Grover Shoe Factory disaster
Encyclopedia
The Grover Shoe Factory disaster was an industrial explosion, building collapse and fire that killed 58 people and injured 150 when it leveled the R. B. Grover shoe factory in Brockton, Massachusetts
on March 20, 1905. Following a boiler explosion
, the four-story wooden building collapsed and the ruins burst into flames, incinerating workers trapped in the wreckage.
The Grover disaster brought new attention to industrial safety and led to stringent safety laws and a national code
governing the safe operation of steam boilers.
Grover made the popular Emerson brand shoe, and business had been good enough to add a fourth floor.
The factory was heated using steam radiator
s, with the steam being produced by coal-fired steel boilers installed in a brick boiler house attached to the wooden factory as the crossbar of the E.
When the fourth floor was added, the original boiler was replaced by a larger one and the old boiler, 17 feet (5.2 m) long and six feet in diameter, was left in place as a backup.
Since the new boiler could generally meet the factory's demands on its own, the old one was seldom used; and when used, was used reluctantly.
Grover's chief engineer
David Rockwell, who had a first-class engineer's license
and twelve years experience, did not trust it.
Early that cold damp Monday, he fed its coal fire and put the boiler to work heating the building for arriving day-shift workers.
At 7:45 a.m. the plant manager telephoned Rockwell to ask about some strange noises coming from the radiators along one wall. Rockwell had just stepped out of the building, but his assistant assured the manager that everything was in order.
A few minutes later, the old boiler exploded, rocketing up through three floors and the roof.
at one end of the building and its full tank smashed through the roof, causing that end of the building to immediately collapse, with the floors pancaking and the walls falling in on top of them.
Many workers who survived the initial explosion and collapse were trapped by broken beams and heavy machinery. Burning coals thrown from the boiler's fire pit
landed throughout the debris, starting fires that were fed by broken natural gas
lines.
The factory's more than 300 windows, now blown out, created a chimney effect in the parts of the factory still standing, resulting in a fire hot enough to melt iron pipes and radiators.
The wooden floors, treated nightly with linseed oil
to keep the dust down, burned quickly.
High winds helped spread the fire to nearby storage sheds and neighboring buildings including a hardware store and a rooming house.
The Campello neighborhood's district firehouse
shared a city block with the factory and its firefighters arrived quickly, as did many local citizens.
Using long timbers as levers, they were able to lift some of the wreckage and rescue some workers before the flames reached them.
Local newspapers recount many acts of heroism in the rescues made that day.
Barrels of naphtha
, a volatile industrial solvent related to gasoline, were stored in a wooden shed directly behind the boiler house. The shed was set afire by the burning coals and the naphtha exploded, throwing sheets of flame onto the wreckage and driving rescuers away.
Workers in the sections still standing escaped down stairways or climbed to the roof; others had to jump from windows because the explosion had knocked some fire escapes off the building.
About 100 workers escaped unharmed and 150 were injured.
A number who were only slightly injured went home without reporting their injuries.
Police later related the story of a worker so dazed that he left the scene, applied for a job at another shoe factory, worked all day, then went home to find his family mourning him.
From her kitchen window, Mrs. Rockwell had seen him sitting in a chair near the boiler house window five minutes before the explosion.
A search of the boiler house the next day turned up a charred body, a bent watch, two rubber heels and a torn piece of clothing identified by Mrs. Rockwell as belonging to her husband.
Survivors were asked to register their names with the police.
Body collection began that afternoon, with only bone fragments to be found toward the rear of the factory where the fire was worst.
As families arrived looking for missing workers, grief-stricken relatives ran back and forth between reading the latest survivor lists and watching the recovery of bodies.
Due to the extreme heat of the fire, only a few bodies could be positively identified. Thirty-nine unidentified victims were buried in a ceremony at Brockton's Melrose Cemetery three days later.
The disaster's 58th victim, Hiram Pierce, died on April 15.
announced that the injured would be paid $5 weekly until they recovered, and that the families of the dead would receive $100 for each family member killed.
Civic leaders created the Brockton Relief Fund, which collected and distributed nearly $105,000 in cash assistance to the families.
Factory owner Robbins Grover worked for the rest of his life to secure financial aid for the families of those who died.
showed steam pressure to be in the safe range and the boiler to have plenty of water.
The state Inspector of Boilers checked the boiler's fusible plug
and determined that the explosion was not caused by a lack of water.
Rockwell's wife stated that for the past few days her husband had been irritable because he had to operate the boiler at "a pressure it was unequal to".
A factory official stated that he was "at a loss" to account for the explosion, and when told of Mrs. Rockwell's remarks said that the amount of pressure on the boiler was not a matter in which factory officials interfered, adding that the engineer "took his orders in this matter from the Hartford Boiler Insurance Company, and if he overworked that boiler he did it without our knowledge. We do not even know why he used the old boiler this week instead of the newer one".
One Grover executive speculated that the explosion might have been caused by a recently installed safety device. C. E. Roberts, a manager of Hartford Steam Boiler, stated "So far as I have been able to learn there appears to have been no carelessness in the handling of the boiler, and the explosion, in my opinion, was caused by a defect that was impossible to discover."
Boiler inspectors who examined the ripped-open
boiler reported finding a crack in one of its rivet
ed, lap joint
ed seams.
Experts characterized the boiler, built in 1890, as old technology likely to have a short service life under high pressure. Thousands of similar boilers were then in use in the United States.
On March 29 the district attorney stated that the accident was due to a hidden defect in the boiler and that no criminal charges
would be filed.
As to civil liability
, two weeks later a judge ruled that the explosion was caused by a defect that could not have been discovered, and held the company blameless.
He also found that the various insinuations made against chief engineer Rockwell were untrue.
At least two barrels of naphtha
were stored in a wooden shed directly behind the boiler house.
The study said that without the naphtha explosions the number of deaths would have been only about one-quarter of the actual. When the naphtha exploded, it crushed one side of the factory building, pinning more workers under beams and machinery. A second outbuilding containing naphtha caught fire after about fifteen minutes and there was a second naphtha explosion, showering hundreds of gallons of the flaming liquid on the burning wreckage.
Engineers estimated the force of the boiler explosion as equal to 300 kilos (660 pounds) of dynamite.
, Captain Grover was financially ruined.
The R. B. Grover Company declared bankruptcy
and assigned its remaining assets, more than 30 Emerson shoe stores scattered around the country, to its creditors.
(ASME) had been founded in 1880 in response to the boiler explosions that had become common as the use of steam power expanded during the Industrial Revolution
. Between 1880 and 1890 there were over 2000 boiler explosions in the United States. By 1890, some 100,000 boilers were in service, many of them unsafe.
Inspections were rare, and operating guidelines almost nonexistent. Steam pressures were regularly cranked up to produce additional work.
The Grover disaster, coupled with another fatal Massachusetts shoe factory boiler explosion the following year, brought new cries for improved industrial safety.
A new governor demanded prompt action and a Board of Boiler Rules was formed, drafting a simple three-page set of rules. After the ASME helped overcome manufacturer objections to "needless government interference", Massachusetts passed "An Act Relating to the Operation and Inspection of Steam Boilers" in 1907. The Massachusetts laws eventually led to passage of a national boiler safety code.
Safety improved, but the Massachusetts fatalities would not be the last. Twenty-three people were killed and 94 injured in 1962 when a boiler exploded and ripped through a New York Telephone Company cafeteria at lunchtime. A city agency later determined that the boiler had been improperly maintained and operated.
Brockton, Massachusetts
Brockton is a city in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, United States; the population was 93,810 in the 2010 Census. Brockton, along with Plymouth, are the county seats of Plymouth County...
on March 20, 1905. Following a boiler explosion
Boiler explosion
A boiler explosion is a catastrophic failure of a boiler. As seen today, boiler explosions are of two kinds. One kind is over-pressure in the pressure parts of the steam and water sides. The second kind is explosion in the furnace. Boiler explosions of pressure parts are particularly associated...
, the four-story wooden building collapsed and the ruins burst into flames, incinerating workers trapped in the wreckage.
The Grover disaster brought new attention to industrial safety and led to stringent safety laws and a national code
Code (law)
A code is a type of legislation that purports to exhaustively cover a complete system of laws or a particular area of law as it existed at the time the code was enacted, by a process of codification. Though the process and motivations for codification are similar in common law and civil law...
governing the safe operation of steam boilers.
The factory
The R. B. Grover shoe factory was big, but not the biggest in Brockton, a town that had 35,000 shoe workers. The wooden building, shaped like a letter E, occupied half a city block.Grover made the popular Emerson brand shoe, and business had been good enough to add a fourth floor.
The factory was heated using steam radiator
Radiator
Radiators are heat exchangers used to transfer thermal energy from one medium to another for the purpose of cooling and heating. The majority of radiators are constructed to function in automobiles, buildings, and electronics...
s, with the steam being produced by coal-fired steel boilers installed in a brick boiler house attached to the wooden factory as the crossbar of the E.
When the fourth floor was added, the original boiler was replaced by a larger one and the old boiler, 17 feet (5.2 m) long and six feet in diameter, was left in place as a backup.
Since the new boiler could generally meet the factory's demands on its own, the old one was seldom used; and when used, was used reluctantly.
Grover's chief engineer
Engineer
An engineer is a professional practitioner of engineering, concerned with applying scientific knowledge, mathematics and ingenuity to develop solutions for technical problems. Engineers design materials, structures, machines and systems while considering the limitations imposed by practicality,...
David Rockwell, who had a first-class engineer's license
Licensure
Licensure refers to the granting of a license, which gives a "permission to practice." Such licenses are usually issued in order to regulate some activity that is deemed to be dangerous or a threat to the person or the public or which involves a high level of specialized skill...
and twelve years experience, did not trust it.
Explosion
The new boiler had to be flushed out as part of its regular maintenance, so Rockwell had put the old boiler back into service temporarily.Early that cold damp Monday, he fed its coal fire and put the boiler to work heating the building for arriving day-shift workers.
At 7:45 a.m. the plant manager telephoned Rockwell to ask about some strange noises coming from the radiators along one wall. Rockwell had just stepped out of the building, but his assistant assured the manager that everything was in order.
A few minutes later, the old boiler exploded, rocketing up through three floors and the roof.
Collapse and fire
The flying boiler knocked over an elevated water towerWater tower
A water tower or elevated water tower is a large elevated drinking water storage container constructed to hold a water supply at a height sufficient to pressurize a water distribution system....
at one end of the building and its full tank smashed through the roof, causing that end of the building to immediately collapse, with the floors pancaking and the walls falling in on top of them.
Many workers who survived the initial explosion and collapse were trapped by broken beams and heavy machinery. Burning coals thrown from the boiler's fire pit
Fire pit
Fire pits have been in existence for a very long time and despite many technological advancements since the advent of man's use of fire, they have remained a popular item because of their versatility. A fire pit can physically vary from a pit dug into the ground to an elaborate gas burning...
landed throughout the debris, starting fires that were fed by broken natural gas
Natural gas
Natural gas is a naturally occurring gas mixture consisting primarily of methane, typically with 0–20% higher hydrocarbons . It is found associated with other hydrocarbon fuel, in coal beds, as methane clathrates, and is an important fuel source and a major feedstock for fertilizers.Most natural...
lines.
The factory's more than 300 windows, now blown out, created a chimney effect in the parts of the factory still standing, resulting in a fire hot enough to melt iron pipes and radiators.
The wooden floors, treated nightly with linseed oil
Linseed oil
Linseed oil, also known as flaxseed oil, is a clear to yellowish oil obtained from the dried ripe seeds of the flax plant . The oil is obtained by cold pressing, sometimes followed by solvent extraction...
to keep the dust down, burned quickly.
High winds helped spread the fire to nearby storage sheds and neighboring buildings including a hardware store and a rooming house.
The Campello neighborhood's district firehouse
Fire station
A fire station is a structure or other area set aside for storage of firefighting apparatus , personal protective equipment, fire hose, fire extinguishers, and other fire extinguishing equipment...
shared a city block with the factory and its firefighters arrived quickly, as did many local citizens.
Using long timbers as levers, they were able to lift some of the wreckage and rescue some workers before the flames reached them.
Local newspapers recount many acts of heroism in the rescues made that day.
Barrels of naphtha
Naphtha
Naphtha normally refers to a number of different flammable liquid mixtures of hydrocarbons, i.e., a component of natural gas condensate or a distillation product from petroleum, coal tar or peat boiling in a certain range and containing certain hydrocarbons. It is a broad term covering among the...
, a volatile industrial solvent related to gasoline, were stored in a wooden shed directly behind the boiler house. The shed was set afire by the burning coals and the naphtha exploded, throwing sheets of flame onto the wreckage and driving rescuers away.
Escape
Between 300 and 400 workers were in the factory at the time of the explosion.Workers in the sections still standing escaped down stairways or climbed to the roof; others had to jump from windows because the explosion had knocked some fire escapes off the building.
About 100 workers escaped unharmed and 150 were injured.
A number who were only slightly injured went home without reporting their injuries.
Police later related the story of a worker so dazed that he left the scene, applied for a job at another shoe factory, worked all day, then went home to find his family mourning him.
Death
An immediate search was made for the chief engineer. Rockwell was at first reported as among the injured, then could not be found, then at one point was reported as having left town.From her kitchen window, Mrs. Rockwell had seen him sitting in a chair near the boiler house window five minutes before the explosion.
A search of the boiler house the next day turned up a charred body, a bent watch, two rubber heels and a torn piece of clothing identified by Mrs. Rockwell as belonging to her husband.
Survivors were asked to register their names with the police.
Body collection began that afternoon, with only bone fragments to be found toward the rear of the factory where the fire was worst.
As families arrived looking for missing workers, grief-stricken relatives ran back and forth between reading the latest survivor lists and watching the recovery of bodies.
Due to the extreme heat of the fire, only a few bodies could be positively identified. Thirty-nine unidentified victims were buried in a ceremony at Brockton's Melrose Cemetery three days later.
The disaster's 58th victim, Hiram Pierce, died on April 15.
Financial assistance
On the day of the fire, the leatherworkers unionTrade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
announced that the injured would be paid $5 weekly until they recovered, and that the families of the dead would receive $100 for each family member killed.
Civic leaders created the Brockton Relief Fund, which collected and distributed nearly $105,000 in cash assistance to the families.
Factory owner Robbins Grover worked for the rest of his life to secure financial aid for the families of those who died.
Failure theories
An assistant engineer who had been with Rockwell five minutes before the explosion stated that when he left, the boiler gaugesGauge (engineering)
In engineering, a gauge or gage, is used to make measurements. A wide variety of tools exist which serve such funtions, ranging from simple pieces of material against which sizes can be measured to complex pieces of machinery...
showed steam pressure to be in the safe range and the boiler to have plenty of water.
The state Inspector of Boilers checked the boiler's fusible plug
Fusible plug
A fusible plug is a threaded metal cylinder usually of bronze, brass or gunmetal, with a tapered hole drilled completely through its length. This hole is sealed with a metal of low melting point that flows away if a pre-determined, high temperature is reached...
and determined that the explosion was not caused by a lack of water.
Rockwell's wife stated that for the past few days her husband had been irritable because he had to operate the boiler at "a pressure it was unequal to".
A factory official stated that he was "at a loss" to account for the explosion, and when told of Mrs. Rockwell's remarks said that the amount of pressure on the boiler was not a matter in which factory officials interfered, adding that the engineer "took his orders in this matter from the Hartford Boiler Insurance Company, and if he overworked that boiler he did it without our knowledge. We do not even know why he used the old boiler this week instead of the newer one".
One Grover executive speculated that the explosion might have been caused by a recently installed safety device. C. E. Roberts, a manager of Hartford Steam Boiler, stated "So far as I have been able to learn there appears to have been no carelessness in the handling of the boiler, and the explosion, in my opinion, was caused by a defect that was impossible to discover."
Inquest
A coroner's inquest was convened. A Grover representative testified that the boiler was inspected in December and found in apparent good condition. Several employees testified that David Rockwell "seemed capable of attending to his duties" that morning.Boiler inspectors who examined the ripped-open
Steam rupture
A steam rupture occurs within a pressurized system of super critical water when the pressure exceeds the design plus safety margin specification...
boiler reported finding a crack in one of its rivet
Rivet
A rivet is a permanent mechanical fastener. Before being installed a rivet consists of a smooth cylindrical shaft with a head on one end. The end opposite the head is called the buck-tail. On installation the rivet is placed in a punched or pre-drilled hole, and the tail is upset, or bucked A rivet...
ed, lap joint
Lap joint
In woodworking or metal fitting, a lap joint is a technique for joining two pieces of material by overlapping them. A lap may be a full lap or half lap....
ed seams.
Experts characterized the boiler, built in 1890, as old technology likely to have a short service life under high pressure. Thousands of similar boilers were then in use in the United States.
On March 29 the district attorney stated that the accident was due to a hidden defect in the boiler and that no criminal charges
Indictment
An indictment , in the common-law legal system, is a formal accusation that a person has committed a crime. In jurisdictions that maintain the concept of felonies, the serious criminal offence is a felony; jurisdictions that lack the concept of felonies often use that of an indictable offence—an...
would be filed.
As to civil liability
Civil law (common law)
Civil law, as opposed to criminal law, is the branch of law dealing with disputes between individuals or organizations, in which compensation may be awarded to the victim...
, two weeks later a judge ruled that the explosion was caused by a defect that could not have been discovered, and held the company blameless.
He also found that the various insinuations made against chief engineer Rockwell were untrue.
Engineering study
An engineering study begun as part of the inquest brought new facts to light.At least two barrels of naphtha
Naphtha
Naphtha normally refers to a number of different flammable liquid mixtures of hydrocarbons, i.e., a component of natural gas condensate or a distillation product from petroleum, coal tar or peat boiling in a certain range and containing certain hydrocarbons. It is a broad term covering among the...
were stored in a wooden shed directly behind the boiler house.
The study said that without the naphtha explosions the number of deaths would have been only about one-quarter of the actual. When the naphtha exploded, it crushed one side of the factory building, pinning more workers under beams and machinery. A second outbuilding containing naphtha caught fire after about fifteen minutes and there was a second naphtha explosion, showering hundreds of gallons of the flaming liquid on the burning wreckage.
Engineers estimated the force of the boiler explosion as equal to 300 kilos (660 pounds) of dynamite.
Bankruptcy
Although his factory was insuredInsurance
In law and economics, insurance is a form of risk management primarily used to hedge against the risk of a contingent, uncertain loss. Insurance is defined as the equitable transfer of the risk of a loss, from one entity to another, in exchange for payment. An insurer is a company selling the...
, Captain Grover was financially ruined.
The R. B. Grover Company declared bankruptcy
Bankruptcy
Bankruptcy is a legal status of an insolvent person or an organisation, that is, one that cannot repay the debts owed to creditors. In most jurisdictions bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the debtor....
and assigned its remaining assets, more than 30 Emerson shoe stores scattered around the country, to its creditors.
Legacy
The American Society of Mechanical EngineersAmerican Society of Mechanical Engineers
The American Society of Mechanical Engineers is a professional body, specifically an engineering society, focused on mechanical engineering....
(ASME) had been founded in 1880 in response to the boiler explosions that had become common as the use of steam power expanded during the Industrial Revolution
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times...
. Between 1880 and 1890 there were over 2000 boiler explosions in the United States. By 1890, some 100,000 boilers were in service, many of them unsafe.
Inspections were rare, and operating guidelines almost nonexistent. Steam pressures were regularly cranked up to produce additional work.
The Grover disaster, coupled with another fatal Massachusetts shoe factory boiler explosion the following year, brought new cries for improved industrial safety.
A new governor demanded prompt action and a Board of Boiler Rules was formed, drafting a simple three-page set of rules. After the ASME helped overcome manufacturer objections to "needless government interference", Massachusetts passed "An Act Relating to the Operation and Inspection of Steam Boilers" in 1907. The Massachusetts laws eventually led to passage of a national boiler safety code.
Safety improved, but the Massachusetts fatalities would not be the last. Twenty-three people were killed and 94 injured in 1962 when a boiler exploded and ripped through a New York Telephone Company cafeteria at lunchtime. A city agency later determined that the boiler had been improperly maintained and operated.
See also
- Boiler insuranceBoiler insuranceBoiler insurance is a type of insurance that covers repairs and in some cases the replacement of a home boiler. It can also cover other parts of the central heating system and even plumbing and electrics.-Types of boiler cover:...
- Fire-tube boilerFire-tube boilerA fire-tube boiler is a type of boiler in which hot gases from a fire pass through one or more tubes running through a sealed container of water...
- List of industrial disasters
- Pemberton MillPemberton MillThe Pemberton Mill was a large factory in Lawrence, Massachusetts, which collapsed without warning on January 10, 1860 in what is likely "the worst industrial accident in Massachusetts history" and "one of the worst industrial calamities in American history"...
- Sultana steamboat explosionSultana (steamboat)The SS Sultana was a Mississippi River steamboat paddlewheeler whose destruction in an explosion on April 27, 1865 was the greatest maritime disaster in United States history. An estimated 1,800 of the Sultanas 2,400 passengers were killed when three of the ship's four boilers exploded and the...