Shadows from the Walls of Death

[Lily left the valley]

A bit of morbid trivia...and I honestly thought this had come up before, but I think I confused here with another place where we sometimes stray off our gathering topic to talk about other bits.

I had posted a response about arsenic in wallpaper relating to a British show I had seen very recently in another thread here. I already knew about killer wallpaper, but couldn't recall from where. Then I remembered...we have a book here in America that actually features nothing but wallpapers than can kill you. It was originally written by a doctor that wanted to educate people about the dangers in their own homes.

Here's a great story about it: How a Library Handles a Rare and Deadly Book of Wallpaper Samples.

And here's a writer that also makes art prints and books. One of her works was inspired by that book. You can read about it here: Deadly Beautiful: Dallas Artist Explores History of Arsenic Wallpaper in the 19th Century

[1918ColonialRevival]

I'd be interested to see an actual documented case with irrefutable proof of where someone was poisoned by wallpaper. If it was as deadly as they were acting like, a lot of paperhangers wouldn't have survived long back then. Arsenic and other poisonous chemicals were used in a lot of 19th Century manufacturing processes. A lot of people don't realize this, but between the Civil War and about 1900, most embalming fluid was arsenic-based. Formaldehyde fluids weren't standard until the first decade of the 20th Century. The reason I bring this up is, if one were to take a soil sample from a mid to late 19th Century cemetery, there would be higher levels of arsenic than a sample taken from the ambient environment.

It's an interesting historical footnote, but I'm concerned about articles written about it. If this gets out too much, it could be the next mass hysteria among the sheeple to go along with lead paint and asbestos. People tend to forget that arsenic is a naturally occurring element, along with lead. Asbestos is a naturally occurring mineral. A lot of today's financial institutions are skittish about writing a loan on a house that has either of these. I could see "arsenic wallpaper" getting added to that list.

[mjt]

It's an interesting historical footnote, but I'm concerned about articles written about it. If this gets out too much, it could be the next mass hysteria among the sheeple to go along with lead paint and asbestos. People tend to forget that arsenic is a naturally occurring element, along with lead. Asbestos is a naturally occurring mineral. A lot of today's financial institutions are skittish about writing a loan on a house that has either of these. I could see "arsenic wallpaper" getting added to that list.

Channeling Mike Powell, I see.

[Lily left the valley]

I'd be interested to see an actual documented case with irrefutable proof of where someone was poisoned by wallpaper. If it was as deadly as they were acting like, a lot of paperhangers wouldn't have survived long back then. Arsenic and other poisonous chemicals were used in a lot of 19th Century manufacturing processes. A lot of people don't realize this, but between the Civil War and about 1900, most embalming fluid was arsenic-based. Formaldehyde fluids weren't standard until the first decade of the 20th Century. The reason I bring this up is, if one were to take a soil sample from a mid to late 19th Century cemetery, there would be higher levels of arsenic than a sample taken from the ambient environment.

It's an interesting historical footnote, but I'm concerned about articles written about it. If this gets out too much, it could be the next mass hysteria among the sheeple to go along with lead paint and asbestos. People tend to forget that arsenic is a naturally occurring element, along with lead. Asbestos is a naturally occurring mineral. A lot of today's financial institutions are skittish about writing a loan on a house that has either of these. I could see "arsenic wallpaper" getting added to that list.

Although I understand the frustration over what often becomes quite costly and involved removal/remediation, I take a bit of umbrage at the "sheeple" comment as someone that was exposed to Colonial era lead paint dust unknowingly. Enough so that it did result in lead poisoning for both myself and my spouse. Not something I'd like to relive because it took a while to suss out what was going wrong with us and how it happened (the worst of the deteriorating paint was later discovered during a reno--in the bedroom). The flippers the homeowner bought the property did not disclose there was lead paint and intentionally buried it during their flip. The building had even been in the possession of the city it was in at one time as a temporary office/document storage while work was being done at the City Hall--and they hadn't bothered to check or remediate it either! In the bedroom where we slept, it was under two layers of plywood--with no sealant on the original floorboards to even try to contain the long deteriorated paint--forget actually trying to scrape or sand the wood clean. We found out after we left more was later found in other apartments during other reno work.

The info about all the arsenic related items of that time have been out for a long while, honestly. When you look at the various sources (especially the science papers), science seems to say yes--some people had enough exposure to it which definitely shortened their lifespans. Businesses, of course, fought this--though some changed their formulas after the suspicion came out to reduce the potential toxicity (and resulted in duller color). Some only finally fell out making them when the "fashionable" color palettes changed over time.

As to related trivia, as I've mentioned, arsenic was used in dyes as well, and the pattern of people dying that wore clothing with that particular arsenic dye led to it both falling out of fashion as well as becoming a theatrical "superstition" about not wearing green on stage, much like not whistling on stage. Here's a Punch cartoon from that time:


There were also the edible arsenic tablets, and all sorts of other "beauty" products, some applied directly to the skin, though most folks talk about lead whiteners much more because the physical changes they caused were more externally evident.

When you tally up all the possible arsenic poisoning sources, it gets a lot easier to understand that perhaps the wallpaper alone wasn't causing deaths, but a collective from various products popular at the time caused build up in people's bodies that did sicken and sometimes kill them. One doctor had noted in his time that the dust from wallpaper was the carrier, and flocked papers in particular tended to create larger amounts of arsenic being released as a result when the flocking caught dust and broke down itself. There's also the issue of pregnant women inhaling it, causing damage to their babies and lingering developmental problems for children throughout their lives, which was (better understood in more recent times).

Out of curiosity, I did try to find a quick reference to how long it takes arsenic's more damaging properties to be more inert, but didn't find it quickly and I'm out of time for research at the moment. It might be mentioned in the CDC link above.

To give you an idea of how widespread this info is, both in the scientific world as well as popular culture, here's two more sources out of dozens:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/victorian-wallpaper-got-its-gaudy-colors-poison-180962709/
https://www.vogue.com/article/arsenic-wallpaper-bitten-by-witch-fever-book

There are also books. This one has my favorite cover: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/599500.The_Elements_of_Murder

[1918ColonialRevival]

I didn't mean for my comment to be taken the wrong way. Lead poisoning is real and can have lasting effects and I feel sorry for those who have truly experienced it, much the same way I feel sorry for those who worked with asbestos in an industrial setting for years have suffered from respiratory problems and cancers. My grandfather suffered from asbestosis due to working on brake shoes in an unvented railroad car shop years and from black lung from working in coal mines for 20 years before that.

However, it has grown into a giant bogeyman and liability thanks largely to the legal community and those looking to turn what most would consider casual exposure into quick cash. Here in Baltimore, a lot of people use lead poisoning as a crutch for the bad behavior of their juvenile delinquent children instead of their own lack of parenting skills. That's why a lot of people around here have become jaded about the lead paint argument. I don't doubt that some people have legitimately been exposed to lead at toxic levels.

For that reason, at least in this area, it has become more of a challenge to get a loan on any older house or building that might contain one or both of these materials. When we bought this house in 2009, I went through Hell with my credit union over financing a house that was 91 years old at the time. I'm worried there may be a time when lenders will not finance older houses at all out of fear and ignorance (Navy Federal actually wanted to tear the slate roof off the house because it was an "original roof", thinking that slate has the same life expectancy as asphalt shingles).

Arsenic poisoning can be a slow, cumulative process - that's why at one time it was somewhat popular with ladies who were looking to "dispose" of their husbands by putting rat poison in their drinks a little at a time.

All I meant was we didn't need something else for the media and ambulance chaser types to run with. No offense intended to anyone who works in the legal world.

[Lily left the valley]

Channeling Mike Powell, I see.

I don't get this reference. I tried to look this person up, and holy cow is that a common name related to everything from long jumping to alleged murder co-conspirator.

[Gothichome]

BBC documentaries, there are none better in my view. Yes the arsenic issue in Victorian green pigment, nasty stuff by today’s standards. I believe it was the new middle classes that suffered the most, middle class affluence striving to rise above their station, would decorate there new middle class homes with the best they could afford, and if green wall paper was the latest decorating fashion then the home would get it. I believe the show mentioned that it was the stay at home lady of the house that suffered the most from the arsenic, for the most part she would not have ventured out of doors to often and so was exposed to the arsenic with out rest bit. But on the larger scale, Victorian life was full of adulterated food stuffs and concoctions of dubious quality and ingredients, lead in makeup as an example already mentioned. It was a thing for Victorian women to deliberately take arsenic, it made the skin pale, and the paler the skin the better. It Indicated that you (or your husband) had sufficient income that the woman would not have to go out into the sun to work, or toil in the out of doors.
We may romanticize the victorian life but for the mass majority of the population it was far from what we romanticize.
Never mind the working class, who were more concerned about making enough for the days meals, the risks far out out weighed the worry about green pigments .

[1918ColonialRevival]

Never mind the working class, who were more concerned about making enough for the days meals, the risks far out out weighed the worry about green pigments .

Another big concern was industrial accidents. People left for work hoping they would make it to see the end of their day. No official records were kept that I'm aware of, but I'd bet accidents were just as lethal as the many infectious diseases that made their rounds during those times. My grandfather, the same one who I mentioned earlier, started working in the coal mines when he was 12. No child labor laws existed and I can remember him telling me that he and a few of the others around his age were sent into seams that were only about 3 feet from floor to ceiling - places where an average sized adult couldn't fit. Several of his colleagues were killed, either from injuries sustained in the mine or from suffocation. This was in the early 1920s, so the hazardous workplace existed will into the 20th Century.

[Lily left the valley]

I didn't mean for my comment to be taken the wrong way. Lead poisoning is real and can have lasting effects and I feel sorry for those who have truly experienced it, much the same way I feel sorry for those who worked with asbestos in an industrial setting for years have suffered from respiratory problems and cancers. My grandfather suffered from asbestosis due to working on brake shoes in an unvented railroad car shop years and from black lung from working in coal mines for 20 years before that.

However, it has grown into a giant bogeyman and liability thanks largely to the legal community and those looking to turn what most would consider casual exposure into quick cash. Here in Baltimore, a lot of people use lead poisoning as a crutch for the bad behavior of their juvenile delinquent children instead of their own lack of parenting skills. That's why a lot of people around here have become jaded about the lead paint argument. I don't doubt that some people have legitimately been exposed to lead at toxic levels.

For that reason, at least in this area, it has become more of a challenge to get a loan on any older house or building that might contain one or both of these materials. When we bought this house in 2009, I went through Hell with my credit union over financing a house that was 91 years old at the time. I'm worried there may be a time when lenders will not finance older houses at all out of fear and ignorance (Navy Federal actually wanted to tear the slate roof off the house because it was an "original roof", thinking that slate has the same life expectancy as asphalt shingles).

Arsenic poisoning can be a slow, cumulative process - that's why at one time it was somewhat popular with ladies who were looking to "dispose" of their husbands by putting rat poison in their drinks a little at a time.

All I meant was we didn't need something else for the media and ambulance chaser types to run with. No offense intended to anyone who works in the legal world.

In all honesty, when I realized the place had been touched by flippers, I should have just assumed on the side of caution that there'd be lead paint given the age of the building. Instead, the fact that I knew the city had owned the property at one point further cemented my mistaken belief that any needed remediation would have been done when they held it--right? We were lucky, we only suffered minor symptoms (mostly the brain fog/memory recall, some muscle and constant fatigue issues), which was due to how short of a time we lived there. The doctor we finally nailed it down with surmised the fact that I was in the home more than Sean (because he'd leave the house to work--the house was my work at the time) coupled with my lower body/muscle weight is likely why I was that shade more affected. In retrospect since this came up here, I realized that not only were we likely exposed when we slept in that bedroom, but there was a stretch where we also slept and had our computers set up under that same room when we stayed in the cellar for a short spell during the hoarder tenant clean up when same tenant was moved to our old apartment because technically the cellar was not a legal living space--and there was no "ceiling" in the cellar--so that dust was gently raining down on us from between the very visible gaps in the original floor boards. (Why was the tenant moved instead of evicted? Section 8, elderly and a vet. The property homeowner, a vet himself, had an understandable soft spot. But when that tenant also started paying rent late and immediately went right back into hoarder mode in the apartment we moved him to--that's when he was finally evicted.)

Asbestos is something I know well from my tech theatre days (along with many other I now know to be harmful substances we had no safety measures in place while using). Many older lights abounded in various places I worked with their original asbestos cables that shed fibers. Some of us (on our own dime) would use masks and gloves when handling those. We got chided by the old timers for being soft for doing so. The last place I worked with such was in Rutherford, NJ around the time Sean and I met. All the extra lights were stored under the stage, and you could see the tell-tale dust twinkle in the worklights as we moved about under there. It was always a delight to work somewhere that had at least replaced the cables if not the entire light set up with the "new" kevlar, I think it was, sheathed cables.

My paternal grandfather was a union painter, and I remember a story he told about one gov building they were ripping asbestos out of back in the day. The painters were there working in the same building--often further down in the same corridor following behind any patch workers--while the demo was happening, with little to no fans or mitigation during the demo. None of the workers wore masks. It wasn't a thing then.

Several of the articles I've found lately do mention "Inheritance poison/powder" regarding arsenic and I've seen thallium mentioned like that too.

As I said, I completely understand the frustration with onerous overreach. Ignorance of old building materials is a large part of the problem, as you mentioned with your slate roof. (I've actually heard stories where insurance was popped up because of the slipping hazards associated with them as opposed to asphalt shingles.) As is updated safety codes such as for porch railing heights that skew the original architectural balance of a facade because a town has no consideration for historic preservation. It's also why some old homeowners struggle when modern day code meeting solutions don't WAI and cause more damage than good (blown in insulation--I'm especially reminded of horror stories about that).

At the same time, when you ask the old hands at the local supply shops about whom to contact when you take off potential asbestos siding mixed with the paper backed, they wink and say, "Just throw a handful in the trash at a time. They'll never notice."

We're human--we try and develop new things. When we find out some are harmful, we back off using them or make them safer to handle when we can. Living in a sue-happy country like America does make me sigh as well because of the over reach that can develop. But think of the children!

[Lily left the valley]

{snip}I believe it was the new middle classes that suffered the most, middle class affluence striving to rise above their station, would decorate there new middle class homes with the best they could afford, and if green wall paper was the latest decorating fashion then the home would get it.

One of the videos I watched said that the middle class practice of going to the seashore for their "health" (the commentator didn't mention going to the countryside but it likely was similar in result) really was doing that--they had removed themselves for a short spell from the environment that was causing their problems. It wasn't called going on holiday back then...there had a different phrase for it but I can't recall it at the moment. Take in airs or something?

We definitely do romanticize past eras. I think that mostly stopped for me when my brain suddenly fixated on how relatively new indoor plumbing was, in particular that we (the USA) as a country were able to introduce it faster since we weren't dealing with war time rebuilding. That was a serious perspective moment for me--you kinda know, but when you read about all the changes that rapidly (and not so) happened as a result of that--it makes a big difference. I mean, there are loads of other advances that are wonderful, but that was one which affects daily life in a number of ways, and I wouldn't trade it for anything. Especially as I'm much more of a domestic now than I was then, though we do use rain barrels to water our garden as needed.