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 do not like him.”MWhy?—”I am no match for him.”MHas a person ever answered in this way?”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“What more is necessary to make us a happy and prosperous people? Still one thing more … a wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from labor the bread it has earned.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)