Before the 1930s, Marsh & McLennan employees were members of such engineering organizations as:
The American Society of Safety Engineers,
The American Society of Mechanical Engineers,
The American Institute of Electrical Engineers, and the
American Electric Railway Engineering Association.
1914
Here are excerpts from a 1914 Safety Engineering Journal article entitled, "Safety First" in Equitable Building:
"A gigantic building housing the population of a small city in the construction of which every piece of fireproofing material has been tested at 1,800 deg. F.; in which any fire is automatically isolated and the alarm given by means of the most elaborate intercommunicating fire alarm system ever planned and installed; wherein the life and property of every tenant is afforded absolute protection - in the design of which the art of fire-resistive construction and fire-protective equipment has been of first consideration."
"In commenting on insurance engineering in connection with the Equitable building, B. E. Loomis, chief engineer of the firm of Marsh & McLennan, to whom the working out of all details of fire-resistive materials and devices was entrusted said in part: 'In designing the fireproofing and fire protection of the Equitable building, it has been our aim primarily to properly cut off all vertical openings in the building and, in so doing, to use materials that we know will stand a temperature of at least 2,000 degrees... The sub-dividing partitions, doors, locks, hinges, door frames, door bucks, and, in fact, every detail that has entered into the construction of this building, have been known to successfully resist temperatures equivalent to the heat of a conflagration, and every one of these details has the Underwriters' approval as being the highest type of fireproof materials.'"
The elevator doors are described as "pocketed behind tile walls and operate by fusible links. They are made of two walls of cross-laid 22-gauge galvanized steel with air spaces and sheet asbestos between."
The article also contrasted the safety features in the new Equitable Building and the old Equitable Building. The new building has elevators with "brick shafts, metal cars and fire-doors of steel and asbestos."
1921
In a 1921 Safety Engineering issue the following is noted as to the Chicago Safety Council:
"This is a wide-awake organization which functions under the direction of an advisory committee, of which William Otter of Marsh & McLennan is chairman..."
"Its activities are divided into four major divisions known as Public Safety, Industrial Safety, Railroad and Public Utilities and Business Administration..."
"In a recent bulletin the Chicago Council said: 'Industrial managers and safety engineers who have had the widest experience in accident prevention are convinced that the industrial accident problem can never be solved and the public accident problem cannot even be touched until safety is incorporated into the community life and is organized just as there is organized health or any other activity having for its purpose the conserving of human life."
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