The aims of the studies underlying this thesis were to assess the exposure to quartz in Swedish iron foundries and to determine the cancer morbidity for Swedish foundry workers. A cohort of 3,045 foundry workers and a final measurement database of 2,333 number of samples was established. The exposure measurements showed high levels of respirable quartz, in particular for fettlers and furnace and ladle repair workers with individual 8 hr TWA (GM=0.041 and 0.052 mg/m3; range 0.004-2.1 and 0.0098-0.83 mg/m3). In our database, the quartz concentrations as 8hr TWAs of current and historical data varied between 0.0018 and 4.9 mg/m3, averaging 0.083 mg/m3, with the highest exposures for fettlers (0.087 mg/m3) and furnace and ladle repair workers (0.42 mg/m3). The exposure for workers using respirators assuming full effect when used were assessed quantitatively, revealing workers with actual exposure exceeding the occupational exposure limits. Overall cancer morbidity was not increased, but the incidence of lung cancer was significantly elevated (SIR 1.61; 95 % CI 1.20-2.12). In the cohort study, significant associations between lung cancer and cumulative quartz exposure were detected for quartz doses of 1-2 mg/m3 * year (SIR 2.88; 95 % CI 1.44-5.16) and >2 mg/m3 * year (SIR 1.68; 95 % CI 1.07- 2.52). These findings were not confirmed in the case-control analysis. The agreement between the estimated exposure in our early historical model and the development model showed a regression coefficient of 2.42, implying an underestimation of the historical exposure when using the development model data. The corresponding comparison between the development and the validation model based on our survey data showed a B of 0.31, implying an overestimation of present exposures when using data from the validation model. The main conclusions of the thesis are that certain foundry workers are still exposed to high levels of quartz, and the overall excess lung cancer could not be confirmed in the exposure-response analysis.

Through the analysis of photographs of Christchurch men, this thesis will explore and expand the historiography around masculinity in New Zealand. It will argue that how men saw themselves was informed by concepts of power and class, alongside aspects such as physical strength and ideas of manliness. Masculinity was a fluid concept; its interpretation differed across class, race and gender lines. The urban masculine identities found in Christchurch during 1880-1930 demonstrate the complexity of gender construction. They offer another view to that of a New Zealand masculinity steeped in stereotypes of rural, isolated men. Photographs are the central documents within this thesis and the growing field of visual history provides the framework for study. Photograph collections are selected from a variety of sources, including the Canterbury Museum, the Christchurch City Council archives, the Christchurch Club, Christchurch Boys' High School and my own family collection. The selection process centres on presenting collections which offer insight into a variety of settings across Christchurch, and the photographs within this thesis were chosen due to their representation of the collection they came from. Gillian Rose's methodology, which looks at the sites of production, the image, and the audience, shapes the study of the photographs. Read as documents and then situated into the broader contextual understanding of turn of the twentieth century Christchurch, these photographs allow the viewer to read the past with new eyes. This thesis offers a complementary reading of the masculine history of New Zealand. With an analysis influenced by the theoretical underpinnings of gender history, social history and visual history, the photographs show how ideas of masculinity developed in the urban setting of Christchurch. It highlights how ideas of class shaped the power relations of men, how physical settings offered different aspects of masculinity to be portrayed. The relationships between men, as well as those between men and women, demonstrate how masculine ideas were not dictated to by stereotypes, but by a range of at times contradictory imagery.

Funeral cast iron plastics offer an unique insight into the blending of art and trade in the 19th century. The Brdy region represented a very important centre of iron manufacture at that time, from which artistic ingenuity as well as skilled trade spread. The project Funeral cast iron plastics from the Brdy Region examined considering its Contacts with Cast Iron Manufacturing Centres in Prussia and Moravia in the 19th Century presents the Brdy cast iron within the context of the most important production centres of cast iron in Prussia, Moravia and Austria. 39 sample books were examined and described and photographic documentation of 2020 funeral monuments was gathered. 547 of these were documented in Berlin, 142 in Gliwice, 559 in and around Hořovice, Beroun, Rožmitál, Plzeň, and Plasy, 376 in the region of Blansko and Frýdlant nad Ostravicí, in and around Mariazell, pictures of 396 monuments were taken. Funeral cast iron plastics stand between artistic and commercial cast iron production. Three areas of Funeral cast iron Production in central Europe were identified and examined. The first one arose from the Prussian foundries in Berlin and Gliwice. The foundry of Plasy and also the Fürstenberk foundry in Beroun as well as the older production of the Blansko foundry are linked to the heritage of...