L. A. Baldwin's Report to the J-M Officers Board on Marinite and Marine Sheathing (1942)

A 20-page report on "Marinite and Marine Sheathing, Marine Equipment" prepared for Johns-Manville's Officers Board meeting of April 6, 1942, signed by L. A. Baldwin of the Industrial Department. It is marked Plaintiff's Exhibit 479.

What it shows

The report is J-M's own account of the Marinite business up to 1942. It says J-M had made little progress selling to ships "until September 8th, 1934, the date of the Morro Castle fire," which "did give us an opportunity to capitalize on fire-proof construction." Design rules allowed fireproof panels of not over 40 pounds per cubic foot, and early in 1936 "the problem was solved by using Amosite fibre to bring the weight down and Marinite was invented." By June 1938 J-M had the Newport News order for the liner America, of 420,000 board feet.

It also covers:

• Sales. Charts of Marinite and Marine Sheathing sales from 1935 to 1941, the joiner contractor Hopeman Brothers (J-M's main marine customer since 1937), and the J-M materials used on each standard cargo ship and Liberty ship.
• Industrial uses. Trancell electrical cell structures for power plants; fireproofing of structural steel in oil refineries, starting with Sun Oil at Marcus Hook, Pennsylvania, in 1937, where "Marinite can also be worked by carpenters and has all of the easy handling qualities of wood"; and ten bakery ovens for Loose-Wiles, using some 400,000 square feet of Marinite.
• Research. About sixty laboratory reports from April 1936 to November 1938, and work toward "finding suitable substitutes for materials now used ranging from the basic Amosite fibre to the cements."
• The war. "The recent decision of the War Production Board to restrict all materials using Amosite Fibre to marine uses has very definitely stopped other industrial applications of Marinite."

The report says nothing about the health of the people who made or cut the board.

About this copy

Pages S1816-221 to S1816-240 of J-M file S1816. Bracket marks in the margins were added by a later reader.

Related

• Marinite and the SS Morro Castle disaster, our guide to the product