Match Industry
White phosphorus was the active ingredient of most matches from the 1840s to the 1910s and exposure to the vapour from this caused a deposition of phosphorus in the jaw bones of workers in the industry. Concern over phossy jaw contributed to the London matchgirls strike of 1888, and although this strike did not end the use of white phosphorus, William Booth and the Salvation Army opened a match-making factory in 1891 which used the much safer, though more expensive, red phosphorus. The Salvation Army also campaigned with local retailers to get them to sell only red phosphorus matches.
However it was not until the use of white phosphorus was prohibited by the international Berne Convention in 1906, and these provisions were implemented in national laws over the next few years, that industrial use ceased.
Read more about this topic: Phossy Jaw
Famous quotes containing the words match and/or industry:
“I need not say what match I would touch, what system endeavor to blow up; but as I love my life, I would side with the light, and let the dark earth roll from under me, calling my mother and my brother to follow.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Do not put off your work until tomorrow and the day after. For the sluggish worker does not fill his barn, nor the one who puts off his work; industry aids work, but the man who puts off work always wrestles with disaster.”
—Hesiod (c. 8th century B.C.)