The LIA recognized as early as 1952 thatto continue fighting a rearguard action attack-ing the extent of the lead poisoning problemwould be “prohibitively expensive and time-consuming.”94 But the association continuedto deflect responsibility for this tragedy awayfrom the industry itself, placing the blame onpoverty, not on the lead industry: “The majorsource of trouble is the flaking of lead paint inthe ancient slum dwellings of our older cities,[and] the problem of lead poisoning in chil-dren will be with us for as long as there areslums.”95 Bowditch acknowledged “that theoverwhelmingly major source of lead poison-ing in children is from structural lead paintschewed from painted surfaces, picked up oroff in the form of flakes, or adhering to bits ofplaster and subsequently ingested.” But whowas responsible for this condition? Accordingto Bowditch and the LIA, “Childhood leadpoisoning is essentially a problem of slumdwellings and relatively ignorant parents.” Hemaintained that lead poisoning was “almostwholly confined to the older cities of the east-ern third of the country” and that “until we canfind means to (a) get rid of our slums and (b)educate the relatively ineducable parent, theproblem will continue to plague us.”96

The president of the NPVLA, Joseph F.Battley, elaborated on this theme but used con-temporary psychological explanations to ration-alize away corporate responsibility for the pol-lution of children’s environments. There mightbe dietary deficiencies, he said, but even “awell-fed child may still be emotionally hungrybecause he does not receive as much lovingattention as he needs. Another may suffer froma sense of insecurity. To gain the comfort andreassurance they crave, they often place inedi-ble objects [i.e., flaking paint] in their mouths.”97

As late as 1959, lead poisoning was still “aheadache” for the industry.98

In the 1940s and early 1950s, state andlocal health departments sought to warn con-sumers about the dangers lead paint presentedto children and others. The industry organizedto oppose these efforts. Early labeling regula-tions in California in 1945 and Maryland in1949 were opposed by the LIA and NPVLA,and the LIA took credit for the repeal of Mary-land’s statute.99 Confronted with pressure in anumber of localities and states for increasedregulation, the NPVLA’s counsel suggested that“the best course to pursue from the standpointof the industries interested in the use of lead as apigment and otherwise is to launch a campaign



of education directed at the legislatures to fore-stall any further unnecessary legislation.”100

In May 1954, the New York City HealthDepartment proposed a sanitary code provi-sion that would have banned the sale in the cityof paints containing more than 1% lead andwould have required lead paint to be labeled aspoisonous and not for interior use.101 This wasconsistent with the recommendations of theAmerican Medical Association, which sug-gested labels saying “WARNING: This paintcontains an amount of lead which may bePOISONOUS and should not be used to paintchildren’s toys or furniture or interior surfacesin dwelling units which might be chewed bychildren.”102 Both the NPVLA and the LIAopposed such wording. They supported andhelped to develop the standard adopted in1955 by the voluntary American StandardsAssociation, which did not require the use ofthe word “poison.”103 New York City’s regula-tion limited the amount of lead in interiorpaints to 1% but did not include the moreexplicit warning, and the industry adopted thesame voluntary standard. Even in 1958, theLIA continued to oppose “any legislation of aprohibitory nature.”104

Although the industry claimed that ithad stopped using lead in interior paints inthe 1940s, and it is clear that other pigmentsincreasingly replaced lead during that time,lead continued to be present in paints soldfor interior use well into the 1950s. In onesurvey commissioned by the US Departmentof Housing and Urban Development, “aboutone third of [Pittsburgh’s] dwelling unitsbuilt in [1940–1959] had surfaces with high(2 mg/cm2 or more) concentrations of leadand nearly 10 per cent of the rooms testedhad such lead levels.”105 In 1970, federal leg-islation prohibited the use of lead paint infederally financed and subsidized housing,and the Consumer Products Safety Commis-sion prohibited the use of all lead paint afterFebruary 27, 1978. Yet in 1971, the New YorkCity Health Department tested 76 paints and“found eight of them with amounts of leadranging from 2.6 to 10.8 percent.”106

A Terrible Legacy

Despite the medical evidence concerningthe dangers to children of lead-based paint, thereports from Baltimore and other cities of leadpoisoning of children, occasional articles inthe popular press concerning the dangers oflead-based paint, and internal correspondencefrom leading lead authorities around the coun-try acknowledging that lead paint was a seri-ous hazard, the industry neither removed leadfrom paint nor warned consumers of its dangeruntil very late in the game. In fact, at critical

moments during this long history, the leadindustry actually misled the public healthcommunity, assuring it that lead paint was notbeing used on toys, interior surfaces, or cribs.The industry also consciously used children inits advertising and promotion campaigns inways that aggravated the public health crisis.By employing children in its marketing strate-gies, the industry reinforced the public’s per-ception that lead paint was safe, thereby coun-tering the increasing medical, public health,and popular literature documenting leadpaint’s dangers. This terrible legacy still hauntsus today, as more and more cities becomeaware of the enormous intellectual, physical,emotional, and economic costs of the decadesduring which an entire industry ignored thegrowing evidence of lead’s impact on chil-dren’s health and shaped Americans’ under-standing of the dangers posed by lead.

AcknowledgmentsWe would like to acknowledge the New York City LawDepartment, for which we originally composed an affi-davit, for giving us unfettered access to recentlyreleased documentary material gathered in the courseof discovery proceedings in its suit “The City of NewYork, the New York City Housing Authority, and theNew York City Health and Hospitals Corporation,Plaintiffs, Against Lead Industries Association, Inc. Et.Al.” (index no. 14365/89). We would also like to thankChristian Warren and Christopher Sellers for providingus with copies of documents from their own research,as well as Adele Oltman, Nina Kushner, and DonaldOlson for their research assistance.

Endnotes1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Mor-

bidity and Mortality Weekly Report 46 (1997):141, cited in B.P. Lanphear, “The Paradox of LeadPoisoning Prevention,” Science 281 (1998):1617–1618.

2. B.P. Lanphear, “The Paradox of Lead PoisoningPrevention.” See also D. Ryan, B. Levy, S. Pol-lack, and B. Walker, Jr, “Protecting Children FromLead Poisoning and Building Healthy Communi-ties,” American Journal of Public Health 89(1999): 822–824.

3. D. Rosner and G. Markowitz, “A ‘Gift of God’?The Public Health Controversy Over LeadedGasoline During the 1920s,” American Journal ofPublic Health 75 (1985): 344–352; W. Graebner,“Hegemony Through Science: Information Engi-neering and Lead Toxicology, 1925–1965,” inDying for Work: Workers’ Safety and Health inTwentieth Century America, ed. D. Rosner and G.Markowitz (Bloomington: Indiana UniversityPress, 1987), 140–159.

4. R. Rabin, “Warnings Unheeded: A History ofChild Lead Poisoning,” American Journal of Pub-lic Health 79 (1989): 1668–1674; E. Silbergeld,“Preventing Lead Poisoning in Children,” AnnualReview of Public Health 18 (1997): 187–210; P.Reich, The Hour of Lead: A Brief History of LeadPoisoning in the United States Over the Past Cen-tury, and of Efforts by the Lead Industry to DelayRegulation (Washington, DC: Environmental

Defense Fund, 1992); R. Wedeen, “Shaping Envi-ronmental Research: The Lead Industries Associa-tion 1928–1946,” Mount Sinai Journal of Medi-cine 62 (1995): 386–389.

5. Elizabeth Fee’s article on lead poisoning amongchildren in Baltimore (E. Fee, “Public Health inPractice: An Early Confrontation With the ‘SilentEpidemic’ of Childhood Lead Paint Poisoning,”Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sci-ences 45 [1990]: 588) was perhaps the mostdetailed community study.

6. C.C. Sellers, Hazards of the Job: From IndustrialDisease to Environmental Health Science (ChapelHill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997).

7. C. Warren, Brush with Death: A Social History ofLead Poisoning (Baltimore, Md: Johns HopkinsUniversity Press, forthcoming). To date, this isperhaps the most detailed and sophisticated analy-sis of the ways that lead has been introduced intothe broader environment.

8. See Lead Diseases: A Treatise from the French ofL. Tanqueral des Planches, trans. S. L. Dana(Lowell, 1848). Boston, Mass: Tappan, Whittmore& Mason.

9. M.D. Stewart, “Notes on Some Obscure Cases ofPoisoning by Lead Chromate Manifested Chieflyby Encephalopathy,” Medical News 1 (1887):676–681.

10. A. Hamilton, “Industrial Diseases, With SpecialReference to the Trades in Which Women areEmployed,” Charities and the Commons 20 (1908):655, 658. See also T. Legge and K. Goadby, LeadPoisoning and Lead Absorption (New York, NY:Longmont, Green & Co, 1912), 35; T. Oliver,Lead Poisoning: From the Industrial, Medical,and Social Points of View (New York, NY: Paul B.Hombre, 1914), vii, 55–65.

11. US Department of Commerce and Labor, Bureauof Labor, “List of Industrial Poisons,” Bulletin 86(1910): 163.

12. Edward J. Cornish to David Edsall, 12 May 1921,courtesy of Christopher Sellers.

13. J. L. Gibson, “A Plea for Painted Railings andPainted Walls of Rooms as the Source of LeadPoisoning Amongst Queensland Children,” Aus-tralasian Medical Gazette (1904): 149–153. Seealso J.C. Burnham, “Biomedical Communicationand the Reaction to the Queensland ChildhoodLead Poisoning Cases Elsewhere in the World,”Medical History 43 (1999): 155–172.

14. J.L. Gibson, “The Importance of Lumbar Punc-ture in the Plumbic Ocular Neuritis of Children,”Australian Medical Congress Transactions 11(1905): 750–754.

15. A.J. Turner, “Lead Poisoning in Childhood,” Aus-tralasian Medical Congress (1908): 2–9; J.L. Gib-son, “Plumbic Ocular Neuritis in QueenslandChildren” British Medical Journal 2 (1908):1488–1490; T. Oliver, “A Lecture on Lead Poison-ing and the Race,” British Medical Journal 1911(May 13): 1096–1098.

16. H. M. Thomas and K. D. Blackfan, “RecurrentMeningitis, Due to Lead in a Child of Five Years,”American Journal of Diseases of Children 8(1914): 377–380; A. Breinl and W.J. Young, “TheOccurrence of Lead Poisoning Amongst NorthQueensland Children,” Annals of Tropical Medi-cine and Parasitology 8 (1914): 575–590; J. L.Gibson, “The Diagnosis, Prophylaxis andTreatment of Plumbic Ocular Neuritis AmongstQueensland Children,” Medical Journal of Aus-tralia 2 (1917): 201–204.





17. K.D. Blackfan, “Lead Poisoning in Children withEspecial Reference to Lead as a Cause of Convul-sions,” American Journal of the Medical Sciences153 (1917): 877–887.

18. See, for example, R. Strong, “Meningitis,Caused by Lead Poisoning, in a Child of Nine-teen Months,” Archives of Pediatrics 37 (1920):532–537; L. E. Holt, “General and FunctionalNervous Diseases,” chap 2 in The Diseases ofInfancy and Childhood for the Use of Studentsand Practitioners of Medicine, 8th ed (New York,NY: Appleton & Co, 1923); L.E. Holt, “Lead Poi-soning in Infancy,” American Journal of Dis-eases of Children 25 (1923): 229–233; Councilof the Queensland Branch BMA, “An HistoricalAccount of the Occurrence and Causation of LeadPoisoning Among Queensland Children,” MedicalJournal of Australia 1 (1922): 148–152; J. Rud-dock, “Lead Poisoning in Children With SpecialReference to Pica,” Journal of the American Med-ical Association 82 (1924): 1682–1684; C. V.Weller, “Some Clinical Aspects of Lead Meningo-Encephalopathy,” Annals of Clinical Medicine 3(1925): 604–613; C.F. McKhann, “Lead Poison-ing in Children,” American Journal of Diseases ofChildren 32 (1926): 386–392; L. W. Holloway,“Lead Poisoning in Children,” Journal of theFlorida Medical Association 13 (1926): 94–100;F. L. Hoffman, “Deaths from Lead Poisoning,”US. Bureau of Labor Statistics Bulletin 426(1927): 33–34 (Hoffman lists 11 boys and 8 girlsunder the age of 18 years who died from lead poi-soning; a number of these children were poisonedby paint from windows, walls, toys, or cribs).

19. E.E. Pratt, Occupational Diseases, A PreliminaryReport on Lead Poisoning in the City of New York(Albany, NY: J. B. Lyon & Co, 1912), 373–377; T.Oliver, Lead Poisoning: From the Industrial, Med-ical, and Social Points of View (New York, NY:Paul B. Hoeber, 1914), 56–57; F. L. Hoffman,Lead-Poisoning Legislation and Statistics(Newark, NJ: Prudential Press, 1933); Interna-tional Labour Office, White-Lead: Data Collectedby the International Labour Office in Regard tothe Use of White Lead in the Painting Industry,Studies and Reports, Series F, Industrial Hygiene,No. 11 (Geneva, Switzerland: InternationalLabour Office, 1927).

20. “Prohibition of White Lead in Belgium,” Ameri-can Journal of Public Health 13 (1923): 337.

21. A. Hamilton, “Hygiene of the Painters’ Trade,”Bureau of Labor Statistics Bulletin 120 (1913):66.

22. N. Porritt, “Cumulative Effects of InfinitesimalDoses of Lead,” British Medical Journal (1931):92–94.

23. Hoffman, Lead-Poisoning Legislation and Statis-tics.

24. C. F. McKhann, “Lead Poisoning in Children,”Archives of Neurology and Psychiatry 27 (1932):294–304.

25. E. Vogt, “Roentgenologic Diagnosis of LeadPoisoning in Infants and Children,” Journal ofthe American Medical Association 98 (1932):125–129.

26. “If Your Children Chew Paint,” Scientific Ameri-can 149 (1933): 291.

27. C.F. McKhann and E.C. Vogt, “Lead Poisoning inChildren,” Journal of the American Medical Asso-ciation 149 (1933): 1131–1135.

28. R. Kehoe, abstract of discussion in C.F. McKhannand E. C. Vogt, “Lead Poisoning in Children,”

Journal of the American Medical Association 101(1933): 1131–1135.

29. H.A. Gardner, The Toxic and Antiseptic Proper-ties of Paints, Bulletin 41 of the EducationalBureau of the Paint Manufacturers’ Association(Philadelphia, Penn: Paint Manufacturers’Associ-ation, 1914), 12.

30. Report of the Secretary, Annual Meeting of theLead Industries Association, 5 June 1934, NewYork City Law Department Lead IndustriesAssociation Documents (hereafter cited as LIAPapers). See Christian Warren, “Toxic Purity:How America Became a Nation of White-Lead-ers,” Business History Review (forthcoming).

31. [Wormser ?] to William J. Donovan, 21 Septem-ber 1928, National Archives, Federal Trade Com-mission Documents.

32. Wormser to Members Supporting the White LeadPromotion Program, 20 February 1939, BulletinNo. 1, LIA Papers.

33. LIA Directors Meeting, 29 May 1929, LIAPapers.

34. “Lead-Free Paint on Furniture and Toys to ProtectChildren,” United States Daily, 20 November1930, p.1.

35. McKahnn and Vogt, “Lead Poisoning inChildren.”

36. The A. Shoenhut Company to Ella Oppenheimer,Children’s Bureau, 17 April 1935, NationalArchives, Record Group 102 (Children’s Bureau),Central File, 1933–1936, File: Diseases Due toMetallic, 4-5-17.

37. Newark Varnish Works to Ella Oppenheimer, 25April 1935, National Archives, Record Group 102(Children’s Bureau), Central File, 1933–1936,File: Diseases Due to Metallic, 4-5-17.

38. LIA Annual Meeting, 13 June 1935, LIA Papers.39. LIA Board of Directors Meeting, 17 January

1940, Exhibit A, “Report of the Secretary,” LIAPapers.

40. Louis Dublin to Ella Oppenheimer, 14 September1993, courtesy of Christian Warren.

41. NPVLA Executive Committee Minutes, 11 July1939, LIA Papers.

42. NPVLA letter “To Class ‘A’ Members,” 18 July1939, LIA Papers.

43. “Do Not Forget The Children—Some Day TheyMay Be Customers,” The Dutch Boy Painter(August 1920): 126.

44. “The Dutch Boy’s Lead Party,” The Dutch BoyPainter (July 1924): 139.

45. “When the School Room is Empty,” The DutchBoy Painter (July 1924): back page.

46. The Dutch Boy Conquers Old Man Gloom—APaint Book for Boys and Girls (New York, NY:National Lead Company, 1930).

47. “Takes a Scrubbing with a Smile” (advertise-ment), The Modern Hospital 48 (1937): 35.

48. “Fingerprints,” The Dutch Boy Painter (August1927): 117.

49. Dutch Boy Painter–Carter Times (January–Febru-ary 1931 and September–October 1931).

50. “Types of Stencils . . . How to Use Them,” DutchBoy Painter–Carter Times (1933): 75–80.

51. National Lead Company Sales Manual, “Impor-tant” [ca 1949], LIA Papers.

52. National Lead Company, Modern Packaging,April 1949.

53. “Lead Helps to Guard Your Health” (adver-tisement), National Geographic Magazine(November 1923): 44.

54. “Clean and Bright Hospital Walls” (advertise-ment), The Modern Hospital (July 1921): 171;

“Color—the Doctor’s Assistant,” The ModernHospital (July 1922): 169.

55. “Every Room in a Modern Hospital Deserves aDutch Boy Quality Painting Job” (advertise-ment), The Modern Hospital (July 1930).

56. Lead Industries Association, Useful Informa-tion About Lead, 1st ed (New York, NY: LeadIndustries Association, 1931), 49–53, 104.

57. “These 4 Points Will Help You Sell Paint JobsTODAY!” National Painters Magazine (1943).

58. Wormser to Members Supporting the WhiteLead Promotion Program, LIA Papers, Letter,February 20, 1939.

59. LIA Advisory Committee, White Lead Promo-tion, Minutes of 10th Meeting, 20 October 1941,LIA Papers.

60. LIA Advisory Committee, White Lead Promo-tion, Minutes of 2nd Meeting, 12 April 1939, LIAPapers.

61. “White Lead Paint Economical for Interiors,”Lead 8 (1938): 7, LIA Papers.

62. “Modern Exteriors, Interiors Combine Plywoodand White Lead,” Lead 9 (1939): 5, LIA Papers;the same issue of Lead contained other articlesabout interior decoration of low-cost housing:“Successful Low Cost Homes Benefit with WhiteLead,” p. 11; “A New Simplified White LeadPainting Guide,” p. 5; “Lead Products Aid inPierce Foundation Experimental Home: Low CostHouse Styled with White Lead and Flashed withSheet Lead,” p. 10.

63. LIA Advisory Committee, White Lead Promo-tion, Minutes of 8th Meeting, 18 October 1940,Exhibit A, Progress Report, LIA Papers.

64. White Lead Promotion Campaign, Bulletin 37, 23May 1941, LIA Papers.

65. White Lead Promotion Campaign, Annual Sum-mary, 11 October 1940, LIA Papers.

66. White Lead Promotion Campaign, Bulletin 42, 23January 1942, LIA Papers.

67. White Lead Promotion Campaign, Bulletin 47, 20May 1942, LIA Papers.

68. White Lead Promotion Campaign, Bulletin 40, 2October 1941, LIA Papers.

69. White Lead Promotion Campaign, Bulletin 43, 23February 1942, LIA Papers.

70. White Lead Promotion Campaign, Bulletin 40.71. White Lead Promotion Campaign, Bulletin 32, 15

January 1941, LIA Papers.72. White Lead Promotion Campaign, Bulletin 25, 11

October 1940, LIA Papers.73. White Lead Promotion Campaign, Bulletin 32.74. White Lead Promotion Campaign, Annual Sum-

mary, October 11, 1940.75. “Lead Industry Begins Campaign to Advertise

White-Lead,” The Dutch Boy Painter 32 (1939):27, LIA Papers.

76. Board of Directors Meeting, 16 May 1939, Secre-tary’s Report, “Summarizing the Activities of theLead Industries Association for 1938,” LIAPapers.

77. Report of the Secretary, Annual Meeting, 6 June1940, LIA Papers.

78. Annual Report, 22 September 1941, LIA Papers.79. “Paint Eaters,” Time, 20 December 1943, 49.80. Lead Industries Association, “Preliminary Report

of Investigation of ‘Time’ Article ‘Paint Eaters,’”Lead Hygiene and Safety Bulletin (1944): 40.

81. Kehoe to Wormser, 7 February 1944, LIA Papers.82. Kehoe to J. H. Schaefer (Vice President, Ethyl

Corp), 29 January 1945, Box 90, LIA Papers.



83. Kehoe to Dr. R. L. Gorrell, City-County HealthUnit, Las Animas County, Trinidad, Colo, 5 Sep-tember 1945, LIA Papers.

84. Kehoe to R. H. Kotte, 14 February 1951, LIAPapers.

85. Executive Committee Meeting, Exhibit D, 28December 1945, LIA Papers.

86. LIA Annual Meeting, Minutes, Report of the Sec-retary, 26 April 1946.

87. F. Wormser, “Facts and Fallacies of Lead Expo-sure” (1946), 10 [courtesy of Christian Warren].

88. Lead Industries Association, Lead in ModernIndustry (New York, NY: Lead Industries Associa-tion, 1952), 153–54; this book continued to bepromoted by the LIA until at least 1962. See“Lead Library of Technical Information,” Lead(1962), 26.

89. Manfred Bowditch to Ziegfield, “1952 Activi-ties,” 16 December 1952; “Lead Hygiene” (min-

utes of the Annual Meeting, 9–10 April 1953),LIA Papers.

90. New York Times, 9 November 1954, p. 26.91. “Lead Hygiene,” LIA Papers.92. Quarterly Report of the Secretary, 2 April 1956,

LIA Papers.93. Quarterly Report of the Secretary, 1 October

1956, LIA Papers.94. Bowditch to Ziegfield, 16 December 1952, cour-

tesy of Christian Warren.95. Report of Health and Safety Division, Manfred

Bowditch, Director, Annual Meeting, 24–25 April1957, LIA Papers.

96. Bowditch to Kehoe, 26 December 1957, courtesyof Christian Warren.

97. National Paint, Varnish and Lacquer Association,“Watch Your Child’s ‘Eating Habits’!”

98. Annual Report for 1959, LIA Papers.99. Annual Meeting, Report of the Secretary, 13–14

April 1950, LIA Papers.

100. T. J. McDowell, “Suggested Course of Action forNPVL Association Re: Labeling Laws,” [ca July1954] in NPVLA, Minutes, Subcommittee onModel Labeling, 15 July 1954, LIA Papers.

101. J. Trichter (Assistant Commissioner of Environ-mental Sanitation, New York City Department ofHealth) to C. W. Slocum (Devoe & Reynolds[paint] Company), 24 August 1954, LIA Papers.

102. B.E. Conley (Secretary, American Medical Asso-ciation) to J. Trichter, 9 September 1954, LIAPapers.

103. American Standards Association, “AmericanStandards Specifications to Minimize Hazardsto Children from Residual Surface CoatingMaterials” (Z66.1-1955), approved 16 February1955.

104. Quarterly Report of the Secretary, 10 January1958, LIA Papers.

105. Rabin, “Warnings Unheeded,” 1672.106. Ibid.