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White Lead

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White Lead

White lead was first manufactured in Utah beginning in February and March 1883 at the Germania Lead Works in Murray. It was a major shift in the white lead market, with the local product replacing white lead shipped in from Eastern and Midwestern plants, and from plants in California (San Francisco).

White lead, scientifically known as basic lead carbonate, is a historical, highly toxic pigment that was the primary white paint and cosmetic used from antiquity until the early 20th century.

White lead was the go-to white pigment for European paint manufacturers for hundreds of years. When mixed with drying oils, it was highly prized for its rapid drying time, opacity, and satiny texture. Because of its durability and anti-corrosive properties, it was commercially manufactured as exterior and interior house paint.

Prior to the 1880s, white lead was manufactured by the time-comsuming "Dutch Process" that involved soaking lead sheets in a weak acid solution (usually vinegar; acetic acid) for up to eight weeks, then scraping off the oxidized lead pasts which was then dried and sold as either packaged powder or suspended in oil as paint. The major source for white lead in the West was from the Omaha White Lead company, which in 1878 opened its lead works adjacent to the lead smelter of the Omaha Smelting and Refining company. In 1885, Levi Carter (then president of the Omaha company) developed a new process of making white lead in a much shorter time period by atomizing molten lead into fine particles to speed up corrosion. With the new process in hand, Carter took control of the Omaha White Lead company and renamed the company as the Carter White Lead company, and used the new company to successfully industrialize the process and become a source for much lower-cost product.

A major selling point of using white lead manufactured in the West was that white lead shipped in barrels from Midwest and Eastern points tended to get "old" during the transportation process, requiring oil to be added at extra expense. Locally manufactured white lead was "fresh" and did not need to have oil added.

With the successful operation of the Germania lead smelter in Salt Lake City during the 1870s and early 1880s, it only seemed like a natural progression that a white lead works would soon be opened. By the early 1880s, there were white lead works in San Francisco, but with Salt Lake City and northern Utah becoming population centers, a local source for white lead was needed to reduce transportation costs and to take advantage of a productive local source for quality metallic lead. While Omaha served the Midwest, and San Francisco served the coast and Far West, a white lead works in Utah very soon dominated the Intermountain West region.

The Germania White Lead Works began operations in February 1883 using the Tuttle & McCreary steam atomization patent (U.S. Patent No. 148,862) for producing very small particles of lead that greatly speeded up the oxidization process, making it the first documented successful use of this technology in the West. This predates, by roughly three years, Levi Carter's commercial implementation of a similar process in 1886. The Carter process is usually credited, wrongly, with the innovation that industrialized the manufacture of white lead, when in fact the patent was issued in 1874, and the Germania plant used it in 1883.

(Tuttle & McCreary, shown on the patent as being residents of Baltimore, may have sold the rights to their patent to the Maryland White Lead company of Baltimore.)

With the opening of the Germania white lead works in February 1883, white lead in Salt Lake City was selling for 7 cents per pound, and Omaha white lead 7-1/2 cents and St. Louis white lead was 8-1/2 cents per pound. Prior to the Germania opening, "Western White Lead" made in California was selling for 9 cents per pound and "Atlantic White Lead" made in the East, was selling for 10 cents. The "Western" brand dropped to 6-1/2 cents in the months before the Germania plant opened. The newspaper advertisements for the other brands stopped in late February 1883, except for the "oldest and best" (and most expensive) St. Louis brand "well known for its quality and purity."

From "Mineral Resources of the United States" for the years 1883-1884, published in 1885 by the U. S. Geological Survey.

Before White Lead

Before industrialization, paint was a decentralized, homemade product. Painters-for-hire would travel from town to town, or village to village, with their pigments, or families would make their own, with recipes from either family members or neighbors. The ingredients were local, from a farmer's milk to iron-rich dirt from the ground. This was a world away from the uniform, factory-made paints that would come later.

In these early times, painting was not a universal practice. Many early Colonial houses were simply left unpainted. This wasn't just an aesthetic choice; paint acted as a sealant, and some believed it trapped moisture and accelerated wood rot, and that the wood needed to breathe.

Although lead paint was available in the 1700s, it was not yet a widely available commercial product in the modern sense. That status was achieved in the early 1800s, marked by key milestones like the first lead paint factory in the United States in 1804, the first ready-mixed paint in the 1870s. A good example of ready-mixed paints was the Sherwin Williams company. Founded in 1866 by businessmen Henry Sherwin and Edward Williams in Cleveland, Ohio, as a wholesale paint distributorship, the company began manufacturing their own paint in 1873 and shipping the product in barrels. In 1875 Sherwin-Williams introduced the first high-quality, oil-based ready-mixed paint, and in 1877 the company patented the first resealable paint can, making it easier for customers to store and reuse paint. In 1884 the partnership of Sherwin, Williams & Co. was officially incorporated in Ohio as The Sherwin-Williams Company.

Before lead-based paints became the dominant commercial product in the 1800s, paint in Colonial America was purely a local effort, handmade by individuals either for their own use or for a neighbor or family member. Making paint was a pioneer skill. Most paints were simple mixtures of a binder, such as milk or oil, with natural pigments sourced from the earth.

What was called "milk paint" was one of the most common and durable paints. It was made by mixing milk protein (casein) with lime and earth pigments. Traveling painters would mix the pigments on-site with a farmer's own milk and lime sourced within a short distance.

Whitewash was a cheap and popular choice, especially for interiors. It was simply a mixture of dried lime and water. It was used to make surfaces look clean and neat. A side benefit was that helped combat mildew.

There were oil-based paints, made by mixing natural pigments with a binder, most commonly linseed oil. However, they were more expensive and labor-intensive to produce, with the pigments being ground by hand.

After 1820, varnishes made from pine resin (rosin) became readily available as commercial products. Due to its low cost and ready availability, rosin soon overtook all other natural resins as the manufacture of varnish was industrialized used to make varnishes. During the mid and late 1800s, pine-resin varnishes came in two main types: "Oil Varnish" was made by cooking rosin with drying oils like linseed oil. This produced a durable product for use on wagons and carriages. "Spirit Varnish" was made by dissolving rosin in solvents like alcohol. These varnishes dried quickly but were less durable. As a side note, turpentine is also made from pine resin, and was used as the solvent in many varnishes.

Linseed oil is mentioned above. Linseed oil was made by crushing and pressing flax seeds, a method that was both labor-intensive and inefficient by modern standards. It became a widely available commercial product in the late 1700s, with the manufacture of linseed oil being industrialized and expanding significantly throughout the 1800s. The industry grew rapidly and by 1810 there were 283 linseed oil mills operating across just fourteen states.

Replaced by Titanium White

For commercial paints and coatings, the replacement of white lead by titanium dioxide (titanium white) was a lengthy, gradual process that took decades. While titanium dioxide became the dominant white pigment by the end of the 1920s, it took until the 1970s for health regulations to largely phase lead out of residential paints.

It's important to note that the shift from white lead to other white paint pigments was not a simple on/off switch. For many years, paints often contained mixtures of lead, zinc, and titanium whites. Lead-based paints were well established in the supply chain and continued to be used. Some specialist paints containing lead remain to be available for professional decorators and restoration technicians.

• 1916 -- The industrial production of titanium dioxide pigment began simultaneously in the U.S. and Norway.
• Late 1920s -- Titanium dioxide, along with zinc white, had already unseated lead white as the dominant white pigment in the market. Its superior hiding power and non-toxicity made it a more economical and safer choice.
• 1930s–1940s -- Titanium dioxide was increasingly used in domestic paints.
• 1950s -- The use of titanium dioxide was well-established in the paint industry and it had become the standard white pigment in new paint media like acrylics.
• 1978 -- The use of lead-based paint in residential properties was banned in 1978 by the federal government. Some cities, like Baltimore, had banned it even earlier, in the 1950s.

White Lead In Utah

February 8, 1882
"Articles of incorporation of the Germania Lead Works were filed yesterday in the County Clerk's Office. The capital stock is $500,000, divided into 5,000 shares of $100 each. The Directors are F. W. Billing, E. E. Eyre, W. D. O'Sullivan, A. W. Bowman, Jos. G. Eastland, Jos. B. Rosborough, J. G. Kellogg, W. A. Aldrich, Lewis Gerstle. The Company's place of business will be in San Francisco." (San Francisco Call Bulletin, February 8, 1882)

March 4, 1882
"The Germania Smelting and Refining Company of this city has disposed of its works and property to the Germania Lead Works of San Francisco, Cal. The latter will continue the business. - F. W. Billing, Manager." (Salt Lake Herald, March 4, 1882)

(The above notice continued daily through March 12, 1882.)

March 4, 1882
"San Francisco Lead Works. - Notice is published this morning that the Germania Smelting and Refining Company has disposed of its works and property to the Germania Lead Works of San Francisco, and they will continue the work here. This is the company which will build the white lead and lead pipe works here, and which was referred to before. The location of the works will be where the Germania Smelter now is, and the men are here ready to commence work the moment the weather will allow." (Salt Lake Herald, March 4, 1882)

(The dedicated white lead and lead pipe works were completed by February 1883, as shown below.)

August 25, 1882
"The Germania Lead Works shipped seven car loads of lead to the Germania Lead Works, of San Francisco, on Wednesday." (Salt Lake Herald, August 25, 1882)

November 1, 1882
"The Lead Works. — The buildings of the Germania lead works, a few miles south of the city, are nearing completion, and the manufacture of white lead, all kinds of lead piping, and in fact most articles produced from that metal, will probably soon be in full blast. The works will be a substantial benefit to the Territory as they will keep a great deal of means here that is now flowing out." (Deseret News, November 1, 1882)

February 2, 1883
"The Germania white lead works at Salt Lake have been delayed in starting work on account of the intense cold weather." (Omaha Daily Bee, February 2, 1883)

February 6, 1883
From the Salt Lake Herald, February 6, 1883.

(Read a comparison of the Tuttle & McCreary patent of 1874, and the process used by the Germania White Lead Works in 1883)

March 7, 1883
"The newly-started Germania White Lead Works have contracted for all their product for the year, and the capacity is to be doubled. Machinery for grinding the lead in oil arrived yesterday, and will be put to work at once." (San Francisco Examiner, March 7, 1883)

March 10, 1883
"The Germania Lead Works will soon begin the shipment of white lead." (Salt Lake Herald, March 10, 1883)

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