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.
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).
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
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-
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.
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.
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
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.
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-
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
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-
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.