Description: | This October 1947 photograph was provided by the Center for Disease Control's (CDC), National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). The image depicted a stonecutter in the process of carving a gravestone with a pneumatic drill inside a Kansas workshop. The worker did not appear to be wearing any eye protection, or any filtered breathing device that would have limited his exposure to inhaled dust. Workers can be exposed to potential respiratory health hazards, as well as other physical injuries when working in stone cutting and quarrying industries. The NIOSH Historic Photo Collection began as the “picture file” of the Industrial Hygiene Division of the U.S. Public Health Service (USPHS), c. 1930-1960. It is a unique collection of mid-20th Century images of American workers and workplaces and documents occupational safety and health research of that era. The collection consists of approximately 1,000 original photographs and schematic drawings. |