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David Beyer, first
hired employee |
Since its founding in 1912, Liberty Mutual has demonstrated a steadfast commitment to workplace safety. The company's first hired employee, David Beyer, was an experienced industrial safety engineer. His accident prevention department offered customers the help of trained safety professionals as part of their insurance coverage — an innovative service concept in a time when most companies could not afford their own in-house safety programs. To further improve workplace safety, Beyer produced a safety handbook, titled Industrial Accident Prevention. This 400-page text served as the premier guidebook for industrial safety professionals for more than a decade.
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Scene from
"The Outlaw" |
Eager to promote workplace safety to a broader audience, Beyer branched out using the latest technology of the day — motion pictures. Partnering with Paramount Pictures in 1918, he wrote and produced an 18-minute safety film, The Outlaw. In 1920, Beyer wrote and produced a more elaborate safety film, The Hand of Fate. Used extensively by Liberty Mutual's loss prevention representatives for customer training, more than a quarter million plant managers and employees viewed the two films in the early 1920s.
Throughout the 1920s and 30s, Liberty Mutual aggressively pushed for customer acceptance of safety initiatives such as on-site first-aid facilities and employee training in lifesaving methods. Behind the scenes, a handful of researchers began exploring new ways to reduce injuries on and off the job. From the basement of Liberty Mutual's home office in Boston, these researchers developed safety innovations, investigated occupational disease control, and made significant contributions to the nascent health and safety research community.
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Industrial machine guards, an early
safety achievement |
Among the many notable early achievements were specially designed industrial machine guards to protect factory workers from losing or injuring hands and/or fingers and an emergency escalator shut-off switch to prevent serious injuries that occurred when children's shoes caught under a moving escalator step. These innovations were significant — many of Liberty's machine guarding designs eventually became national standards, and the shut-off switch became a code requirement for all escalators in 1960.
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On-site first-aid clinics,
an early safety initiative |
During the Depression era, Liberty Mutual partnered with the Harvard School of Public Health to investigate the causes and control of occupational diseases. In 1934, Liberty Mutual added a parttime Harvard faculty member, Charles Williams, Ph.D., to Liberty Mutual's Loss Prevention group. These early events set the stage for a faculty and teaching exchange between the two institutions that continues to this day.
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| Liberty Mutual medical rehabilitation clinic |
The initial Harvard collaboration also marked the beginning of Liberty Mutual's long-held tradition of peer-review publication — a practice that exposes research to the highest level of scientific scrutiny and ensures that findings are available to all who wish to access them. While early publications primarily focused on industrial hygiene issues, such as air sampling, and noise/radiation control, today the Research Institute publishes findings across a broad base of research areas, including ergonomics, epidemiology, biomechanics, tribology (slips, trips, and falls), and work systems design.
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Industrial hygiene
air sampling |
As Liberty Mutual moved ahead with workplace safety and health initiatives, it also recognized and responded to work issues facing individuals who had been injured or become ill on the job. In 1943, Liberty Mutual opened a medical rehabilitation clinic in Boston. The facility provided medical staff and resources geared specifically to helping injured workers return to a productive lifestyle. This early milestone foreshadowed later disability research efforts, including field and laboratory investigations into ways to improve safe and sustained return to work.
Next, "Liberty Mutual Research Institute Opens"