Ohio History Journal

The Rubber Industry in Ohio

By WILLIAM D. OVERMAN*

 

 

Many of us think of the rubber industry in terms of tire sizes and

a system of retail distribution centers. It is this. But for the past half

century or longer it has also been one of the moving factors in the

life not only of the United States but of the entire world.

Also, when many of us think of rubber, we think in terms of a

few large companies and a few well-known products which they

manufacture. But the rubber industry alone is composed not only of

five or six big companies but of dozens of smaller companies too,

producing thousands of products we use every day of our lives.

Thus the rubber industry, like any other, large or small, is related

to life around it. It is composed of finances, tests and measurements

of research, and the development of products. It makes a relatively

substantial contribution to the gross national product of the country.

It gives employment to thousands of persons in growing the rubber

or producing it synthetically and in the manufacture of products

made of rubber, in addition to a great many other products made

of other materials. It is one of the basic industries of the country.

Obviously any subject as large and complex as the rubber industry

is not susceptible of a definitive paper that can be read in thirty

minutes. It is my purpose merely to explore, with detail readily

available to any student of the industry, certain aspects of the subject.

Perhaps the best jumping off place for the subject would be to

recall that rubber is one of the few basic materials upon which

the world has become highly dependent. It is used in ships, mines,

and factories for a variety of purposes. We ride on it, walk on it,

and sleep on it. We see it everywhere, and much more of it is

* William D. Overman is head of the department of library and archives at the

Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, Akron.

His article was originally in the form of a paper given at a session on "Manufactur-

ing in Ohio," during the seventy-second annual meeting of the Ohio Historical

Society at Columbus, April 27, 1957.

• 1
 

THE RUBBER INDUSTRY IN OHIO         279

 

hidden, as in textiles which we wear, or used with metals in auto-

mobile parts or elsewhere.

Rubber can be made to stretch ten times its length, or it can be

treated so that it has no stretch at all. It can be spun as fine as a

thread, or it can be made as durable as steel. It will withstand

extreme temperatures both of heat and cold.

Rubber can be manufactured into objects of almost any size or

shape; it can be manufactured into objects that are rough or smooth

or hard or soft. Indeed, a government publication once described

rubber as "one of the most useful substances in the world today. If

it were removed from our lives, we would be set back into some

kind of a Dark Age--without modern means of transportation and

communication--and whole branches of the Arts and Sciences

would disappear."¹

Rubber played an essential part in the emergence of our economy

from the horse and buggy era. It is an absolute essential in the

practical and efficient operation of railroad trains, trucks, buses,

automobiles, ships, and airplanes.

Rubber was known to Europeans and was available to them at

least from the time of Columbus. It was after his third voyage that

Columbus reported seeing American Indians bouncing balls. Even

the ancient Egyptians, it is said, made balls for play and other

objects from rubber. Centuries ago the Indians in Mexico found

many practical uses for rubber, including the waterproofing of

wearing apparel. Joseph Priestley used it about 1770 for erasing (or

rubbing out) lead pencil marks, such as errors in calculation. This,

it is claimed, was the origin of the term "rubber."

The rubber manufacturing industry had its beginning in the first

quarter of the nineteenth century after the masticator was de-

veloped. The masticator was a machine which would grind up rubber

and make it workable. It dates from about 1820. In 1823 Charles

Macintosh patented a process for pressing rubber between two

layers of cloth to make it waterproof, thus giving his name to a type

of raincoat. And as early as 1833 a rubber goods plant was founded

in Roxbury, Massachusetts, which made such things as shoes, life

1 P. W. Barker, Rubber Industry in the United States 1839-1939 (Washing-

ton, 1939).

• 2
 

280    THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

preservers, and caps. But the rubber used then was soft and sticky

in summer and turned hard and stiff in winter. It was not until

vulcanization was discovered in 1839 that this objectionable char-

acteristic was overcome. The discovery marked the turning point

of the rubber industry and paved the way for the first application

of rubber to transportation.

The first rubber tires were put on Queen Victoria's carriage.

They were nothing more than a band of solid rubber about one inch

thick. In 1845 an Englishman named Thomson made a sort of

pneumatic tire. He placed a leather tread over a rubber-coated canvas

tube, which he filled with air, but it was not a practical device.

It was not until 1888 that the forerunner of the modern pneumatic

tire was developed by John Boyd Dunlop in the form of a bicycle

tire. Because of the speed and comfort which this tire offered, the

bicycle became a fad in the United States in the 1890's and thus was

the first vehicle with pneumatic tires to be used on a wide scale.

Through the development of the pneumatic tire, people dis-

covered that the bicycle was capable of traveling faster than they

were able to propel it. This fact provided considerable impetus for

the refinement of the internal combustion engine as a form of motor

power in a vehicle. By combining the basic principles of bicycle

construction with the use of an internal combustion engine, the auto-

mobile was made possible. In its early form it was really little more

than two bicycles attached side by side and powered by an engine.

When it was discovered that the bicycle tire could not effectively

support the weight of powered vehicles, solid tires were adopted

by the early automobile manufacturers. But with the improvement

of cord construction, the pneumatic tire regained prominence and

within a relatively short time replaced the solid rubber tire.

The first pneumatic automobile tires, having a comparatively

small cross-section, required extremely high air pressure to sustain

the load they carried, and because of poor road conditions they

were vulnerable to road shock. Blow-outs were commonplace, as were

punctures, and the motorist seldom obtained more than 3,000 miles

wear from a tire. While passenger-car tires were being rapidly

converted to pneumatic construction prior to 1910, it was not until

World War I, or shortly thereafter, that motor trucks were changed

• 3
 

THE RUBBER INDUSTRY IN OHIO        281

 

over from solid to pneumatic tires. With the introduction of the low

pressure balloon tire in 1922, tire failures were greatly reduced, and

by increasing the size of the tire cross-section, so that the load was

distributed over a larger tread area, it was possible to reduce air

pressure for better absorption of road shocks and a safer ride.

During the time that these basic construction improvements were

being made in passenger and truck tires, corresponding improve-

ments were being made in the construction of the cord body. By

1920 a means of impregnating the tire cord with rubber was dis-

covered that would counteract internal friction and heat, one of the

major causes of tire failure. Rapid improvements were also being

made in the compounding of the tread and body stock by the addition

of carbon black as a reinforcing agent for the treads, so that mileage

was increased from five to tenfold. Organic accelerators were also

discovered by the rubber chemists which helped speed up the

process of vulcanization.

Along with the improvements in tire building came a corres-

ponding progress in road construction and road building. Better

roads made for higher speeds, and higher speeds imposed new de-

mands upon the automotive engineers and the tire manufacturers.

Tire failures, though common enough in the 1920's, were

diminishing.

Of course, the inner tube contributed its share to the tire failure.

When the tube was inflated in a tire, it was stretched and strained

to conform to the internal size and shape of the tire, so that when

the tire body was damaged, the tube was extremely vulnerable both

to sharp objects and to the clinching action of broken cords. And

when the tube was damaged, either a slow leak would develop or

an explosion would occur, aggravating the tire injury and actually

accelerating the failure of the tire. Because of this fact the rubber

industry recognized for many years the need for the development

of a tubeless tire. Yet it was not until synthetic rubber was developed

on a practical scale that a means could be found to build a tire that

would retain air without need for a tube.

In the early years of the twentieth century a large proportion

of the automobiles and trucks then being made were built in Ohio.

At one time or another there were over a hundred different com-

• 4
 

282    THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

panies in the state making automobiles. But when this type of

manufacturing gradually became consolidated, millions of cars were

turned out by a few companies. In the process, Detroit and other

cities in lower Michigan became the center of automobile manu-

facturing. However, there are several automobile assembly plants in

Ohio and a large number of independent manufacturers of auto-

mobile parts, such as bumpers, lights, spark plugs, batteries, and

other accessories; and of course, there are the tires.²

Now it must be said immediately that the manufacture of tires

alone does not constitute the whole story of Ohio's leadership in the

rubber industry. For one thing, the general administrative offices of

five out of the six largest rubber-tire companies are in Akron or

adjacent communities in Summit County, though many of their

subsidiary plants are in other states or in foreign countries all over

the world. For another, over 175 rubber-sundries plants, manu-

facturing a wide range of items from garden hose to toy balloons,

are scattered all over the state. And for a third, the tire companies

themselves make thousands of products other than tires. Strictly

speaking, then, this paper might better have been entitled "The

Rubber Tire Industry in Ohio." for it does not propose to deal with

the rubber industry in Ohio in all of its ramifications.

One of the most significant changes in the rubber-manufacturing

industry in the United States was the location and growth of the

industry in Akron and nearby cities in Ohio in the years following

1870. Dr. Benjamin Franklin Goodrich in that year was induced by

Akron businessmen on the board of trade to move to their city--

from Hastings-on-Hudson, New York--a rubber factory which he

had acquired in a real-estate transaction. The venture prospered, and

other rubber companies were established in Akron. The city had

many natural advantages for manufacturing industries, and it soon

had a resident labor force skilled in the manufacture of rubber

goods. These conditions, together with the city's advantageous loca-

tion as a center for national distribution of the products of mass

2 John Merrill Weed, "The Travelled Ways," in Harlow Lindley, ed., Ohio in the

Twentieth Century, 1900-1938 (The History of the State of Ohio, Vol. VI, Co-

lumbus, 1942), 141-142.

• 5
 

THE RUBBER INDUSTRY IN OHIO         283

 

production, induced many other companies to choose Akron as their

factory site.³

Akron's phenomenal growth as a rubber center after the turn of

the century was due to a combination of circumstances. The decision

of Dr. Goodrich to bring his small factory to Ohio was fostered

not only by a liberal inducement made by the Akron Board of Trade

but by the presence of an adequate water supply guaranteed by the

Ohio and Erie Canal and its feeders (the Portage lakes and reser-

voirs). Furthermore, Akron was on the Erie Railroad, which pro-

vided a means of shipping raw materials in and manufactured goods

out, another indispensable element in the growth of the city as a

manufacturing center. And it should be pointed out, too, that the

industry was greatly assisted by the enterprise and inventive genius

of certain men whom this growing industry attracted to Akron. With

the growth and expansion of the automobile industry in the Mid-

west, Akron was well situated to take this new market in its stride.

But rubber manufacturing was not the beginning of Akron as an

industrial community. As a manufacturing center it goes back to the

1830's, when the Ohio and Erie Canal was completed. Among the

several industries developed were flour and woolen milling, clay

products, lumber, and iron. Farm implements made by the Empire

and the Buckeye mower and reaper companies in Akron developed

eventually into a merger, out of which came the International

Harvester Company. These basic industries were eclipsed, however,

a decade or two after the Civil War by the fast-growing rubber

industry.

The rubber companies which started up in the late 1880's and

the 1890's made such items as belting, garden hose, and the like.

A few of them made bicycle tires. F. A. Seiberling, whose family

had long been in the farm-machinery manufacturing business, organ-

ized a rubber company in 1898. Seiberling said that he named it

after the discoverer of vulcanization, Charles Goodyear, for the

advertising value of the name. About the same time, Harvey S.

Firestone, who had started in the rubber business in Chicago in

1896 and made a small fortune as a young man in the three years

3 Barker, Rubber Industry in the U. S., 13.

• 6
 

284   THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

he was there, sold his Chicago business to a consolidated rubber

company in 1899. Holding a patent for applying rubber tires to

buggy wheels and enough cash, he looked around a bit for a place

to start a new business and finally decided on Akron. There he

founded the Firestone Tire & Rubber Company in August 1900.

Other companies started about this time, too, among them the

Diamond Rubber Company. Some years later the General Tire &

Rubber Company was organized by William O'Neil, who had been

a salesman for Firestone. When F. A. Seiberling lost control of the

Goodyear company in the early 1920's, he established another tire

factory in nearby Barberton which took his own name, but conditions

which had permitted his original venture to grow big, never again

prevailed, and although successful, his second venture did not grow

so large.

One large tire company that did not have its headquarters or even

a plant in Akron was the United States Rubber Company. This

company was established in the East, with its activities centered in

New England. The United States Rubber Company grew large by

the consolidation of two dozen or more small companies making all

sorts of rubber goods.

The United States Census of Manufactures in 1904 showed

Akron to have thirteen rubber manufacturing establishments cap-

italized at nine million dollars and employing 3,750 workers. Suc-

ceeding census reports do not give this sort of breakdown, but

population figures indicate the tremendous expansion of the industry.

From 1910 to 1920 the population jumped from 69,067 to 208,435,

which made Akron the fastest growing city in the world. The

figure reached 255,040 in 1930, and except for a setback during the

ensuing decade, it has had a steady growth, with an estimated

population today of close to 300,000.

The production of automobiles in 1916 passed a million a year,

and by 1920 there were over eight million cars on the roads. Akron

was manufacturing most of the tires used on these cars. From

this time on Akron was known as the "Rubber City."

Competition has always been keen among the tire companies.

The development of rubber products other than tires has become

of increasing concern to them, although the manufacture of tires

• 7
 

THE RUBBER INDUSTRY IN OHIO         285

 

still constitutes over fifty percent, and sometimes as much as sixty

to seventy-five percent, of the business of the large companies. The

production of the smaller rubber companies varies. The manufacture

of tires and tubes makes up almost the entire production of com-

panies like the Mansfield Tire & Rubber Company, while the pro-

duction of others, like the Dayton Tire & Rubber Company, is so

highly diversified that tires account for only about forty-two percent

of sales.⁴ And one company even operates a chain of radio stations.

In the past, competition among rubber manufacturers has fre-

quently been of a destructive character. Sharp outbursts of price-

cutting reflected the large excess of capacity to produce tires which

developed after 1929.  There was at the same time a marked im-

provement in tire quality and consequent extension of average tire-

life, which accentuated the general decline in demand during the

depression of the 1930's. The struggle for volume led to disaster

for the less efficient producers, with the result that the number of

tire factories in the country dropped from ninety-one in 1929 to

thirty-one in 1935.

No new industries came to Akron to speak of until the great

upsurge in the plastics field after World War II, but even before

the war the tire companies were well along the road to diversification

of products manufactured. This diversification was not confined to

other rubber products like transmission belting, auto-body mountings,

vibration dampeners, battery cases, and the like, but extended into

the manufacture of metal products, steel stampings, and even

aircraft.

After their experience during the war in the manufacture of

ordnance items and a variety of military equipment, these com-

panies have all been awarded contracts by the government to con-

duct research and to devise and build all sorts of products, including

guided missiles. They have also gone into the development and

manufacture of electronic devices, such as analog computers, and

some are now entering the field of industrial uses of atomic energy.

In addition to the many and varied products made for the govern-

ment during the war, the tire companies performed certain manage-

ment services. They used their trained managers and technicians as

4 Barron's Weekly, April 15, 1957, p. 5.

• 8
 

286    THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

operators of government army depots and munitions plants, thus

releasing military personnel for other duties. Firestone, for example,

operated a bomb-loading plant in Nebraska, as well as the Blue Grass

Arsenal in Kentucky. This company even now operates the Ravenna

Arsenal for the government.

Besides this, the tire companies have all built research laboratories

employing thousands of highly skilled scientists, engineers, and

technicians. There are over a thousand Ph.D.'s in chemistry and

physics engaged in pure research in the laboratories in Akron alone.

There are other thousands of chemists, engineers, and highly

trained technicians working in the factories on actual manufac-

turing problems or in quality control, as well as in the develop-

ment laboratories.

Working conditions in the industry have improved over the

years to the point where the plants are much cleaner and safer and

industrial accidents fewer than they were. Firestone, for example,

won the annual National Industrial Safety Council's award nine

times in the past twelve years. Working hours in the early days

were from ten to thirteen hours a day. By 1939 the six-hour day was

the rule in all tire plants in Akron, and the eight-hour day, forty-

hour week, in other divisions of the industry. The tire industry was

unionized in the 1930's, and by 1946 over two-thirds of the rubber

workers of all classifications belonged to unions.

The manufacture of the automobile tire is typical of a mass-

production industry. Standardized goods are produced; a heavy

investment in capital equipment is required; labor is specialized;

and the benefits of technological developments are passed on to the

consumer in the form of lower prices. As one would expect from

these characteristics, the industry is composed of large units which

can effectively utilize modern techniques of large-scale industrial

production.

The large rubber-manufacturing firms are vertically integrated,

that is, they perform every function in the manufacture and distribu-

tion of their product, from growing rubber on their own plantations

or making it in their own synthetic rubber plants, to merchandizing

the finished product in their own stores or through a large number

of independent dealers and chain stores. But the degree of integra-

• 9
 

THE RUBBER INDUSTRY IN OHIO         287

 

tion varies so far as the control of raw materials and distribution

is concerned.

In the field of marketing, the tire division has utilized every

channel of distribution. In 1920 retail sales were made almost

wholly through so-called independent tire dealers and dealer-

jobbers. Since then, mail order houses, automotive supply chain

stores, stores operated by tire manufacturing companies, and oil

company filling-station chains have come into the picture. The chain

stores did less than three percent of the business in replacement

tires in 1926, but by 1941 their sales rose to twenty percent of the

total. Post-war figures indicate that this portion declined to fourteen

percent in 1947, although Sears - Roebuck, Montgomery Ward, and

Western Auto, along with some smaller chain stores, still bulk

large in the replacement field. In 1929 the oil companies did less

than one percent of the business, but by 1947 they were accounting

for more than twenty-three percent of the sales volume, and prob-

ably even more today. The company-owned stores in 1935 had

about twelve percent of the replacement sales volume, but by 1947

this share had declined to approximately six percent.

The price of natural, or tree-grown, rubber, the principal raw

material used in tire construction, has been characterized by wide

fluctuations and government restriction schemes. From 1860 to

1914 the price of crude rubber rose steadily. Then in 1914, for the

first time, the plantations produced more rubber than was tapped

in Brazil or other places where rubber was collected from trees

which grew wild in the equatorial forests. After 1914 there were

increasing supplies available from these plantations of the British

and the Dutch in the Far East in such places as Malaya, Ceylon,

Java, Sumatra, and the Celebes. As this rubber reached the world

market in greater and greater quantities, the price went down. In

1920 and 1921 the British rubber growers devised the so-called

Stevenson rubber restriction scheme, which eventually reduced the

amount tapped and marketed. The price reached $1.23 a pound in

1925, and at this point Firestone led a movement in the United

States to bring an end to the restriction. A few years later the

scheme was broken, and rubber finally dropped to less than 3?? a

pound in 1932. After 1932, prices improved somewhat under another

• 10
 

288    THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

restriction scheme led by Dutch planters, and the price continued

upward until the outbreak of World War II.

During the war the price of rubber was pegged by the government

at 22½¢ a pound. In the meantime the synthetic rubber program

was started with the assistance of the tire companies, who built and

operated the plants for the government. Synthetic rubber was grad-

ually improved, so that the output of these plants became a source

of supply which guaranteed to the American manufacturer freedom

from foreign control and domination for at least one half, or more

if needed, of all the rubber consumed in this country.

Before the development of synthetic rubber, huge inventory losses

were incurred in each and every major setback or break in the market

price of crude rubber. In 1937, for example, when the average price

of crude rubber, after advancing to 24¢ per pound in March, de-

clined to 15¢ in December (and to 11½¢ the following May), one

big company in Akron wrote off inventory losses of over ten million

dollars. Another of the big four companies wrote off a five million

dollar loss, another four million, and the fourth about the same

amount. As a result, the combined net income of these four com-

panies declined twenty-seven percent from the year before, and this

despite a combined fourteen percent increase in sales.

Between 1918 and 1932 the rubber manufacturing industry as a

whole had a net income (after taxes) amounting to a little over

twenty-five million dollars, or one-seventh of one percent on a gross

income of seventeen billion dollars. Inventory losses resulting from

natural rubber price fluctuations during the fourteen year period were

one of the chief factors contributing to the large, frequent deficits.

They tended to offset such profits as arose from the constantly

mounting volume of business. This helps to explain why there are

fewer rubber-tire companies today then there were in the

early 1920's.

The development and mass production of synthetic rubber

played a vital part in winning World War II. New developments

and improvements in this man-made rubber are being reported each

year which permit the manufacture of a number of types of synthetic

rubber designed to meet specific needs, such as resisting the de-

• 11
 

THE RUBBER INDUSTRY IN OHIO         289

 

teriorating effects caused by oil, retaining elasticity at extremely low

temperatures, and retaining air.

There are other aspects of the story of the growth and develop-

ment of this industry which have not been touched upon at all, such

as the effect upon agriculture and farm life of the development of

the pneumatic tire for farm tractors which took place just about

twenty-five years ago. The field is open to some scholar who will

trace the story of the rubber industry in this country from a few

small shops (a little more than a half century ago) to a major

industry employing more than a quarter of a million people, an

industry which was only starting when most of the basic industries,

such as steel, textiles, chemicals, and mining, were well established.

• 12