Brown Lung Association Records, 1973-1983

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Summary

Creator:
Brown Lung Association.
Abstract:

The Brown Lung Association (BLA) Records consist chiefly records of the central office of the Brown Lung Association, as well as related organizations, including the Southern Institute for Occupational Health and the Brown Lung Legal Center. Records document the organizational, legal, and financial activities of these groups. Topics include special projects, fundraising, staffing, state legislation, workers' compensation, federal regulations, and research on brown lung disease. Also included are materials relating to byssinosis cases heard before the North Carolina Industrial Commission between 1977 and 1981. Frequent defendants in these cases are J. P. Stevens, Burlington Industries, Cone Mills, and Fieldcrest Mills. Also included are a set of volumes that provide information on the North Carolina Industrial Commission, the Asheboro and Greensboro BLA chapters, medical panels, North Carolina legislation, and the North Carolina Governor's Panel on Brown Lung; photographs of unidentified textile workers; and audiovisual materials related to BLA events and textile workers.

Extent:
3500 items (10.5 linear feet)
Language:
Materials in English
Library Catalog Link:
View UNC library catalog record for this item

Background

Biographical / historical:

In October 1974, Mike Szpak received a seed-grant from the Youth Project, a community-service agency based in Washington, D.C., to develop an organization that would combat the problem of byssinosis (brown lung) in the Carolinas. By early 1975, Szpak had successfully established a local brown lung association in Columbia, S.C., had initiated plans and fundraising for associations in several other locations, and had created the Southern Institute for Occupational Health to sponsor and coordinate organizational efforts to fight brown lung.

By the end of the year, the Carolina Brown Lung Association (later shortened to Brown Lung Association or BLA) had emerged out of these earlier efforts and assumed the form it would keep throughout the early 1980s. The Association organized local chapters (originally in the Carolinas, but later also in Georgia and Virginia), conducted breathing clinics, carried out lobbying and media campaigns, and filed workers' compensation claims for textile workers. The Brown Lung Association's major successes included the reform of South Carolina's compensation laws, passage of stricter federal cotton dust standards, attraction of media attention to brown lung, and the payment of workers' compensation to textile workers disabled by the disease.

The Brown Lung Legal Center grew out of the Brown Lung Association's Legal Committee in the late 1970s. This organization focused on the legal complications of receiving compensation for brown lung victims.

The activities of the Brown Lung Association decreased during the early 1980s as a result of deteriorating economic conditions in the textile industry and reforms in workers' compensation laws and industrial standards. By 1986, the Association was virtually inactive.

Scope and content:

Chiefly central office of the BLA, which incorporates the files of the Southern Institute for Occupational Health and the Brown Lung Legal Center, and documents the organizational, legal, and financial activities of the these groups. Topics include special projects, fundraising, staffing, state legislation, workers' compensation, federal regulations, and research on brown lung disease. Also included are materials relating to approximately 120 byssinosis cases heard before the North Carolina Industrial Commission between 1977 and 1981. Frequent defendants in these cases are J. P. Stevens, Burlington Industries, Cone Mills, and Fieldcrest Mills; a set of eleven volumes that provide information on the North Carolina Industrial Commission, the Asheboro and Greensboro BLA chapters, the Occupational Health and Safety Administration, BLA clinics, medical panels, North Carolina legislation, and the North Carolina Governor's Panel on Brown Lung; photographs of textile workers; audio recordings of BLA events and protest songs; video recordings of BLA events, public service annoucements, and documentary films on textile workers; and computer tapes containing copies of a U.S. Dept. of Labor study on brown lung.

Acquisition information:

Received from Candace Carraway and Betty Bailey of Durham, N.C.; Florence Sandlin of Julian, N.C., in August 1986 (086102) and October 1987 (Acc. 087096).

Processing information:

Processed by: Mark Beasley, November 1986; Patricia Gantt, May 1989; Jill Snider, March 1990

Encoded by: ByteManagers Inc., 2008

Updated by: Anne Wells, January 2019; Dawne Howard Lucas, February 2022

Sensitive materials statement:

Manuscript collections and archival records may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information that is protected under federal or state right to privacy laws and regulations, the North Carolina Public Records Act (N.C.G.S. § 132 1 et seq.), and Article 7 of the North Carolina State Personnel Act (Privacy of State Employee Personnel Records, N.C.G.S. § 126-22 et seq.). Researchers are advised that the disclosure of certain information pertaining to identifiable living individuals represented in this collection without the consent of those individuals may have legal ramifications (e.g., a cause of action under common law for invasion of privacy may arise if facts concerning an individual's private life are published that would be deemed highly offensive to a reasonable person) for which the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill assumes no responsibility.

Access and use

Restrictions to access:

Use of audio or moving image materials may require production of listening or viewing copies.

Restrictions to use:

Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.

No usage restrictions.

Preferred citation:

[Identification of item], in the Brown Lung Association Records #4463, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Special Collections Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Location of this collection:
Louis Round Wilson Library
200 South Road
Chapel Hill, NC 27515
Contact:
(919) 962-3765
wilsonlibrary@unc.edu