This September there will be a new exhibit at the Mclean County Museum of History.

Senior Director of Education Candace Summers explains the museum's asbestos exhibit details how it impacted workers and how prominent it was in workplaces and homes. She notes the exhibit has been in the works for a long time. 

What specifically inspired this exhibit was the Unarco plant on Bloomington's west side. This plant manufactured asbestos products and employed many people in McLean County. Unarco lied to their employees about the long-term effects of asbestos, leading to many sick workers and deaths. 

Asbestos exposure can be deadly, and in a time when it was acceptable to lie to employees, many became ill or passed away to exposure in the workplace, due to asbestos being in the air. Summers notes the exhibit tells this story and how they got them. 

The factories were said to have so much asbestos in the air, that it looked like it was snowing. And workers had little to no safety gear, to protect from this. On top of that, workers were lied to about the negative effects of asbestos. 

Summers believes this will be a very impactful exhibit, and hopes to educate people on the poor conditions of these factories, using displays of labels from products that had asbestos in them. 

The public opening of the exhibit will be on Saturday, September 7, at 1:30 pm and will feature the museum's guest curator. You can find out more about the museum on social media, and at their website www.mchistory.com