Sources in the history of occupational health: the Turner & Newall archive

Sources in the History of occupational health are scanty-a reflection perhaps of the contentious nature of the documentation. In the UK, asbestos company records have until recently been unavailable and consequently historians and policy-makers have been hindered from exploring a major public health issue. In 1995, however, Chase Manhattan Bank in New York sued the leading British asbestos producer, Turner & Newall, in a property-damage claim. During pre-trial discovery, Chase had copied a large proportion of Turner & Newall's vast archive and under American law was able to put the records in the public domain. This article describes how this collection of records-perhaps the largest anywhere on the history of an occupational health hazard-was generated. It also suggests ways of navigating the documents; discusses the nature of the material; and the archive's uses to medical and industrial historians.