Using Documentary Photography To Promote World War II Occupational Health Policy

Details

• Personal Author:
  Jenkins, Barbara L. ; Snyder LP
• Description:
  This paper represents research of vintage 1941 photographs and negatives discovered at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) in 1988. These photographs were made by a noted American photographer John Collier, Jr. (1913 -1992) during his 1st year as a photographer for the Farm Security Administration (FSA), a New Deal federal agency; The authors documentation and interpretation of these photographs is based on research of archival records in the National Archives and Records Administration, the Archives of American Art, and the National Library of Medicine. The authors explore how the US Public Health Service used documentary photography in the World War II era to produce educational materials promoting industrial hygiene. It examines the Public Health Service view of industrial health in light of past New Deal policy and programs; and the emerging war agenda as the USA prepared to enter World War II. The photographer's letters written at the time of the assignment illustrate the bureaucratic problems occurring when a federal occupational health agency conducted an industry survey while industrial health was under corporate and individual states' control. The photographs taken during this assignment, together with their original captions, give glimpses of workers and work of that era and reveal many of the occupational health and industrial hygiene practices of the time. Research of this 1941 photographic assignment sheds light on the vision and skill of its creators, FSA photographer John Collier and Elizabeth Pritchard, a high-level information specialist of the US Public Health Service. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Manufacturing And Industrial Facilities Occupational Health Photography Safety Staff Development Workplace
• Keywords:
  Industrial-health-programs Industrial-hygiene Industrial-hygiene-programs Industrial-safety Occupational-health Occupational-health-programs Occupational-safety-programs Photographers Work-analysis Work-performance Worker-health Workplace-monitoring Workplace-studies

  More +
• ISBN:
  0444502556
• Publisher:
  Elsevier Science
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Proceedings
• Place as Subject:
  Maryland ; Ohio ; OSHA Region 3 ; OSHA Region 5
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  DSHEFS - Division of Surveillance, Hazard Evaluations, and Field Studies
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  401-411
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20028118
• Citation:
  Contributions to the History of Occupational and Environmental Prevention, 1st International Conference on the History of Occupational and Environmental Prevention, Rome, Italy, October 4-6, 1998. New York: Elsevier Science, 1999 Dec; :401-411
• Contact Point Address:
  B. Jenkins, NIOSH, 4676 Colunbua Parkway R10, Cincinnati, OH 45026
• Email:
  blj3@cdc.gov
• Editor(s):
  Grieco A; Iavicoli S; Berlinguer G
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2000
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Source Full Name:
  Contributions to the History of Occupational and Environmental Prevention, 1st International Conference on the History of Occupational and Environmental Prevention, Rome, Italy, October 4-6, 1998
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:4b56dd2f7b435f4c1f6ba7e7966deb3bbd7d44d18976c7928993e041921cdc20aa04fad030bd6f774a5864acddad4b60284a8685ddbe389e9ba9d5b1c4266c69
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/189790/cdc_189790_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 1.05 MB ]