Arsenic and Old Books

The NRM's collection of possibly poisonous books.

    In 1820 Archibald Leighton, a bookbinder, and William Pickering, a book publisher, developed a method of coating fabric with starch, making it stiffer – this was the first commercial book cloth and it became a sensation. As cloth bound books became popular in the later 1800s, bookbinders started to take advantage of the wide array of colors they now had at their disposal. This resulted in books being published in a veritable rainbow of shades. Depending on how much money you had, you could order books bound in specific colors to match your personal library. A book could be a fashionable accessory if you could afford to make it so. Emerald green was one of the more vibrant hues a book (or dress, or hat) could come in, but emerald green items came with a concerning caveat – they were poisonous.

    There are two ways to color a cloth bound book, dyes and pigments (these sound like they’re synonyms but there’s actually a difference). Dyes will chemically bond with the material they are applied to, whereas a pigment is something spread on top of a material. The greens used on book-cloth fall into the latter category, they’re pigments. There are a shocking amount of arsenical greens, the first of which being Scheele’s Green which arrived on the scene in 1775, when it was invented ‘almost on accident’ by Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele. Scheele’s green was incredibly vibrant, so the color quickly replaced the less than brilliant green pigments that were on the market. And then came Schweinfurt Green, created in 1814, by a paint and dye company in Schweinfurt Germany, and grew in popularity so fast that “By 1860, these many varieties of Schweinfurt Green were being produced to the extent of 700 tons per year in Britain alone, and still more was imported from the continent” (The Arsenic Century, James C. Whorton). So far, the Poison Book Project (run by the Winterthur Museum) has identified around 88 books confirmed (by chemical testing) to contain toxic green pigment. And Green wasn’t the only toxic color on the market. Carbonated lead was famously used as pigment in things like makeup, lead and yes, books. When the Melbourne Museum in Australia tested 120 books from their Rare Book Collection for heavy metals and toxic pigments, “just four in the museum’s collection contained arsenic while 10 had high levels of lead.” (Museums Victoria). Lead could be mixed with various other pigments to create colors like red and even a vibrant yellow (which can be found in many of Van Gogh’s paintings). Mercury, another heavy metal was used to create Vermillion, a beautiful shade of red for years. Vermillion can often be found in the marbled end papers of older books.

"The Arsenic Waltz" a cartoon featured in British comedy magazine
"Punch" is dedicated to those who made the poisonous gowns

 Toxic shades of green weren’t only found in books, quite the opposite in fact. Scheele and Schweinfurt greens could be found in everything from candy and medicine to wallpaper (it’s actually thought that Scheele Green wallpaper was partially responsible for the death of Napoleon!). Gowns dyed with the greens were particularly striking, but they were also incredibly dangerous to the wearer. Victorian gowns were made with incredible amounts of fabric (according to historicalsewing.com, up to 10 yards of fabric could be used for one gown!). “On a dry fabric, this might not cause too many problems,” says Ali Bodley, senior curator at York Castle Museum in an interview with Museums of the World, “but as soon as the wearer started to perspire, the arsenic could be absorbed into the blood stream.” where the chemical could do serious and long-lasting damage.     Now these books don’t contain enough arsenic to harm someone badly, but experts still recommend that if you find a book or item you suspect contains arsenic, you should take care to handle it with gloves and clean the surfaces it came in contact with. In a National Geographic article on Emerald Green books and their possible dangers, Michael Gladle the director of environmental health and safety at the University of Delaware talks about if handling the books is dangerous or not “Arsenic is a heavy metal and does have some toxicity associated with it, principally, either inhalation or ingestion,” he says. The relative risk of emerald green book cloth “depends on frequency,” Gladle says, and is really only a concern “for those that are in the business of preservation.” (Justin Brower, Michael Gladle, National Geographic). The same goes for books with lead or mercury pigments, yes, the chemicals are detrimental to your health in large quantities or throughout prolonged exposures (factory workers who handled emerald green by the gallon would suffer skin lesions and in extreme cases even cancer), but they amount used in books will rarely make someone sick.

Illustrated plate from a French medical book showing
arsenic injuries to the hands

    For more information on arsenical books, how to identify them, and to see a list of confirmed toxic books, visit the Winterthur Poison Book Projects website (http://wiki.winterthur.org/PoisonBookProject/). The Winterthur Conservationists are the leading researchers when it comes to poisonous books. If you think you have a book with arsenical green book cloth, you can even request that they send you a bookmark with full color swatches of the various shades so you can identify them. The Northwest Railway Museum recently requested a batch of these bookmarks so that we can take the proper measures when it comes to handling our own collection of books, some of which may be arsenic or emerald green.

Another shot of the museum's own possibly toxic books

Compact rolling shelving

The new Railway Education Center.

The new Railway Education Center was dedicated in October, but over the last few months finishing touches have been applied to prepare it for use. Some of these "extras" are rather unique and unusual features long planned for this facility, and for some their inclusion may feel almost anticlimactic, but planning, designing, funding, and constructing has been a 25 year effort. 

Beginning in December 2016 special high density rolling shelving was installed in the archival vault. The project was completed last week, a major milestone for a project that was first conceived in 1992. 

The archival vault is a special windowless room with precise temperature and humidity control coupled with a clean-agent fire suppression system.  These features were among the key recommendations contained in the needs assessment funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities and performed by noted preservation librarian Randy Silverman.  For some, these features may seem rather esoteric, but for archivists and curators it is vital for the preservation of documents and artifacts. Yet archival space is valuable so achieving maximum efficiency is in everyone's interest.  

An installer from WorkPointe levels the
rails that will soon support the compact
rolling shelving carriages.

Compact rolling shelving allows a single aisle to service a roomful of shelves, which nearly doubles a room's capacity.  Each section of shelving is mounted on rolling carriages that can be positioned to provide an access aisle.  Rails were set into the vault floor and each section carriage was independently installed.  A hand wheel on the end of each carriage and shelf assembly is used to transmit propulsion to the carriage wheels.

Installation of new upper
shelves..

The shelving itself is rather conventional, but features a powder-coated finish that is scratch-resistant and low-VOC (volatile organic compounds).  The system was designed and built by SpaceSaver, and installation was funded in part by 4Culture who approved two Heritage Equipment grants in support of the project. The system was installed by WorkPointe who also arranged for a local medical center to donate the lower sections of these almost new shelves. The upper sections - to bring the total useful height to 10 feet - were purchased new.

Installing linoleum flooring.

The room itself was carefully designed to exclude any water pipes from adjacent walls or ceilings. Under the gypsum board walls a monolithic vapor barrier was applied and sealed around the frames of all room penetrations. Interior surfaces were coated with low-VOC paint, and linoleum flooring was selected for its chemical stability.  

Completion of the archival vault and the installation of the first seven shelving carriages represents a remarkable milestone in development of the Northwest Railway Museum.  Almost 3,000 linear feet of shelving now stand ready to accept small objects, photographs, maps, drawings, books and more.  This milestone also represents the beginning of the real work: completing the sorting, cataloging, and finding aids for a collection 60 years in the making.

White glove team

The Northwest Railway Museum was honored to host a Reinforcement Crew event on May 17.  The Reinforcement Crew is a team of museum collections professionals from the Registrars Committee of the American Alliance of Museums ("AAM").  The AAM is holding their conference in Seattle this month and registrars from all over North American are visiting for this largest annual gathering of museum professionals in the world.

The Reinforcement Crew supports collections projects at small museums located in the annual conference host city. This 7th annual event selected five projects to support, including one here at the Northwest Railway Museum.   The Museum's project inventoried and boxed the collection of published material, which has been housed in the Snoqualmie Depot since the early 1980s.  This paper-based collection is being packed up and stored in preparation for its eventual relocation to the new Railway History Center library expected to open next year in Snoqualmie.  The new library will store materials in a temperature and humidity-controlled vault to help assure long term preservation.

Volunteers participating in the Northwest Railway Museum's project included Rebecca Engelhardt, Museum of Glass; Jessica Wilks, Tacoma Art Museum; Elizabeth K Mauro, Art Installation; Mell Scalzi, Museum of Arts and Design; Ariane Westin-McCaw, Nordic Heritage Museum; and Jeri Miller, Artech.  Participating from the Northwest Railway Museum were Cristy Lake, Peggy Barchi, Dennis Snook, George Houle and Spike.  Thank you to  all who participating!

During a seven hour work party, more than 120 boxes were filled with books and a detailed inventory of each box was generated and recorded.  Boxes were loaded into the Museum's coach 218, which has been undergoing rehabilitation and restoration in the Conservation and Restoration Center.  The 218 is nearly complete with a few weeks work on ceilings, some moldings and seats remaining to be completed. So it was a natural choice for transporting the library collection as it was not yet being used on the regular train, and it gave Museum staff an opportunity to evaluate the car's performance.  It also gave the visiting collections volunteers an opportunity to travel in rehabilitated coach more than 100 years old!

Research and the process of education

Education at the Northwest Railway Museum has many levels. It is interpretation – whether a small or large exhibit or even a sign found around the site. It is education programs like Pre-School Train and School Train. It is educational tours of the Depot or the CRC. It is also the train rides which begin again in April. Education has many levels, all of which require background knowledge of the subject matter to be presented, and background knowledge comes from research.

Sometimes the research has already been done and all one needs to do is read and absorb the information so they can present it in a coherent manner (whether in verbal or written form). Often times, though, research is required. So where to begin? Once you have your topic, the easiest first step is searching our archives. What does the Museum have that relates to the subject? Once we have established what we have, then we need to determine what we need. This could be written material to build our content, photos to add visual depth to the presentation, or archival documents to connect people and events across time.

There are some great online resources to help with this type of research, among them is the University of Washington’s digital collections, Washington State Archives, and the Library of Congress digital collections. There are many additional sites that can be very helpful, but these three are a great place to start looking for information and resources.

On a recent online trip we found multiple images and maps that could work well in a tentative Train Shed exhibit, along with interesting primary documents pertaining to the need – in Washington Territory – for a railroad. This research is how we begin to build exhibits and interpretation (= education) here at the Museum. And while it can sometimes be difficult locating the information you need – when you finally find, or stumble, upon the missing piece – it can be very rewarding. It is much like completing a puzzle when you don't have the box and picture to help guide your work!


Photograph: Locomotive #1265 at Lester, WA. Longworth Collection, Northwest Railway Museum.

Certificate: Certificate of marriage, Colville, WA circa 1915. Washington State Archives.