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- Details, Details
- What's that building to the left of the tower?
- Coal Barges
- Bromo-Seltzer
- Inner harbor
- The Basin
- What a headache!
- Giant stepladder?
- Baldwin 62303
- Baldwin VO-1000
- Cold
- No expense spared
- Tough Guys
- Lost in Toyland
- And without gloves
- If I were a blindfolded time traveler
- Smoke Consumer Also Cooks
- Oh that stove!
- Possibly still there?
- What?!?
- $100 Reward
- Freeze Frame
- Texas Flyer wanted
- Just a Year Too Soon
- WWII -- Replacing men with women at the railroad crossing.
- Yes, Icing
- You kids drive me nuts!
- NOT An Easy Job
- I wonder
- Just add window boxes
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Gal Masque: 1942
June 1942. "Edgewood Arsenal, Maryland. Gas demonstration. Reconditioning gas masks at the gas mask factory." Medium format acetate negative by Jack Delano. View full size.
Full Face Respirators
I was certified on full-face respirators for almost 40 years. By the time I started using them in 1980, there were no longer individual "eyes" on them, and you could, presumably, see much better out of them. Alas, you still had to get a good seal between your face and the rubber of the mask, and at best they were merely uncomfortable unless you had to do some actual physical labor while wearing them, in which case they were excruciatingly uncomfortable. On numerous occasions I could literally pour the sweat out of my mask when I was done working. Powered air purifying respirators (PAPRs) were not only more comfortable but provided a much better protection factor than the masks. Still a pain in the butt, though.
The Rite of Passage
In the US military an important part of everyone's basic training is going into the gas chamber (a small building) and removing the mask to feel the full impact of CS. It's not pleasant, to say the least.
Two wars later
I found myself in a gas demonstration using real people (i.e., me). By that time the masks looked less like Harpo Marx and more like grasshoppers.
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