Rubber: An American Industrial History 9780786469987, 0786469986

Table of contents :
Cover
Acknowledgments
Table of Contents
Preface
Introduction
1. The Fall of Rubber's Rome
2. The Road to Akron
3. The Rubber Industry Comes to Akron
4. The Greatest of Them All—The New England Rubber Barons
5. Seiberling Brings Goodyear to Town
6. A New Baron in Town
7. The Rubber Boom and Rubber Cartels
8. The War and Auto Sales Change the Industry
9. Plantation Owners—Golden Years of the Barons
10. Rubber Pro
fits and the Roaring Twenties
11. Social and Community Reforms
12. The Taming of the Lions—1930s
13. The World Turned Upside Down
14. War and Synthetic Rubber
15. The Passing of the Old Guard—The Postwar Rubber Industry
16. The Four Horsemen
17. Back to the Future
Timeline
Chapter Notes
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

Rubber

ALSO

BY QUENTIN R. SKRABEC , JR . AND FROM MCFARLAND

The Green Vision of Henry Ford and George Washington Carver: Two Collaborators in the Cause of Clean Industry (2013) The Carnegie Boys: The Lieutenants of Andrew Carnegie That Changed America (2012) Edward Drummond Libbey, American Glassmaker (2011) Henry Clay Frick: The Life of the Perfect Capitalist (2010) H.J. Heinz: A Biography (2009) The Metallurgic Age: The Victorian Flowering of Invention and Industrial Science (2006)

RUBBER An American Industrial History QUENTIN R. SKRABEC , JR .

McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers Jefferson, North Carolina

All photographs courtesy Special Collections, Michael Schwartz Library, Cleveland State University, except as noted.

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Skrabec, Quentin R., author. Rubber : an American industrial history / Quentin R. Skrabec, Jr. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-7864-6998-7 softcover : acid free paper

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1. Rubber industry and trade—United States—History. I. Title. TS1885.U6S529 2014 678’.2—dc23 BRITISH LIBRARY

2013045898

CATALOGUING DATA ARE AVAILABLE

© 2014 Quentin R. Skrabec, Jr.. All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. On the cover: Gillette Safety Tire Company, 1917, producing the first tires (courtesy Wisconsin Historical Society) Manufactured in the United States of America

McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers Box 611, Jefferson, North Carolina 28640 www.mcfarlandpub.com

To Our Lady of Kazan and my brother Neil Patrick

Acknowledgments Once again I would like to thank the outstanding help from the staff of the Benson Ford Research Center at The Henry Ford Museum. In particular, Peter Kalinski was invaluable in my research. They have been at the core of building my literary pantheon, which contains many honored in Greenfield Village such as H.J. Heinz, Harvey Firestone, George Washington Carver, Edward Drummond Libbey, William McKinley, George Westinghouse, and William McGuffey. Furthermore, Greenfield Village and The Henry Ford Museum gave endless hours of inspiration. The Firestone Farm was visited at Greenfield a number of times. Stan Hywet (Seiberling Estate) offered much perspective and inspiration over years of research into the rubber industry. Special thanks also to the University of Akron and its research library. Another source of research was found in the Bentley Historical Library at the University of Michigan, and I would like to thank Malgosia Myc and all the staff of this outstanding library.

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Table of Contents Acknowledgments Preface Introduction 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17.

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The Fall of Rubber’s Rome The Road to Akron The Rubber Industry Comes to Akron The Greatest of Them All — The New England Rubber Barons Seiberling Brings Goodyear to Town A New Baron in Town The Rubber Boom and Rubber Cartels The War and Auto Sales Change the Industry Plantation Owners — Golden Years of the Barons Rubber Profits and the Roaring Twenties Social and Community Reforms The Taming of the Lions —1930s The World Turned Upside Down War and Synthetic Rubber The Passing of the Old Guard — The Postwar Rubber Industry The Four Horsemen Back to the Future

Timeline Chapter Notes Bibliography Index

7 25 42 53 63 72 85 116 128 144 154 161 173 184 195 203 216 225 227 231 233

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Preface This book is one of a life project of building a literary pantheon of great American capitalists and industrialists. These were not gods, but great men, with all the shortcomings of men. Still, these men respected democracy, freedom, and their community in their quest to make money. Many of them, such as Frank Seiberling and Harvey Firestone in this book, went beyond those minimum requirements of my pantheon. They were more maternal than paternal. These were men who contributed to American society and gave us a people-oriented approach to America’s brand of capitalism. And as with most of my books, there is a strong personal link to many in my pantheon and its history. In 1984, I packed up to move to the Akron area. I had been manager of quality control at LTV Steel’s ( Jones and Laughlin) Pittsburgh Southside plant, the nation’s oldest iron and steel making mill. Pittsburgh had been experiencing a great decline of steelmaking for ten years. I didn’t fully appreciate at the time my dislocation was part of a much broader movement of deindustrialization in America. In early 1982, there was a day that no hot pig iron was produced in the Pittsburgh district, the first time in over 150 years. Pittsburgh was but a symptom of the deindustrialization of America. In 1982 on April 27, the birthday of my second daughter, the mill closed after 130 years of continuous operation. I was to become a steel manager at the newly obtained steel mill in Canton, Ohio, through the merger of Republic Steel and LTV Steel. At first, it was refreshing to live in a more economically upbeat community in the Akron area, but I soon realized I was on the front of a great economic tsunami moving from Pittsburgh across Ohio. It was following me and about to hit Akron in full force. In writing this history, I was touched by the personal story of rubber worker Tom Coyne as told by his daughter Joyce Dyer in her book GumDipped. It personalized the effect of globalization and the passing of the age of the barons. Deindustrialization of America is a story that trumps the pain of the labor strife of the 1930s, the Great Depression, and the struggling immigrants. It robs workers of the very things the barons offered so liberally to 1

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them — hope, opportunity, and pride. In the early 1980s, I was seeing those losses and their effects on families. With my moving to Akron-Canton area, I would see if the company might be saved; but it offered only fleeting moments of hope. Still, one could not overlook the beauty of the Akron area in 1984 when I arrived. It was rich in history, culture, and natural resources. The first weekend I went to a nightclub that was in an old rubber factory. It illustrated the point that the heart of the area was dying. My second weekend in Akron I took my daughters to the McKinley Memorial, whose size seemed more appropriate for Washington, D.C. It has since become an annual pilgrimage for me. It is one of those places that stand for American industrialism, greatness, and exceptionalism. It is not only a passage to the past but a gateway to the future. This is a story I feel pre-destined to tell. I came from steelworkers but was a trained manager. I knew the pain of making decisions that hurt both the people and the community that I love. I came to understand that the enemy was neither management nor the union but a political and economic strategy of a country. I came to find solace at the McKinley Memorial south of Akron, hoping that someday another McKinley will rise from the people, an industrial Joan of Arc. I realized that would happen only with the telling the story of America’s workers, capitalists, industrialists, and managers that made us the greatest industrial country in the world.

Introduction “It is in response to a vocation that nations come into being — and a national vocation explains the collective personality of a nation.” — Bishop John Wright of Pittsburgh

Few realize that much of American business was forged in failure, and maybe that is our very hope in these dark days for American manufacturing. Companies like Ford Motor, Westinghouse Electric, H.J. Heinz, Libbey Glass, Goodyear Rubber, Goodrich Rubber, and many others rose from bankruptcy or failure. The rubber industry, more so than others, knew failure in its early beginning and throughout its history. It was an industry born in bankruptcy and built through bankruptcies. Many of the great rubber barons found themselves or their companies in bankruptcy courts. Bankruptcies defined the very nature and structure of the rubber industry we know today. Fortunately, the rubber industry has always proven as elastic as its product. The very man that invented rubber, Charles Goodyear, started out in a Philadelphia debtors prison after failing in the hardware business. Amazingly, near the end of his life he would return to prison again for debt problems over his failing rubber enterprise. Bankruptcy and failure would become part of the story of rubber. Harvey Firestone entered the rubber business after failing in other businesses. B.F. Goodrich moved his failed rubber company from New England to start over in Akron; and F.A. Seiberling, founder of Goodyear Rubber, was forced out of the company he founded to avoid a total bankruptcy of the company and lost most of his personal wealth. Rubber proved far from an elastic gold, but it would be an industrial jewel, once conquered. In the early years, it was a search for an American location to process the rubber of the tropics. The choice of Akron appears more the work of Providence than due to any inherent advantage. Yet by 1930, the Akron area was home to four of the largest rubber companies — B.F. Goodrich, Goodyear, Firestone, and General Tire — as well as hundreds of smaller rubber companies. And most of the world’s rubber was processed in Akron. A group of failed businessmen would build an American rubber industry 3

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unmatched in the world at this small town in Ohio. For some, their ancestors had come to Akron, Ohio, to build their farming related factories. Louis Miller (future father-in-law of Thomas Edison) and John Seiberling became grain kings with their Akron flour mills on the Ohio Canal. These men would supply the capital and vision to bring rubber to Akron. While Charles Goodyear never set foot in Akron, Firestone, Goodrich, and Seiberling all built their companies and fortunes there. They were all paternal capitalists loved and hated with equal intensity. Often called philanthropists and rubber barons in the same headlines, a better name might be rubber lords. They were men of and for the workers. They rose from meager beginnings to phenomenal wealth. They lived well but avoided the excesses of J.P. Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, and Henry Clay Frick. These rubber barons proved diverse in their interests and passions. They pioneered America’s green environmental movement while their factories were as toxic as the steel mills of Pittsburgh. They supplied the initiative for programs for alcoholics while their workers often drank throughout their shift at the rubber factory to tolerate the toxic environment. The rubber barons were active in many community and social issues, but again Providence more than anything else defined their roles. They built community neighborhoods, parks, hospitals, and churches. They funded schools while creating new social outreach. Both Firestone and Seiberling (founder of Goodyear) were involved the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous and the Oxford Group. In later years Harvey Firestone became part of a green movement supporting the production of clean fuels and financed America’s early environmentalists such as John Burroughs, Luther Burbank, and George Washington Carver, although they never solved the pollution of their own rubber mills. While they built neighborhoods and communities, they resisted unionization in their companies. Their life in Akron was filled with presidential visits as well as socializing with the rich and famous. Their closest friends included traveling friends such as Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Warren Harding, Herbert Hoover, William Taft, and John Burroughs. The barons’ story is the story of the nation in the Industrial Revolution. It is a story of contradictions that characterized these early capitalists. It is a conflicted story of American capital and labor. It is also the story of the first roots of globalization with American companies developing rubber plantations in South America and the Philippines, fearful of shortages of this strategic material. The shortages during the world wars caused an inventive push that created synthetic rubber. Today the rubber industry is far different than it was during its glory days. Today about 70 percent of the world’s rubber production is synthetic from petroleum, and remaining natural rubber comes from Asia, not South America, which from 1850 to 1910 was the major source of natural rubber. Tires are no longer produced in Akron, which at one time

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accounted for nearly 60 percent of the world’s tires and 75 percent of the world’s rubber. No city dominated a single industry as much as Akron. U.S. Rubber, America’s largest rubber company for over 80 years, is gone as are hundreds of others large and small. The rise of the Rubber City and the rubber industry in the 1890s paralleled the rise of American industry, and years later, the Akron plant closings ushered in the beginning of the deindustrialization of America. While Akron is representative, there were other rubber towns that have fallen, such as Naugatuck, Connecticut; Mishawaka, Indiana; Chicopee, Massachusetts; and Eau Claire, Wisconsin, that are part of the story of rubber. The industry has known many highs and lows, but like most of American industry, it sleeps awaiting some future call from a nation that no longer finds pride or necessity in industry. For decades Akron was responsible for over half the world’s rubber production. Today very little rubber is produced in the Rubber City, no steel is produced in the Steel City, little glass is made in the Glass City, and few cars in the Motor City. The story of the Rubber City is their story, too.

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The Fall of Rubber’s Rome Naugatuck and Woonsocket may lay claim to the birthplace of the American rubber industry, but it is Akron, Ohio, that ruled for decades as the Rubber City. There were other rubber cities such as Eau Claire and Mishawaka, but none came close to Akron. More rubber has been processed in Akron than any other place on earth. At its peak, the single city of Akron consumed two-thirds of the world’s raw rubber and employed over 60,000 rubber employees. This was the city built by Harvey Firestone and others such as B.F. Goodrich, F.A. Seiberling (founder of Goodyear) and Bill O’Neil (founder of General Tire). The once great Rubber City of Akron was the centerpiece of one of America’s fastest growing metro interstate corridor of Cleveland-Akron-Canton in northeast Ohio by 1970. But things were different as the 1970s dawned. The rubber barons and the lords of rubber were gone, and so was the glory of the Rubber City. Maybe capital and labor had gone too far in their quest for money; the old pride of a once great industry was gone. Maybe the unions and capital had reached the point that rubber baron Paul Litchfield had feared, where it was about a battle or struggle between the two, and no longer about the industry or city. The rubber barons were gone but so were the laborers that built an industry and a city. Akron in the 1970s was a beautiful suburban city of metro parks, a national forest and a cluster of lakes. It functioned as a semi-rural setting for Cleveland executives to the north and a more metro setting for Canton executives from the south. The corridor was pure Americana boasting the National Soap Box Derby, professional football’s Hall of Fame, and the Goodyear blimp. For fans of professional sports such as football, golf, and bowling, the corridor was commonly an annual focus of the national television broadcasts. The corridor had two minor league teams and one major league baseball team. Firestone Country Club at the center of the corridor hosted the World Series of Golf every year, bringing in the best of the world’s golfers who haunted the area’s best restaurants. Similarly, the week of the NFL’s Hall of Fame Game was the nation’s party with celebrities filling the hotels and restaurants. Akron was also home to the Professional Bowling Association’s jewel — the Tourna7

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ment of Champions. The corridor had the most golf courses per capita than anywhere in the nation. Not surprisingly, Akron was the founding place of the modern golf ball by B.F. Goodrich Company. In the winter, it was home to some of Ohio’s only ski slopes. The corridor was not only home to the four major rubber companies and many minor rubber companies but also Timken Roller Bearings, Hoover Sweeper, Republic Steel, Diebold, and many others. Nearby Cleveland ranked with Chicago and Pittsburgh as a major steel center. Most importantly, Akron was the world headquarters of Firestone, Goodrich, Goodyear, Uniroyal, and General Tire. The Ohio Interstate 75 corridor was a rubber doughnut hole surrounded by a ring of steel. The Rubber City was surrounded by the great steel mills of Cleveland to the north, Youngstown to the east, and Canton to the south. The rubber industry had been the headline of America’s industrial prosperity of the twentieth century even though the surrounding cities of Cleveland, Canton, Youngstown, Mansfield, Warren, and Massillon were dependent on steel. The rubber industry had been an industry that reflected the manufacturing vision of Alexander Hamilton and Henry Clay and the great federal manufacturing policy of the area’s native sons, President James Garfield and President William McKinley. The rubber industry, like the steel and glass industries, had been a confluence of federal tariffs, individual creativity, American capitalism, and American exceptionalism. Garfield and McKinley had been the protectors of American rubber, steel, and glass, which led to America’s golden era of industry. The rubber boom had followed the earlier success of steel and glass. Akron’s growth from 1910 to 1920 tripled the Akron area population in a decade. The rubber barons — Harvey Firestone and Frank Seiberling — responded by building neighborhoods, parks, schools, and hospitals. The exclusive Portage Country Club was one of the nation’s finest where rubber executives from the top companies ate and played. The same was true of the less exclusive Firestone Country Club which had members from all levels of management. While there had been struggles with the union, companies like Goodyear and Firestone implicitly promised jobs for life.1 These companies also rated their executives on civic leadership, requiring executives to be very active in community efforts like United Way. There was another side of the story, of course. To some, rubber was a story of capitalistic black gold, while to others it was the evilly exploited devil’s milk. Like any industry, rubber is a story of struggle and contradictions with good times and bad. The old lions were gone by the 1940s, and the labor struggles of the 1930s and 1940s had been bitter. The toxic gum mills had shortened many a worker’s life. Still, the labor struggles had been between the families. The good times of the ’50s and ’60s had allowed rubber worker families to live well with annual trips to the Jersey shore and Florida. These summer trips often seemed necessary to these occupants of the Cleveland

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snow belt. The kids of these rubber workers filled Ohio’s many universities. Many families had pools or belonged to tennis and pool clubs. The suburbs of the Akron area grew with Cleveland executives. In the 1960s, even with the pollution and labor struggles, it all seemed worth it. Good times had settled in on the area, but dark clouds were on the horizon. In hindsight, one can look back for the first sign that the industry was dying. Many might point to 1957 as the first Japanese car arrived in America at the port of San Francisco. Maybe it was earlier in the late 1940s when a group of western economists met in Austria to forge a new world structure of free trade, with the American dollar becoming the world’s currency at the expense of manufacturing. Maybe it started in the 1930s with the deaths of the rubber barons and unionization of the industry. Maybe it was the 1960s when both political parties signed on to free trade principles. Maybe it was 1962 when the city’s corporations could not find the money to restore the mansion of Seiberling, the last one of the great barons. Others might look to the sale of Seiberling Rubber to Firestone in 1964. Seiberling’s president at the time referred to Seiberling Rubber’s “lack of a low cost plant outside Akron as an Achilles’ heel.”2 Most managers realized for whom the bell tolled when Michelin Tire of France signed a deal to sell radial tires to Sears in 1966. Rubber historians point to the telltalel event in 1967 when the first Japanese Bridgestone tires hit the American market. Bridgestone Tire Company had been making tires in Japan since 1931. A Japanese rubber baron, Shojiro Ishibashi, formed Bridgestone based on his last name Ishibashi, which means stone bridge in Japanese. Ishibashi named the company to sound like the successful Firestone. In 1988 Bridgestone would purchase Firestone. Others point to the introduction of the Michelin steel belted tire to the American market in 1967. By 1969, thanks to foreign radials, America was importing more tires than it was exporting. Still, even now in hindsight, it’s tough to find the beginning. This story, however, starts with the end of this industrial corridor’s prosperity in the 1970s reflecting the beginning of the deindustrialization of America. B.F. Goodrich quit making passenger tires in Akron in 1975 followed by Goodyear in 1978, Firestone in 1978, and General Tire in 1982. In 1981, Firestone moved its headquarters from Akron to Chicago. The city and the companies struggled to hold on, but the reign of the Rubber City ended in 1990 with the purchase of Goodrich, Goodyear, and Firestone by foreign companies. The once great bronze statues of Harvey Firestone and Charles Goodyear were defaced with spray paint and damaged. Middle class neighborhoods started their decline as layoffs rippled through the city. A few miles east in 1977, the iconic Youngstown Steel plant closed in Youngstown, Ohio, and to the north in Cleveland, Jones & Laughlin Steel faltered, and rumors of prob-

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lems with Republic Steel started to surface. America’s industrial heart had stopped pumping. The 1970s dawned with a gathering storm heading to Akron, yet there was no forecast of this storm. Great moments such as Goodyear tires on the moon and John Glenn’s spacesuit made by Goodrich clouded the oncoming storm. That storm was a combination of high wages, strikes, international competition, an energy crisis, a high dollar policy, new technology, and aging equipment. The power of such a storm had never been seen in American history, and the unions and management were not fully aware of its power. The 1970 short strike resulted in huge gains in wages, pensions, vacations, and health care. Things were bad but the Rubber City had known bad times before. After all, the American rubber industry had bounced back from the Panic of 1892, the great auto recession of 1921, and, of course, the Great Depression. No one fully believed that imports, radial tire technology, America’s free trade dollar policy, and aging factories were the four horsemen. Productivity would be the first crack in the fort. Productivity of tire manufacturing after decades of improvements started to decline. The 1970s, however, represented times of high profits for the rubber companies as these new issues started to surface. Workers and managers were well paid. Vacations got more expensive with thousands heading to places like Hilton Head, South Carolina. In 1976, the industry suffered its longest strike lasting 141 days, and resulting in a 36 percent increase in wages and benefits in the next three years. These wage increases would hurt the older plants of Akron first. The average Akron rubber maker made $5.25 an hour, a rate 30 percent above the national average. And Akron had nearly 2,000 of the industry’s royalty, the tire builders, who made considerably more. They were piece rate, and fast work either resulted in more pay or a fast break at the local bar. In fairness, this was a high pressure industry under attack by boatloads of imported tires and press headlines of the industry’s demise as the decade progressed. Of course, every industry had its worker royalty, but tire builders had more quality pressure with their name appearing on every tire. Field problems could end their knighthood. The 1970s also brought the imported radial steel belted tire which would force the closing of World War II era bias ply tire plants in the United States. In 1978, Goodyear closed its Akron tire making while opening new plants in Malaysia and Luxemburg. While the companies focused on the new community standard of being a good neighbor by donations, they didn’t invest in the very plants that brought in the money. Goodyear Company would be the most successful of the big four in adapting to globalization. Meanwhile the iconic early plants lacked the needed attention to updating them. They would be ignored not only by management, but also by the communities they had

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built. Even this rubber-steel corridor was overflowing with foreign cars and cheap imported tires. The community no longer saw its symbiotic relationship with the rubber companies. It would take many years for the fall of the rubber companies to impact teachers and government workers salaries. There was a belief that these companies were too big to fail and the stories of economic problems were a ploy by them to use against the union. Some of this was because deindustrialization was focused in a few states while the television presented a much different picture generally in America. Unlike the great economic national recessions of the past this was more of a local, slow growing cancer. Doctors, dentists, teachers, government workers, and others all talked about the overpaid rubber worker, failing to realize their economic link to them. For some, it would be thirty years until the loss of local taxes would be fully felt in their own jobs. The very nature of this new deindustrialization created extreme pain in much localized sections and segments of the country, preventing a major national political uprising. Decades later when the full extent of the damage was realized, unions like the Rubber Workers and Steelworkers (which had combined in the 1990s) no longer had the political power of a large voting membership. The rubber industry collapse was far reaching and included the three iconic Los Angeles plants of Goodyear, Goodrich, and Firestone that brought tire making to America’s West Coast. Goodyear’s Los Angeles plant was the first tire plant built outside of Akron in 1919. It would close in 1975. Now the West Coast was on the frontline of a wave of Japanese imported radial tires. Uniroyal and B.F. Goodrich also closed their Los Angeles tire making operations. In Ohio, plants at Dayton, Barberton, and Bryan were closed. Most of these plants closed because of the needed changeover to radial tires. In all, radial technology was responsible for over 50 plant closings worldwide. Radial technology brought down many smaller American tire companies such as Mansfield Tire & Rubber and Gates Rubber. The old remnants of the early U.S. Rubber plants (now Uniroyal) closed in Naugatuck, Connecticut, in 1979. Naugatuck had been the cradle of the rubber industry with roots to Charles Goodyear in the 1840s. It was Goodyear’s hometown and had been where Goodyear had discovered vulcanization. Naugatuck had been the “Rubber City,” home to the India Rubber Glove Company of Goodyear. It had been the founding home of the once largest rubber company of U.S. Rubber and its famous Rubber Trust. For years Naugatuck was the home of Keds. The closing of Building 25 by Uniroyal in 1979 ended the rein of Naugatuck as a rubber producing center. In 1980, Uniroyal (U.S. Rubber) closed the nation’s oldest tire plant in Detroit. The demise of New York’s Uniroyal (U.S. Rubber) briefly gave Akron a spark of hope. The year 1981 brought the closing of another iconic New England rubber plant at Uniroyal’s Chicopee. The Chicopee plant went back to Fisk Rubber

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in 1899 with the manufacture of bicycle tires. Fisk tires had been the subject of many famous ads by Norman Rockwell. The Akron rubber baron Paul Litchfield had started his career at this plant. In 1916, the Chicopee was one of the nation’s largest. In the 1930s, U.S. Rubber purchased the plant and retooled it, making it one of the nation’s most efficient. In the 1970s, employment peaked at over 4,000 when U.S.Rubber became the area’s largest employer. In 1985, Uniroyal was near bankrupt and sold out to a New York finance company to avoid a takeover over by rust belt financier Carl C. Icahn. The chemical division was sold off to save the tire operation. Two years later Uniroyal joint ventured with what was left of B.F. Goodrich’s tire operations and formed Uniroyal Goodrich Tire Company. The two merged companies were a shadow of their glory days when the two had controlled the rubber market. The new company took over Goodrich’s Akron company headquarters. Then in 1988, B.F. Goodrich pulled out of Uniroyal Goodrich, ending its days as a tire company and becoming a specialty chemical company. While Uniroyal Goodrich remained profitable by the end of the 1980s, it was barely so. Michelin purchased the company in 1990 with a new round of plant closings including the Akron headquarters. The deindustrialization of Akron was complete as other great rubber cities such as Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and Woodburn, Indiana, followed. This very globalization, which was pulling down Akron, had once been the roots of its success. Amazingly, in the 1800s no American industry represented globalization better than the rubber industry that tied the rubber plantations of the third world to the London rubber markets to the rubber plants of Ohio. However, by 1975 globalization became the conduit to deindustrialize America, and Akron would be the gateway to this virus. The rubber plants of Akron were at the point of a perfect storm — cheap global competition, better radial tire product life through technology, the nation’s best wage and benefit structure, aging equipment, product liability lawsuits, the 1980 recession, and a decline in quality. The industry’s management and unions were taken by surprise and proved unable to make the changes quickly enough. Management has since been singled out, but not for closing rubber plants but from being too slow to do so.3 Both the union and management were in denial that this was a long term trend, but it was a wave moving through America’s factory towns. In the decade of the 1970s, thirteen American tire plants were closed. Even the iconic B.F. Goodrich Los Angeles plant was closed in 1975. It had been at the port of Los Angeles, the location of the early imported Japanese cars which arrived in 1959 without any fanfare. The Los Angeles area was one of the nation’s biggest markets, and this little recognized event is considered by many the beginning of the end. The Los Angeles tire plant had been built

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there in 1928 to service the booming market of the 1920s. It had been the first of the big Akron rubber plants outside the city of Akron, and it was built with national fanfare for the great American auto driven economy. It was the first of all the rubber tire plants on the West Coast. The Los Angeles plant had brought together clean water and power from the Los Angeles aqueduct system as well as western cotton from California’s Imperial Valley. It also had been the first plant to fully use Asian rubber sources. Many called it West Akron. The rubber industry and steel industries of the 1970s were on the front lines of American deindustrialization.4 The changes were so fast and deep that both management and the unions failed to change with equivalent speed. The open trade policy of America had flooded imported cars and tires into the American market. It was further aggravated by the rising dollar policy that made imports cheap. This was the same trade approach that had brought down the industry of the British Empire a century earlier. This open trade approach was far different than the McKinley-Republican tariffs from 1860 to 1930 that had been in place at the zenith of American industry and Akron’s rubber industry. It was iconic in that Akron-Canton was the home of President William McKinley, America’s greatest proponent of scientific trade protection. McKinley had come from an Ohio steelmaking family that had suffered from cheap imports, putting his father out of work. The protectionist torch had been passed from Alexander Hamilton to Henry Clay to Abe Lincoln to James Garfield to McKinley; now the trade policy of Adam Smith had come to be in vogue. The rubber industry was also facing a major technological advance in radial tires in 1970s. It increased product life but required huge investments to change from bias tire production, which was based in Akron. Tire life had gone from 2,000 miles with the Model T to 22,000 miles in the 1930s to the 47,000 miles of the radial tire in the late 1970s. Longer tire life cut the replacement market in half by 1979. The radials led to the all weather tire, which eliminated the snow tire market as well. Radial tires had been introduced by Michelin and were 8 percent of the market in 1972. By 1976, radials were 45 percent of the tire market. Technology and imports had taken most of the American tire market in a few years. Akron would be on the front lines of this wave of industry change and decline. The strain of the major changeover to radials created major quality problems for the industry just like it had contributed to the downfall of Diamond Rubber of Akron in the change to bias tires in the 1910s. In 1978, Firestone was forced to recall over 14.5 million tires for tread separation on its radial tires. B.F. Goodrich Company had quit the tire business in 1981, and Firestone would shock all with its closing plant number 1 in 1978 followed by its plant number 2 in 1980, ending its passenger tire production in Akron. The year 1978 was the beginning of the end as small Akron rubber plants such as Mohawk and Sun Rubber closed also. Sun Rubber, a rubber toymaker, had

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held out longer than most believed it could as Japanese toys were the first wave of globalization. Goodyear had stopped tire production in Akron in 1978 but had made the switch to radial tires and the global market. Firestone shocked the country with its announcement it was getting out of auto racing. Firestone tires had been on 49 winners of Indianapolis 500 since 1911 and had won the first Indianapolis race in 1909 (a 300 mile race). Harvey Firestone would have never made such a decision. The results on Akron employment were just as devastating. In 1964 there were 37,100 rubber jobs in Akron; in 1970 there were 39,900; in 1974, with the first wave of decline, it was 32,700; by 1984 it was 15,400, and finally leveled out in the 1990s around 5,500. Indirectly, hundreds of small supporting businesses went under as well. Auto tire production was gone in Akron (racing tires and tractor tires were still made), and Ohio was left with only Cooper Tire of Findlay in the business. Cooper Tire had its roots in Akron. The fall of Akron rubber hurt many Americans in the city. These same workers who had given so much energy and blood in the nation’s wars were abandoned by their government. They no longer had the votes to interest politicians who had moved on to Silicon Valley and Wall Street banks. But even in defeat, these Americans proved flexible and adaptable. Some moved on, but many stayed. Leaving was too hard for many. They morphed into two income families, downsized their living, and found work at Wal-Mart. In many cases they became the permanent part of the social safety net. Another group would learn to survive on the streets in the wreckage of a once great city. The American betrayal of Akron and its industry had started in the 1970s. Rumors had started at the exclusive Portage Country Club in late 1979 of the antichrist living in an Akron apartment outside the five blocks of the rubber executives on the west side. John Nevin had been sent from the board to look at what was needed to save Firestone. At the Firestone County Club, lower dining receipts reflected the depth of the ongoing recession as middle level managers from all the companies showed fear about the future. These middle managers were the heart of the industry and Akron. They were sons and grandsons of rubber workers. Most were Akron natives. They made tires way into the night at the clubhouse bar. Others said they had seen downturns before, and it was part of life in industrial cities such as Akron. However, in hindsight this was much different as a number of factors were converging. Technology was changing too. Firestone had moved too fast, pushed by the auto companies into belted tires. The very auto companies that refused to accept the B.F. Goodrich belted radial in the 1960s were now demanding them from the tire companies. Firestone’s belted Firestone 500 had massive recalls from 1973 to 1979. In 1978, the recall of 8.7 million tires was the largest in history. The losses were around $700 million, and the company had been

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borrowing and increasing debt to fund the losses. Insiders were aware of the problem as were the banks, which had downgraded the company’s bond ratings four times. Money for plant upgrades was becoming difficult to obtain. Firestone president Richard Ripley had struggled to avoid plant closings and layoffs. He was a true Akronite with deep ties to the country clubs, schools, and small businesses. He and his family lived and played with many of the people he was required to cut. Ripley did everything he could to save his beloved Akron from the pain. Ripley, himself watched his own wealth disappear with the drop of Firestone stock in the 1970s. He was cut from the same cloth of the early rubber barons: “Ripley just lingered and lingered trying to hold on to the employees[;] he knew them, their kids, he had golfed with them for years and years.”5 In this respect, men like Ripley remained true to the early rubber barons such as Frank Seiberling, Doctor Goodrich, Harvey Firestone, and Paul Litchfield. At Goodyear, there was also a hometown boy named Chuck Pilliod. Pilliod made the decision to close Plant Number 2 in 1978 but committed the company to maintain its research center in Akron. The Firestone board was less committed to the city and its workers but still lacked the courage to make the closings. Firestone’s Ripley stood like an Alamo against the closing of Akron plants. As was in vogue in those days, the board brought in an outsider, John Nevin, to do the necessary dirty work in late 1979. Nevin was a Chicagoan with no ties with Akron. Knowing his role, Nevin took up residence in an apartment, showing no real interest in joining the community. Nevin lost little time closing nine of Firestone’s 17 plants in one day, including Firestone’s Number 2 plant in Akron. A few months later, Nevin announced that Firestone would move its headquarters to Chicago. The blow to the morale and pride of the Rubber City was nearly fatal. With Firestones on the board, many believed the iconic family had deserted Akron. Others saw it as a migration of the family from the community starting with the founder’s last days managing the company out of Florida. The closing of the rubber factories in Akron began a decline in supporting industries, local taxes, and infrastructure. Akron was in rapid decline. In 1978, Akron only downtown department store — O’Neil’s — announced it was closing. O’Neil’s was founded in the 1880s by Mike O’Neil, the father of General Tire’s founder Bill O’Neil. Restaurants and hotels struggled and failed. Akron approached bankruptcy. Families struggled to stay as wives took jobs and families needed two incomes. The closure of the rubber companies exposed the nature of the economic principle that small businesses create most of the nation’s jobs. True enough, but big business creates most of the nation’s small businesses. The once great core of the Cleveland-Akron-Canton metro corridor was declining rapidly, and Nevin would be the first of the barbarians at the gate. Akron would lose over 40,000 residents in the 1970s. When the first Japanese

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car came to the port of San Francisco in 1959, Akron had 30,000 rubber workers; by 1979 there were fewer than 10,000. Within years other corporate cost cutters such as Tom Graham at United States Steel and Dave Hoag at LTV Steel would close more local steel factories in the Cleveland-Akron-Canton corridor. Akron’s rubber workers and union did not totally ignore the initial shock of the downfall. In 1979, General Tire’s Local 9 forged a new contract meant to address the plague of closings. The union agreed to a 36-cent-a-hour decrease with the money going to a fund to build a more efficient plant in Akron. There would be a seven-day workweek, breaking the long tradition of Sundays off. Managers were given more control over who got laid off and how jobs were assigned. It was a forward looking change for the union even though it was forged out of desperation. Unfortunately, the flood of cheap imports was too great a competitor, and the wage and benefit excesses of the early 1970s were too great to overcome. By 1982, the bloodletting on the rubber company books continued. Akron also was experiencing what most of the nation only today fully understands. High paying manufacturing jobs are the underpinning of the economy. The city was cutting jobs as the tax base eroded, and the community felt the pain. Churches, community centers, schools, and small businesses were all hurting, and it was the worst time since the Great Depression. The union and management efforts all failed, making the situation seem hopeless. For a rubber industry that had commanded presidential visits to Akron, now national politicians lost interest in an industry with declining membership and financial resources. Even the highly mechanized rubber plants of the South were struggling to compete with foreign competition. In early 1982, General Tire announced it would close its Akron tire plant and return the escrow fund to the workers. General Tire was the last car tire plant in the city of Akron. B.F. Goodrich had stopped making car tires in the Rubber City in 1975, Goodyear closed its Akron tire plant in 1978, and Firestone had closed its Rubber City plant in 1981. Firestone was even forced to sell off Firestone Country Club. Imported cars, steel, and rubber had started to increase the loss of domestic industrial business since the early 1970s. In a way, plant closings only increased costs, sending new employees to the retirement rolls. Management and labor were blamed, but the real elephant in the room was legacy costs. Many rubber and steel companies had three retired workers to support for every active worker. The costs were crushing with few means to correct them. The government lectured the industry on its shortsightedness in implementing new technology while maintaining a high dollar policy that assured the inability of the rubber companies to compete internationally. Not surprisingly, the most popular song on Rubber City bar jukeboxes

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was Billy Joel’s Allentown, which became the anthem of American deindustrialization. Rubber workers and former managers were now in the same unemployment line. The unemployment in Akron exceeded that of the Great Depression. Much of the heartbreak didn’t even make the headlines as thousands were forced into early retirement with reduced payments. Families were forced to move from the very part of the country they loved, and youths stuck in the city gave up on the system, which haunts Akron to this day. High school graduates moved out and families moved on in search of employment. Old strip malls were being used as hobby centers and Halloween haunted houses. The related smaller business closings were just as massive and many had no safety net benefits. Some closed factories were made into nightclubs. Local newspapers blamed poor management, greedy executives, and inflexible unions. The nation as a whole took little note of what would become a common future for many. The area’s industrial protector, William McKinley, had found not one to take the torch. The 1982 recession would be the final nail in the coffin for much of America’s heavy industry and more of the industrial core of the Akron-Canton area. In April 1982, LTV Steel shut down its Pittsburgh Works (formerly Jones and Laughlin Steel) in Pittsburgh after 135 years of continuous steelmaking. It was the start of a great wave of plant closings, mergers, and bankruptcies moving west to Akron. The plant closing in Pittsburgh ended almost two hundred years of iron and steel production in the Steel City. The steel union could not cut wages enough to compete (even if they worked for nothing). LTV Steel reported that the material cost of steelmaking at Pittsburgh was greater than the total cost of finished Japanese and Brazilian steel shipped in to the United States. It was an amazing ending for a plant that once employed 20,000 steelworkers. These plant closings would be the beginning of closings affecting millions of American industrial jobs that would never return. What was left of these Pittsburgh managers moved west into the steel mills of Ohio and Chicago, but this was a short reprieve. By the 1990s, the once great industrial cities of Youngstown, Akron, Warren, Buffalo, Wheeling, Homestead, Braddock, Duquesne, Bessemer, Birmingham, Canton, Massillon as well as many of the major cities such as Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Baltimore, and Chicago were devastated. The year 1982 was only the most visible of a trend that had started in the 1970s. The roots of the deindustrialization of America are even deeper. The beginning can be traced to a political and economic decision of the United States after World War II to become the stabilizing force in the world. Part of that decision was a high dollar policy which would make the dollar the reserve currency of the world. This was coupled with an open trade policy to cement stabilizing trade between nations. This combination would put basic American products at a price disadvantage. For two decades after the war,

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devastated foreign steel mills, rubber factories, auto plants, and assembly product lines offered little competition, so the high dollar had little effect. But as new factories emerged, European and Japanese lower priced products flooded the American market. It was not price but the 1959 steel strike that opened the gate to the first foreign steel shipments. Steel was feeling the pain in the 1960s and 1970s as steel, Japanese autos, and other basic products cut into domestic steel production. American industry and unions failed to fully understand the economic tidal wave they were facing originating out of Pittsburgh. By 1982, iconic steel mills were closing throughout the country. To the south of Akron in Canton, in an effort to survive, LTV Steel purchased the venerable Republic Steel. Republic Steel was near collapse in 1984. Now LTV Steel would close its old Pittsburgh area plants, sending hundreds of displaced managers into the Canton and Cleveland plants to cannibalize them in a hope to survive. It was another cloud of worry over the AkronCanton area. Locals looked at these cold business managers of LTV Steel as a hoard of barbarians at the south gate of Rome as they moved into the area. To the north of Akron, the hoards of LTV Steel executives had taken over the old Republic headquarters in Cleveland, renaming the building after LTV Steel. In Akron, the venerable Firestone Rubber twisted in the wind, selling plants to Bridgestone of Japan in an effort to stay afloat. Goodyear was out of Akron manufacturing, and Firestone headquarters had moved to Chicago. The once great area events of the World Series of Golf and the NFL Hall of Fame Weekend were having trouble finding sponsors and money. Wages were falling throughout the area. The average income of the Akron area was dropping rapidly as were those of the Rust Belt. The rubber unions were claiming in the early 1970s that they had the highest wages and best benefits in America. In 1984, many of these same workers were happy to be making minimum wage. The 1976 rubber industry strike had gained major wage increases, making American rubber uncompetitive globally. The steel workers’ wages had peaked a decade earlier. The steel strike of 1959 had been settled by the government to help the union maintain high wages and benefits, but the lessons seemed lost. Refusal of the rubber unions to stop wage and benefit increases exacerbated the problem into 1982 when the recession was the last nail in the coffin. These high wages came at the beginning of a flood of imports that would underpin the workers gain. Free market economists dominated both political parties as the imports crushed the rubber and steel industries. The recession would drive rubber companies to the brink. Industries, unions, and even management saw everything as a local or industry issue while ignoring the bigger problem of globalization. The neighboring steel communities had been devastated by 1982. The Monongahela River Steel Valley mills that had outproduced the total production of Germany, Italy, and Japan in the 1940s were leveled, leaving blast fur-

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naces (there had been as many as 30 operating) in 1990. The steel industry of Youngstown was gone. The unions, management, and government never changed their behavior, seeing the industry as too big to fail. As painful as it was for the steel mills of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Illinois, it was looked at as a regional problem in the 1970s. Meanwhile, the growing economy of Japan promoted even more government support of Japanese industries. Steel would be hit particularly hard. No one fully realized that the steel industry was only the first domino to fall, but now Akron saw what was coming. Regional devastation was deep as the industries of major cities such as Akron, Youngstown, and Pittsburgh collapsed as did the benefit dependent services of dentist offices and optometrists in those cities. Real estate prices were crushed as were small businesses dependent on the local economies; but as an aggregate, the American economy absorbed the setbacks in the 1980s and 1990s. The late 1980s high technology and personal computer boom helped soften the loss of heavy industry for the nation as a whole. The single-family wage earner disappeared, as families required two smaller incomes to maintain their standard of living. Steel, rubber, and glass companies tried to adjust with early buyouts to force retirements, so plants could be downsized. The highly paid flood of new retirees cushioned the blow to communities in the 1980s. Rubber and steel companies started to merge to reduce costs and other industries sold out to foreign companies. Japanese competition pushed harder as the American heavy industries were forced into bankruptcies with the burden of huge pensions. When LTV Steel, the nation’s second largest company, filed for bankruptcy in 1987, there were five retirees on the books for every active worker. With tens of thousands of retirees, Bethlehem Steel lasted only a few more years until filing for bankruptcy. This was typical and only promoted more Chapter 11 bankruptcies, so companies could turn their pension liabilities over to the government. By the 1990s, Chapter 11 bankruptcies was hitting the supply chains of steel, glass, and automotive in middle Ohio. Not surprisingly, the United Rubber Workers and Steelworker unions would combine in 1995. Industrial communities such as Akron, Cleveland, Youngstown, Pittsburgh, and Bethlehem were suffering from the loss of taxes, forcing cuts to teachers and school systems. Most of the nation’s rubber plants and steel mills would eventually go down even with the initial help of Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Those that survived were brought out by Japanese, French, and German companies. Only Goodyear of the big five tire companies would survive as an independent company. Goodrich merged its tire segment with Uniroyal in 1986 and Michelin of France bought it in 1993, moving the tire headquarters to South Carolina. Michelin became the world’s largest rubber company. General Tire was sold to the Germans in 1987; and Germany’s biggest tire maker, Continental AG,

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took over with more cuts, moving its headquarters to Charlotte, North Carolina. In 1988, Bridgestone of Japan would take over Firestone. Firestone headquarters moved to Nashville, a punishing blow to the old glory of the Rubber City. Interestingly, Firestone had built its lead radial tire plant in Nashville in 1972 versus retooling Akron. The automotive industry fared a little better as it got some tariff relief in the 1980s; however, for its own survival, it started to buy from foreign suppliers of rubber, steel and other parts. Goodyear and Akron would win a major moral victory in 1986. It was a last stand of a rubber Alamo that united workers, politicians, management, and the community. In 1986, another Rust Belt raider, Jim Goldsmith, turned to Goodyear. Goodyear was ripe for the taking. It had managed a profit in difficult times and was selling under book value on the stock market. Goldsmith had started to buy stock in a hostile takeover. At the time Goodyear was still the city’s largest employer with about 4,700 employees. Goodyear’s chairman, Robert Mercer, would take the fight to the public court. Mercer rallied not just Akron but all the hometowns of his 130,000 employees. The public fight was brutal, reflecting the frustration and backs-to-the-wall attitude of the community. The union rallied with Mercer, pulling their funds out of Merrill Lynch, which was brokering the deal for Goldsmith. Portage Country Club members gave Merrill Lynch members the cold shoulder as the struggle dragged on. Schoolchildren planned Goodyear stock-buying drives. Radio, television, and the newspaper followed every human interest story related to the takeover. Mercer put together a teleconference of mayors of affected cities to raise national attention. Mercer looked for money to buyout Goldsmith from Goodyear’s operations. Mercer sold off his iconic aircraft operations that went back to its founder F.A. Seiberling, and dynamic manager, Paul Litchfield. Mercer had the $90 million needed from the selling of the aircraft division, but Goldsmith was not backing down. It seemed fitting that one of the heroes would be Congressman Frank Seiberling, the grandson of Goodyear’s founder. It was ironic that F.A. Seiberling had lost Goodyear in 1921 to a corporate raider. Congressman Seiberling had been a lawyer for Goodyear prior to becoming a congressman. He had made a name in the 1960s by refusing to cross picket lines and took a leave of absence.6 He was the perfect white knight for this battle, taking the fight to a symbolic level. The city and its citizens became very nostalgic over the black snows and sulfuric air of old. Frank Seiberling called for the House Judiciary Subcommittee meeting to review the impact of such a hostile takeover. The press and Goodyear had also effectively framed this as a foreign takeover of an iconic American firm. Dignitaries such as Senator John Glenn and top union leaders lined up to testify before the committee. The meeting often took on the nature of a kangaroo court with Goldsmith as the defendant. When Goldsmith argued he was sav-

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ing the company from its poor management, Seiberling fired back with, “Who the hell are you?” The bite made the national news. Goldsmith decided it was time to take Goodyear’s money and run. Goodyear survived, but its decline continued with thousands more laid off in Akron alone. In the 1990s, it did hold on to the number 3 world tire maker spot behind Bridgestone and Michelin. In ten years after the victory Goodyear had lost 50,000 more employees worldwide. Still, Goodyear became extremely profitable and remained in Akron. Goodyear would be one of the few Rust Belt icons to come back. By 1990, it was too late to save the raw material industries of rubber and steel in America. In 2001, the last nearby rubber glove factory in Massillon, Ohio, closed, taking 200 jobs to Asia. The auto industry wavered, but the United Auto Workers offered some concessions. The industry would make it to the next recession in 2007, and once again Goodyear threatened to leave with its 3,000 remaining workers in Akron. Then in 2009, the unthinkable happened with the bankruptcy of General Motors. The great Rust Belt spread from Pittsburgh and Akron-Cleveland to Detroit and Chicago. Akron stood at the

Gillette Safety Tire Company, 1917, first tire production (WHi-29646, Wisconsin Historical Society).

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center of the devastation. Only the American southern states with their rightto-work laws and influx of foreign manufacturers bucked the trend of deindustrialization which started in Akron. Akron in many ways was America’s industrial Rome. The Western empire of Detroit would be the last to fall a few decades later, but it was Akron that signaled the beginning of the end. Akron, of course, was the center of the rubber industry and made the headlines, but the wave of globalization continued west in America. In 1991, the iconic rubber plant of Uniroyal-Goodrich in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, closed. This once great plant made 30,000 tires a day. It had been the first tire plant of Gillette Safety Tire Company in 1914. Ironically, the opening of Gillette Tire saved the town from the collapse of the lumbering industry. The plant was purchased by U.S. Rubber in 1931, making it the largest tire manufacturer at the time. The Eau Claire plant had been the core of the Montgomery Ward business as well as a large share of General Motors business. In the 1940s, Eau Claire led the nation in synthetic tire production. In the 1960s, it was the nation’s third largest rubber tire plant. The plant changed over to Uniroyal with the 1964 name change that went to the merged company and the final assets to Michelin. It would be Michelin that decided to close the iconic plant. At its closing, it was the oldest tire plant outside of Akron. The same year, Uniroyal-Goodrich closed another iconic tire plant in Chicopee Falls, Massachusetts. The Chicopee Falls plant went back to Fisk Rubber. In Mishawaka, Indiana, another iconic rubber plant of Uniroyal closed. Mishawaka went back to the 1880s founded by one of Indiana’s rubber barons — Adolphus Elerhart. Mishawaka became famous for its Ball-Band rubber boots. It was also the location of the first development of rubber outsoles on shoes and overshoes for women. In 1905, it was taken over by U.S. Rubber. The Mishawaka plant was designed in 1922 by the famous industrial architect Albert Kahn, who had built Henry Ford’s first assembly lines. Mishawaka employed 10,000 during World War II while making self-sealing fuel tanks for American bombers. With the rapid decline in United Rubber Workers members across the nation, the politicians and press loss interest as these smaller town plants closed one by one. For towns like Eau Claire, Chicopee and Mishawaka, the pain was even greater than Akron; but because of their isolation, they received little attention in the national press. Maybe the date for the fall of the American rubber industry was July 1, 1995, when the United Rubber Workers was dissolved to become part of the United Steelworkers. Since its beginning in the 1930s, Akron had been the world headquarters of the URW. By 1995 the URW was battle worn and bankrupt. Membership dropped from a peak in 1974 of 194,000 to 98,000 in 1994. Now it was forced to strike the new international rubber giant, BridgestoneFirestone, on July 12, 1994. The union was in no shape for this battle against an international Japanese company. Akron union headquarters still moved

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into the battle. Akron had only a handful of rubber workers making race car tires, so the strike centered on Firestone’s new Nashville headquarters and plants in Iowa, Illinois, and Oklahoma. What started in July at Akron union headquarters would not only prove to be the URW’s last strike but also the longest. Bridgestone proved a much tougher opponent with its international market; it was capable of taking an endless strike at American manufacturing plants by importing. Globalization had changed the playing field to favor transnational companies with no local or even national anchors. Bridgestone, however, took the union head on by hiring replacement workers for its American operations. By December, the URW’s strike fund was gone. The first surrender of the URW came at Firestone’s South Akron plant in January 1995 as workers returned to work. The union never formally ended the strike but workers returned to feed their families. Desertion in the ranks had not been seen since the 1930s. It would be the United Steel Workers that came to the rescue. It had been battered, but it still was one of the nation’s largest and richest unions. Since its brutal 1959 strike, the steelworkers had avoided a national strike and built its strike fund to over $160 million. The steelworkers proposed a merger with the URW that would bring badly needed resources to the fight. On July 1, 1995, the URW merged with the steelworkers (USW) to become the Rubber-Plastics Industry Conference of the United Steel Workers with headquarters in Pittsburgh. The merger brought new resources to the battle with Bridgestone. The steelworkers turned public opinion, and a settlement after 27 months came in November 1996. It was a bittersweet victory. So who in the end is to be blamed for the fall industrial America and the rubber industry? Unfortunately, business analysts have been quick to attack management for their lack of creativity and the unions for their over-the-top demands. But how had a rubber management team, hailed as the world’s best in the 1960s, fallen so far? In the 1960s, the tire stocks were the darlings of Wall Street with stock increasing over 60 percent. The companies were commonly used as case studies for the best in American management colleges. The unions had asked little more than the growing profits suggested for fairness. Nor had these companies ignored technology or plant improvement. The answer maybe neither management nor labor is to blame. Some may look to the last bank controlled executives who sold out and jumped with their golden parachutes. Certainly these final executives were a savory bunch which only a radical capitalist could love. Still, it would be like blaming the final weak emperors of Rome for its fall. Maybe the answer is buried in the mid–Ohio industrial corridor at the McKinley Monument a few miles south of Akron. For years Congressman and later President McKinley had made his legacy in protecting the American rubber, steel, and glass industries of Ohio and Pennsylvania. He argued for

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the principle of reciprocity of trade relations (equal trade dollars between countries), and when necessary, to protect American jobs, not for nationalism alone, but because there is a price that all Americans pay for freedom and prosperity that is built into the higher cost of our products. McKinley had been the Akron area guardian angel, standing against the writings of Adam Smith and protecting the rubber industry for America. With the end of the McKinley Republicans in the 1930s, the country lost its love for national capitalism and economic nationalism, looking to capitalism as an international policy of free traders. By the 1980s, both political parties practiced free trade. Globalization had changed all. Globalization has made heavy industry uncompetitive with cheaper foreign labor. So maybe the answer is in the words of McKinley in 1888 to Congress in defending the Republican tariffs to protect the rubber industry. Free trade in the United States is founded upon a community of equalities and reciprocities. It is like the unrestricted freedom and reciprocal relations and obligations of a family. Here we are one country, one language, one allegiance, one standard of citizenship, one flag, one Constitution, one Nation, one destiny. It is otherwise with foreign nations, each a separate organism, a distinct and independent political society organized for its own, to protect its own, and work out its own destiny. We deny to those foreign nations free trade with us upon equal terms with our own producers. The foreign producer has no right or claim to equality with our own. He is not amenable to our laws. There are resting upon him none of the obligations of citizenship. He pays no taxes. He performs no civil service; he is subject to no demands for military service. He is exempt from State, country, and municipal obligations. He contributes nothing to the support, the progress, and glory of the Nation. Why should he enjoy unrestrained equal privileges and profits in our markets with our producers, our labor and our taxpayers? Let the gentlemen who follow me answer. We put a burden upon his productions, we discriminate against his merchandise, because he is alien to us and our interests, and we do it to protect our own, defend our own, preserve our own, who are always with us in adversity and prosperity, in sympathy and purpose, and, if necessary, in sacrifice. That is the principle which governs us. I submit it is a patriotic and righteous one. In our country each citizen competes with the other in free and unresentful rivalry, while with the rest of the world all are united and together in resisting outside competition as we would foreign interference.”7

After the rubber workers’ unique and extensive contribution during World War II, there was a feeling of betrayal by their own government for an economic philosophy of internationalism. This is the story of the rise and fall of rubber, which one might call America’s industry.

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The Road to Akron The closest rubber tree to Akron was 3,200 miles away, and the closest market for semi-processed rubber was over 3,000 miles away in the 1880s. Akron was not an ocean port to facilitate the shipping of raw rubber or semiprocessed rubber from the jungles of South America, Africa, and Asia. Akron didn’t have any industry that needed rubber. Akron had no natural advantage over most northwest Ohio towns other than it was a high point in elevation in the surrounding area. It was not a lake port or located on a great river. It had almost no natural commercial resources other than clay for brick making. It had not been a military fort or a famous battlefield of strategic importance. It was not on the National Road, which passed south in Canton, Ohio. In fact, prior to the late 1820s, it was too far off transportation routes to sustain commercial farming. It also had no farming advantage over any other Ohio location. Unlike the industrial centers of New York, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and Chicago, Akron was man-made. It was the product of the golden years of American industry, capitalism, and economic might. Its unassuming natural features did not suggest much of a future as its past had shown. For the most part, Akron seems to have been overlooked by the earliest prehistoric mound builders and the later American Indians. Mad Anthony Wayne had passed it by on his way northwest from Pittsburgh in the War of 1812. It lacked connecting rivers for western settlers; early travelers and Indians used the area as a portage for moving their canoes over land to another river. In particular, Indians moving south on the Cuyahoga River used Old Portage Path to move their canoes to the Tuscarawas River and then on to the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. Without continuous or connecting west-east or north-south river systems, Akron appeared doomed to a lackluster future. What nature refused to give, man would supply to this summit city. The nine mile summit was conquered by the Ohio & Erie Canal and sixteen locks from Cleveland and Lake Erie. Akron’s future would lie in the hands of men, mainly Irish canal diggers. The city’s rise to prominence started with the completion of the Ohio Canal in the 1820s that allowed a trip from Cleveland 25

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Ohio Canal, 1861.

through Akron to Portsmouth on the Ohio River in 80 hours. Its high ground had once been a tent camp for canal diggers. Its first known permanent settler came in 1825. Akron was a child of the canal. At a lock on the canal, flour mills were built to process and transport grain. Canal boat building also became a major industry. In addition, canal workers settled the area as taverns and stores grew around the flour mills. At its very beginning Akron was a shanty town for Irish canal workers who nicknamed it Dublin. Originally known as Portage Summit, the high point on the canal, it incorporated under Akron (from the Greek for “high”). Another boom came in 1836 when Akron became the terminus and connection of the Pennsylvania and Ohio Canal (cross cut canal) which would connect Akron to Youngstown and Beaver, Pennsylvania, and then by the Ohio River to Pittsburgh. Akron became known as the “Summit City” because it was the high point of the connecting canals. Akron was also the watershed for the eastern Ohio canal system. With the connecting of the Erie Canal at Cleveland, Akron was linked to New York as well as New Orleans (via canal and Ohio River). The connection actually allowed Akron to build a couple of iron furnaces. While the Erie Canal to Ohio Canal to Pennsylvania & Ohio and Ohio River became cheap alternative to moving goods and people from the East Coast, Akron became a stop on the travel route of immigrants from New York to Pittsburgh. In 1848, a poor Scottish immigrant, Andrew Carnegie, and his family passed through Akron on their way to Pittsburgh.

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Akron’s beginning and roots were America’s canal system and the related business of canal traffic, but it wasn’t the Irish who brought the canal. Akron had been part of the Western Reserve of the state of Connecticut. This resulted in the first influx of settlers from New England, which brought Yankee ingenuity and the Whig Party belief in America’s economic destiny. The Whig Party of the time had a simple focus on the economic development of America through tariffs and federal aid to businesses. The Akron area became the heart of this party. The canal system had been the federal project of the Whig Party, which would ultimately lead to the birth and strength of the Republican Party in Ohio. These Ohio Republicans would nurture the industrial development of the area. Akron became an international inland port with the canal system. These canal connections made Akron a center for farm products — grain, pork, whiskey, and wool — moving to the East Coast. The Ohio and Erie canals opened the markets of Europe for Ohio grain. The area, in particular, became known for wool production and processed grain. A special breed of Spanish Merino sheep had been brought to the area in the 1820s. Germans came into the area during 1840 to 1850 bringing more efficient methods to raise crops. As a key connection on the canal, Akron became a major trade center. Farm equipment sales store grew to supply the farmers their needs. Some Germans settled in the Goosetown district of Akron to manufacture farm implements and brew beer. As workers came to the area they required consumer goods. Dry goods magnate Michael O’Neil came to Akron to meet those needs; later his money and son would start General Tire. As farmers came to Akron, prior to the Civil War, to have their grain processed and shipped, milling and grain companies prospered. The milling company money would ultimately be the source of capital for the rubber industry and B.F. Goodrich and Goodyear Tire and Rubber. Then after the Civil War, with the advent of the railroads, Akron’s position as a trading center and inland port declined. However, its grain mills and storage systems attracted the railroads to it. It still was an important grain center and farm machinery manufacture increased. A great deal of wealth was created by grain production and processing. In 1863, Aultman, Miller, and Company was started and by 1881 was producing 20,000 harvesting machines a year. Its founder, Louis Miller, would be the future father-in-law of Thomas Edison and the founder of the Chautauqua educational movement in the United States. About the same time “Oatmeal King” Ferdinand Schumacher formed American Cereal Company, which would become the well-known Quaker Oats Company. Another grain king of the time would be John F. Seiberling who would, with Louis Miller, supply the capital, vision, and inspiration for bringing the rubber industry to Akron. The Seiberling family would

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be future investors in Goodrich Rubber and later found Goodyear Rubber and Seiberling Rubber. Akron’s farm wealth would form a cluster of Akron investors looking for new manufacturing opportunities. While a bronze statue of Charles Goodyear, the inventor of modern rubber, stands at the heart of the city, Goodyear never set foot in Akron. The statue had been erected in 1939 to honor the 100th anniversary of the discovery of vulcanization by Goodyear in Connecticut. Rubber came to Akron not because of raw materials or invention but through the vision of local businessmen to attract economic growth to Akron. In the 1870s Akron was in a very competitive situation with industrial Cleveland growing in iron, steel and oil. The National Road passed to the south of Akron through Canton and Massillon. Akron was in danger of losing out if it did not find a new industry. The man that was responsible for rubber coming to Akron was Benjamin Franklin Goodrich. Doctor Goodrich had been an admirer of Charles Goodyear, the inventor of vulcanized industrial rubber. Money, the old canal watershed, and vision would bring the unlikely product of rubber to Akron. The by the 1870s, the American rubber industry was focused on the East Coast with Naugatuck, Connecticut, being known as the “Rubber City.” It was an unlikely prospect that rubber would come to Akron. Rubber is a manufactured product from the gum of certain plants. The manufacturing supply chain was the longest of any industrial product in 1800s. The gum was harvested in tropical jungles, then shipped to a wholesale market in England, then purchased by rubber manufacturing factories and shipped around the world to be processed. Seaports were the logical homes to rubber manufacture. Another East Coast rubber center was Trenton, New Jersey, which had five Goodyear licensees by 1880. Rubber’s historical trip to Akron was as long as the geographic one. Rubber was originally native to South America, the gummy product (latex) of the hevea tree. While it had been known for thousands of years to South American Indians, it was completely unknown to the few early North American Indians of the Akron area at the discovery of America. The first report of rubber came from Columbus’s second trip to the Americas where he noted that the South American Indians used a gummy ball to play a game with. The origin of the name rubber is not even clear. The Indians called the gummy material cahuchu. The French name caoutchouc was used in the West Indies and became popular as a term for rubber in the early 1800s. In the 1500s, Spanish explorers noted that the South Americans used the rubbery substance on their clothing to waterproof it. In 1755 the king of Portugal sent his boots to South America to be waterproofed, and a few years later the city of Para sent him a full suit of rubber clothes. Samples were sent back to Europe as a curiosity. In 1770, the famous

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The Goodyear statue was dedicated in 1939 to honor the 100th anniversary of the discovery of vulcanization by Charles Goodyear.

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chemist and discoverer of oxygen, Joseph Priestly, found the gummy product of India rubber could erase pencil marks, thus evolved the term rubbers, although even this origin of India rubber is questioned.1 Priestly’s one inch eraser sold for about 25 cents. Still, the material we call rubber was a material of interest in many laboratories and to many artists of Europe, selling for around 75 cents an ounce (about $800 a pound in today’s dollars) in the late 1700s. The term rubber was confusing with it applying to the gutta-percha of the West Indies, gutta-percha of Malaya, and the South American rubber latex. The terms India rubber, caoutchouc, and gum elastic were popular in Victorian times for South America rubber. Gutta-percha hardened naturally into a waterproof coating, while India rubber remained flexible at most temperatures. On hardening, gutta-percha lost most of its elasticity. It would become the perfect material for underwater marine cables since it resisted attack by marine plants. Gutta-percha did had a disadvantage in that its inflexible properties caused cracking under stress. Gutta-percha had been used to waterproof early balloons in the 1700s, while flexible India rubber was still in search of a market. English and French chemists began experimenting with rubber in the late 1700s. Englishman Samuel Peal found a way to dissolve rubber in turpentine or benzene and then coat fabric with it, thus producing the waterproof clothing of South American Indians. The South American rubber was the source of all British rubber by 1830. Products such as army boots, waterproof knapsacks, waterproof coats, and shoes were being made. They were sticky, smelly, and subject to heat and cold problems, but research continued through the 1800s. Thomas Hancock opened the first rubber factory in 1820 using rubber threads weaved into the cloth, producing a superior waterproof fabric. Hancock also commercialized toy rubber balloons and rubber bands. A few years later Charles Mackintosh opened a raincoat factory. Mackintosh discovered that coal tar naphtha could dissolve rubber, and this solution could be used to coat fabric. The dissolved rubber gum was applied between two pieces of cloth. These raincoats had a distinctive yellow color and became known as Mackintosh raincoat. Raincoats became very popular in London during the period, the color being the result of cream colored natural rubber with some sulfur added. Chemists discovered heat-treated rubber produced more stable products and saw a number of new uses such as fire hose in the late 1820s. Molded rubber products were also developed. In 1835, Hancock merged with Mackintosh to create largest rubber factory in the world, producing four tons a year. These early successes would make England the center of the world rubber industry until 1920. Still, extreme cold turned products brittle and heat caused melting. In addition, rubber products smelled. Charles Mackintosh and Thomas Hancock are also the inventors of the first rubber tire in 1846. This solid rubber tire for buggies was about one and

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a quarter inch thick and inch and half wide on a metal rim. They were expensive but popular with Queen Victoria to cushion her ride on cobblestone roads. Another British inventor, Robert Thomson, invented a pneumatic tire using a leather outer casing and a rubber inner tube for pressurized air in the 1830s. The real success of Mackintosh, Hancock, and Thomson required a breakthrough in making rubber less gummy and more durable. The first rubber factory in the United States was in Roxbury, Massachusetts. This town had been the center of trade in South American Para rubber shoes. Rubber shoes were being imported from Brazil back in the 1700s. The natives built smoked latex on clay forms and dried them for days on the forms, but hardening took months before they were shipped to North America. It was an extremely slow process. The New England ports became a logical destination for these Brazilian shoes. Once in New England, the crude shoes required some cleaning, cutting, and trimming. Inventors in America looked at using dissolved rubber in turpentine to soak leather with, creating a new type of shoe. This shoe still was too sticky in hot weather. As early as 1820 another shoe product emerged; Boston companies were offering rubber overshoes for people. In 1833, a local manufacturer named Edwin Marcus Chaffee developed a rubber varnish to put on leather, making a product called patent leather. Patent leather was more stable in hot weather. Chaffee formed the Roxbury India Rubber Company and opened America’s first rubber factory in Boston. Sales never lived up to expectations, but Chaffee tried other rubber products including life preservers. Chaffee would make a major contribution to the production of rubber. First he designed a mixing mill to squeeze raw rubber biscuits from South America and mix other powders in, producing a thick sheet. The mixing mill used horizontal rollers. He designed a type of vertical rolling mill known as a calendar to roll out thinner sheets of rubber. Originally Chaffee just called his vertical mill the monster because it was the largest piece of machinery in New England in 1836. The total cost was $30,000 for the development and manufacture of the monster was an amazing sum for the period. The calendar could also be used to press sheets of rubber and fabric together. Pressing rubber and fabric saved on solvent and hand coating. The savings were said to be “thirty-six barrels of seventy cents a gallon turpentine every week” as well as cutting the labor cost in half.2 A young Charles Goodyear had visited the factory a number of times in hope of selling his early processes. Still, rubber’s properties lacked the consistency needed to attract consumers and investors. The key breakthrough would come in America in 1839 in New Haven, Connecticut, some 500 miles from Akron. Charles Goodyear, a 39-year-old bankrupt hardware merchant, would be the discoverer of a process of stabilizing rubber. Unfortunately, Goodyear would never see the financial rewards

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to make him the first rubber industry baron, but it would be Akron rubber baron Frank Seiberling who would give him the credit as a great inventor. During his life Goodyear knew mostly failure and suffered several bankruptcies. He died with little money and many lawsuits trying to take away the credit for his invention. He would never even visit the city of Akron which would make him famous. In fact, in the year of Goodyear’s death in 1860, Akron was a small canal town with declining businesses. Goodyear’s story is one of passion. Goodyear’s father had been a jackof-all-trades and a Yankee inventor and merchant. Goodyear metal and pearl coat buttons were common on soldier’s uniforms during the War of 1812. As interest in rubber from Brazil increased, it was logical that the Yankee shippers of New England were the first to experiment with it. Charles Goodyear got his earliest business experience at his father’s Naugatuck, Connecticut, factory. The factory made small tools and novelty wares. Charles also started experimenting with rubber coated products to sell. He and his father had opened one of the nation’s first retail hardware stores to sell a variety of products, including some novelty rubber products. Too much experimenting and tinkering resulted in the bankruptcy of the hardware business and earned him a trip to debtors’ prison. Goodyear had been experimenting with rubber dissolved in turpentine since the 1820s. Goodyear found some success dissolving rubber in oil and then using heat to make products. He successfully made shoes and aprons with rubber coated fabric. In the 1830s, Goodyear added an acid treatment to the process and further improved the properties. Mixing magnesium oxide with rubber, Goodyear created piano and book covers in 1835, but the product aged poorly. Goodyear made steady improvements with various methods to cure rubber. He found success with some sales products such as tablecloth. By 1836 Goodyear was making progress with favorable reviews from important men such as President Andrew Jackson, Senate leader Henry Clay, and John Calhoun.3 In 1837, Goodyear attracted a wealthy partner named William Ballard. They opened a rubber factory at Staten Island, New York, in 1837. They focused on the production of waterproof products such as raincoats, shoes, and hose. Business was poor, and his partner went bankrupt. Meantime, Goodyear continued his search for a cured rubber that would be in cold and hot environments. Goodyear had spent many years, including some in debtors’ prison, working on rubber. He focused on how to stabilize the elastic properties in all temperature ranges. Goodyear had been working on various rubber products such clothes and shoes since the early 1830s. The sticky and smelly products could not develop a strong market. Goodyear embarked on many experiments in search of a solution in factories in New York and Massachusetts. He obtained a patent in 1837 for his acid cured processed, but the process was far from

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per fect. Goodyear added new rubber products such as door mats, rubber flooring, rubber pouches, and window strips. He invented a hardened rubber cane, but at a cost of $50, it was of little interest to Yankee consumers. Still, the cured rubber did not have good properties over a wide range of temperatures. But before Goodyear discovered the full process to harden rubber, he once again went bankrupt; and he spent some weeks in debtor’s prison again, with a family of eight children at the time. His big breakthrough came in 1843 in Woburn, Massachusetts. The actual years of experiments and studying to find it have been reduced to mythology, but Goodyear finally developed the right combination of sulfur, lead oxide, and temperature. The incentive was a government contact to make 150 waterproof mail bags. Goodyear teamed up with a foreman Nathaniel Hayward, from the Eagle Rubber Company of Woburn. Hayward already had a patent on using powdered sulfur to make rubber less sticky. Goodyear got Haywood to sign over the patent to work with him. The mail bag project was another failure but led to the addition of sulfur and lead. The process used sulfur as the agent to cross link the molecular rubber chains thus hardening it. As a cross linking agent, sulfur had been discovered in Germany and used in England even before Hayward’s patent, while lead and heat were also needed to complete the Goodyear hardening process. The process was called vulcanization after the Roman god of fire. This process really created a new product. This rubber retained its properties at high and low temperatures. And maybe just as important, the atrocious odor was gone. Adding other materials such as carbon improved other properties such as strength and wear. In 1844, the year of the vulcanization patent, Charles Goodyear purchased Chaffee’s monster mill for a mere $525 and was able to make marketable rubber mail bags. The discovery came too late to save most of the existing New England rubber companies such as Roxbury India Rubber and Eagle Rubber. Many of these pre-vulcanization rubber companies had suffered from over speculation in their stocks and failed expectations of their products. Goodyear transferred his patent to the Naugatuck India Rubber Company of which his brother Henry Goodyear was a part owner. Naugatuck had been their boyhood home and the location of their father’s factory. He also moved the monster there, giving the company a major market advantage. The company specialized in rubber shoes, raincoats, boots, tents, and suspenders. Shoes sold for $1.00 a pair and top boots went for $5.00 a pair. Goodyear and Naugatuck Rubber licensed a number of New England companies to use the Goodyear patent. These factories surrounded the Naugatuck area with ready access to seaports for incoming raw rubber. Many of these companies were owned by relations of Goodyear. For example, his brother-in-law formed Goodyear Metallic Shoe Company. Another factory was owned by brother Henry.

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The real rubber boom came in 1848 with the discovery of gold in California. Rubberized clothing, belts, boats, pontoons, tents, and hoses were essential to the miners. The Union India Rubber company was formed in New York with a Naugatuck factory to supply to equip thousands of fortyniners going west for gold. Clipper ships carried rubberized products to the miners of the West Coast, making New York and New England ports the logical locations for rubber products. The company also established their own major retail stores to cater to these gold miners. The company became a Goodyear licensee. Success always brings enemies, and Goodyear was to have his share. The invention of vulcanized rubber was far from the serendipity often claimed. It had been a confluence of various discoveries in the field in several countries. Not surprisingly, there were a number of others who claimed the discovery. In one legation, the famous American Daniel Webster defended Goodyear at a cost of $25,000. The case in which Goodyear tried to stop infringement on his patent became known as the Great India Rubber case. The case, which made headlines throughout the nation, was really the end of a long and bitter struggle with another rubber maker, Horace Day. Day had been making rubber products since the 1830s in New Brunswick. In the early 1840s he patented and sold a rubber boat. It cost $75 and could hold six passengers. He also manufactured shoes but was not a Goodyear licensee. He worked briefly with Goodyear and Haywood in the pre-patent days. Day knew the Goodyear process and started to make shoes; that would lead to a series of patent battles between the two men. Goodyear licensees had formed an association to legally battle infringement. The final battle ended with a Supreme Court victory for Goodyear. While Goodyear would have over thirty defenses of his patent, he would win all American claims, but at a huge cost of money. Still, Goodyear advanced the science of rubber. Besides sulfur, he added lead oxide to reduce the vulcanizing time and lampblack carbon to improve properties. He perfected the manufacturing operations of mixing, milling, and compounding. Goodyear borrowed a great deal of money to exhibit at the Great Exhibition of 1852 in London. His exhibit was known as Goodyear’s Vulcanite Court. Nearly six million saw Goodyear’s exhibit. While Goodyear did not invent hard rubber, the products in his exhibit popularized its use. Hard rubber would replace whalebone in combs and handles. Goodyear sold his license for artificial whalebone for $10,000 to several companies to make products like combs. Goodyear’s exhibit of rubber products proved a success and won him grand council gold medal. Goodyear invested over $30,000 (about $650,000 in today’s dollars) of his own money for his huge exhibit, a three-room display of rubber products, including furniture, rugs, tables, chairs and draperies. There were hot water bottles, knife handles, inkwells, hard rubber canes, life

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preservers, hats, book covers, tablecloths, dolls, rubber clothes, and air cushions. One invention he never patented was the waterbed; however, Goodyear’s contribution to industry often came in his overlooked products. Hayward Rubber, a Goodyear licensee, also had an exhibit at the fair. At the time Hayward was making 3,000 pairs of shoes a day. It was at this great world’s fair that a simple Goodyear rubber product helped expand the Industrial Revolution and the Age of Steam. The steam engine of 1852 was far from a pressure tight piece of equipment. The state of metal fabrication and machining did not allow for tight fitting joints. Steam engine makers had tried polished surfaces and the use of soft lead to seal the joints with limited success. Lack of pressure tight joints meant the loss of steam and reduced engine efficiency. Goodyear had invented a vulcanized rubber washer to use between metal surfaces. The rubber washer allowed for pressure tight joints. The rubber joint also dampened vibration, which reduced joint failure and maintenance. It was a simple improvement that helped advance industry but would result in little financial reward for Goodyear. The world fair exhibit and his book Gum-Elastic showed Goodyear to be prophetic as well. He predicted the idea of rubber balloon globes for children. He believed in and exhibited hard rubber musical instruments. He correctly foresaw rubber bumpers for baby cribs, rubber waterbeds, footballs, shower curtains, sails, rafts, life jackets, driver suits, and hydrogen filled balloons. He envisioned rubber globe maps of the world. His book looks at times like those of Leonardo de Vinci with drawings of future applications of rubber. Many prototypes of these futuristic products drew large crowds at the fair. The fame and name recognition came at a very high personal cost to Goodyear. He had overextended his credit for the world fair and French machine makers had him jailed when visited there a few years later. He did forge some European ties at the fair. He was able to partner with some London businessmen, but once again his patent was challenged in European courts. It seems a Thomas Hancock had independently discovered vulcanization, which is not surprising as information and science streams were coming together by the 1840s. In English court, Goodyear lost his patent battle with Hancock, allowing the British rubber industry to maintain its world dominance. Goodyear died in 1860, benefiting only in the last few years of his life from his discovery. Still, he died $200,000 in debt while his arch-enemy, Horace Day, died wealthy. A strong Christian, however, Goodyear forgave Horace Day, while Day continued the fight with the inventor’s impoverished family. The Goodyear family petitioned Congress to extend the patent. The key Goodyear licensed factories prospered until the patent expired in 1865. These factories would decades later be the foundation of the United States

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Rubber Company. Day mounted opposition to the extension and won the case over Goodyear’s family. Thomas Hancock was different in that he seemed to have arrived at vulcanization independently. Like Goodyear, Hancock studied the scientific properties. In the 1850s and 1860s, it was Thomas Hancock in England who advanced the uses of rubber. He developed rubberized belts and hoses that became the replacement for leather and cloth. Rubber seals became important in industrial and home canning operations. Rubber seals and threads improved the efficiency of steam engines, and Hancock was part of that application with Goodyear. Hancock made molded rubber products that replaced ivory and wood in many products. Goodyear and a number of partners followed the British lead into these new product areas, but the British rubber industry was the world leader. Without strong tariffs, the American industry could not compete with the British market advantages. Also, the British Empire controlled the world’s sources of raw rubber latex. In the 1860s, all world rubber went through the commodity markets in London. Rubber prices, in 1860s and 1870s, were about 20 to 50 cents a pound. Product prices were extremely high considering a laborer made about 50 cents a day. Rubber shoes were about a dollar a pair and boots about three dollars. A rubber tent was about eight dollars. A raincoat was around eight dollars and a poncho around six dollars. A hard rubber boat was $70. Rubber hose was $1.62 a foot and tubing 35 cents a foot.4 The high product cost was because of amount of labor needed. Goodyear never really had much money because in spent freely. It was only a year before his death in 1860 that he moved to a mansion type home in Washington, D.C. The house was at 253 I Street. His home was fully equipped with a rubber laboratory and a special tub in which to test products. Goodyear died at the age of 59 of gout. The reason for his death is often disturbed, but clearly a life of using sulfur, lead, and rubber had a role. His estate was in debt after clearing everything, and he left no property to the estate. When Goodyear died in 1860, there were 27 rubber companies in New England and the east. Employment in the industry was almost 3,000. The Union army and navy became the major customers. The war would be a boon to many of Goodyear’s licensees. Demand grew for rubber tents, ponchos, blankets, knapsacks, and shoes. The Union India Rubber Company, which had supplied the forty-niners, became a major government supplier as did the Boston Rubber Shoe Company. The government spent over $10 million on rubber shoes and boots and $17 million in rubber blankets and ponchos for a total of over $30 million in rubber products. The Lincoln administration’s policy of buying American and maintaining tariffs assured an American rubber manufacturing boom. That boom was focused on the East Coast, which was the heart of the American rubber industry.

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In the United States, Goodyear had licensed his patent to a number of companies by product. The first were the Naugatuck India Rubber Company, the India Rubber Glove Company and the Boston Belt Company. These companies would become cornerstones for the future United States Rubber Company. The Boston Belt Company would pioneer a revolution in mechanical power replacing the leather drive belts of industry. Boston Belt also pioneered the use of rubberized fire hose and a whole new industry. Fire hose had been originally manufactured out of leather. Unfortunately, Goodyear profited little as he was dragged into court and even prison again. Hayward Rubber, a Goodyear shoe licensee, was the nation’s largest rubber shoe manufacturer in the early 1840s and would continue until absorbed into U.S. Rubber. Many of these companies would also evolve and be merged in the formation of United States Rubber in the 1890s. Goodyear did leave a legacy in his hometown of Naugatuck, Connecticut, which had become the “Rubber City” by 1860. In the early 19th century, Naugatuck was the first port of entry to South American Indian Para rubber shoes. Even before Goodyear, Naugatuck had America’s first rubber shoe factory. In 1847, the India Rubber Glove Company began producing rubber gloves under the Goodyear license. By 1870, Naugatuck was the world’s “Rubber City,” with as many as ten plants in operation, making a wide variety of products. Naugatuck would hold the title until 1920. In fact, a total of nine Naugatuck companies came together in 1892 to form the United States Rubber Company, which would be America’s largest rubber company until 1920. United States Rubber would be one of the first twelve stocks to make up the Dow Jones average. In the 1870s, U.S. Rubber purchased a fourth of all the Brazilian rubber. U.S. Rubber sold thousands of different products in different brand names and had a major market in shoes, boots, and raincoats. Rubber footwear represented 70 percent of market in 1880. The most famous product of U.S. Rubber was the classic canvas-top sneakers. Naugatuck seemed to be a logical center for the rubber, which depended on shipping and trading in international markets. The man that would bring the rubber industry to Akron and make Akron its capital was Dr. Benjamin Franklin Goodrich from Ripley, New York, in 1841. Goodrich was an orphan who found his way to the Cleveland Medical College in 1859. Goodrich like many had ties to the eastern Ohio settlers when the area was part of Connecticut’s Western Reserve. Goodrich graduated in 1862, and entered the Medical Corps of the Union Army. During the war, he was amazed at the volume of rubber products being used, and that would later lead to his investment in rubber. Goodyear’s rubber syringe became a dominant instrument in the war. In particular, the hard rubber syringe had become part of every doctor’s kit. It was used to cleanse and aspirate wounds. The syringes were the only method of introducing medicines to bodily orifices.

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In general, a soldier’s life of tents, ponchos, shoes, and blankets, was dominated by rubber products. After the war, a restless Goodrich returned to New York to enter the oil business. He failed at his effort and moved on to the real estate business. Goodrich proved very successful in real estate, and in 1869, he and his partners purchased a rubber company for $10,000. The company was the Hudson River Rubber Company in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York. The company produced steam engine gaskets, fire hoses, factory belts, and railroad car springs. Rubber was the hot industry on the East Coast at the time with the nation’s railroads and factories expanding. Goodrich’s Hudson Rubber should have been very successful except it was burdened by old machinery, high rents, high labor costs, and fierce competition. In addition, the market for rubber products was moving west. All this brings us back to why Akron became the “Rubber City.” Landlocked Akron had no geographical advantage, and in fact sea coast ports in New England and New York made better sense as an American city for rubber production. Akron had no innovators of the new material. Akron had no skilled labor force or any intellectual resources. It had no cheap source of unskilled labor to man the factories. Akron lacked the cheap energy of cities like Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and many other industrial cities of the period. Akron lacked the full railroad connections of most other major cities in Ohio. It would be hard to believe that a corporate committee given the facts at the time would ever select Akron to build a rubber factory. It did have some assets that could be promoted, including a pro-business chamber of commerce and community. For Goodrich, Akron was to be the place to make his fortune. There are the mythical stories of Benjamin Franklin Goodrich’s coming to Akron. The most popular is that he met an Akron businessman on the train to Cleveland, who convinced him to visit Akron. The most amazing thing about this story is its resemblance to other myths of how George Westinghouse came to Pittsburgh, how Edward Libbey came to Toledo and how many other industrialists reached industrial cities. Like all these legends, the real truth appears to be an active community outreach to industry. The Akron area was hardly foreign to Goodrich as he had gone to school in the area and had some ties to the early settlers of the Connecticut Western Reserve of Ohio. Akron did have some positives and the business community exploited them to bring in business. The community was willing to make the investments and offer the incentives to bring in manufacturing. Akron did have connections on the Ohio & Erie Canal and a few growing railroad connections. The canal in the 1870s was still a critical link to the lakes, sea, and East Coast. The canal system also offered a source of water needed in manufacturing. Akron also had nearby coal mines to supply industrial energy. Akron as a

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canal and grain center had attracted some key regional railroads as well as the Atlantic & Great Western Railroad, which was a direct link to New York. Akron also had some growing marketing advantages as well. Wages in Akron were at least 20 percent below that of the East Coast and the labor was not unionized. Goodrich competition was all based in the east, but the rubber market was moving west. Ohio was the heart of bicycle manufacture in the 1870s as well as industrial belts, which represented a major use of rubber. Bicycles were selling at a million a year with a huge replacement business in tires as well. In the end, however, it was the forward thinking industrialists and citizens of Akron that closed the deal. The old families of Akron, who were farmers, merchants, and manufacturers related to the canal city at the summit, would supply the innovative thinking, investment capital, and manufacturing know-how. Most were immigrant New Englanders who came to settle Connecticut’s Western Reserve. They brought Yankee business smarts and the Whig Party belief in America’s economic manifest destiny. They made a natural blending with the western heart of the Whig Party in the area. The Seiberling family, which had started in grain and farm equipment manufacturing, would be the founding family of Goodyear Rubber. In addition, the Seiberling family had been one of the first investors of Goodrich Rubber. The Barber family partnered with the Seiberling family in grain processing and went on to form Diamond Rubber (later merged with Goodrich). The city’s merchant and dry goods family, the O’Neils, would found General Tire. The Miller family had been the founders of farm equipment factories and would help form Mohawk Rubber. So it was only the seed of rubber that B.F. Goodrich bought to Akron. Akron had become flush with capital from the success of the canal driven industries. At the time cities like Akron, Toledo, Canton, and Youngstown were actively looking to bring industry into their cities. They had seen the rise of cities like Chicago, Pittsburgh, and Cleveland with industry. Goodrich did approach Cleveland investors first but with no success, since they were active in growing steel, shipping, oil, and railroads.5 Akron in the 1870s had growing grain processing and clay products industries. Akron was in search of industries and Goodrich with his failing company, Hudson Rubber, was in search of investors and a new start. Goodrich was also under pressure from his remaining eastern investors to move west. Goodrich started a relationship with the head of Akron’s Board of Trade, Colonel George Perkins. Perkins was able to put together some important Akron investors such as himself; Lewis Miller of Buckeye Mower and Reaper; John F. Seiberling, a manufacturer of farm machinery; Ferdinand Schumacher, the Oatmeal King; and George Bates, president of the Second National Bank. Miller also founded the Chautauqua movement and was the future father-in-law of Thomas Edison.

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John F. Seiberling would be the father of the founders of the future Goodyear Rubber Company. He was a major investor in manufacturing during the 1870s and 1880s. Seiberling’s first company was Empire Mower and Reaper, founded in 1861. This investment made him the wealthiest man in the growing city of Akron. His next business was the Seiberling Streetcar Trucks, which manufactured the wheel assemblies for streetcars throughout the nation. Seiberling invested in many local companies such as Quaker Oats and several light rail companies. Now Seiberling and Akron’s wealthy were looking at new industries to expand capital growth. These wealthy Akron investors and some of Goodrich’s older investors formed Goodrich, Tew and Company in 1870. Harvey Tew was Goodrich’s partner and brother-in-law. The company was capitalized with $40,500. Goodrich purchased four lots for $1,800 between the Ohio and Erie Canal and Main Street. This would be the first rubber company west of the Alleghenies. In Akron, this new 300 man factory would be the city’s fourth largest industry. Many of the skilled positions were manned by workers from Goodrich’s New York operation. The main product of the company was its White Anchor fire hose. Fire hose was produced using cotton and rubber. This type of hose was used by gold and mineral mines as well as fire departments. At the time Goodrich was working on another breakthrough product — the transmission belt. Transmission belts were needed in machine shops to transfer steam power and in conveyor belts. Goodrich’s belt was similarly a product of long staple cotton and rubber, replacing leather belts of old. Goodrich would receive the first patent for rubberized belt. The belt required layering of cotton and rubber followed by a pressing. The belt was then vulcanized. These products required the best grade of cotton, usually long fiber Sea Island cotton or Nile Valley Egyptian cotton. Two of the biggest customers of belts were Standard Oil of Cleveland and Anheuser Brewing of St. Louis, but the market was huge. Goodrich also had an endless array of smaller products. Rubber electrical insulation was gaining popularity after its use in the transatlantic cable. In 1858, he actually used a latex cousin of rubber from Malaya known as guttapercha. Gutta-percha lacked the flexibility of good rubber. There was also a market for rubber shoes and rubber soles. There were also smaller markets for hard rubber for pen cases, buttons, combs, gun handles, and ashtrays. The rubber industry held its own in the deep depression of 1873. Still, George Perkins had to infuse cash in 1875 to keep the company going. By 1880, Goodrich had developed a near monopoly in fire hoses. In the 1870s and 1880s, rubber was still a material in search of markets. Electrical applications such as insulation and battery cases were growing. There were many low volume exotic applications such rubber urinals, surgical implants, chest expanders, rubber bands, flutes, balloons, gaskets, life belts

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for boating, billiard cushions, wringer rolls for washing machines, fruit jar rings, aprons, and waterproof clothing. There were also hundreds of companies trying to make their fortune in rubber. Rubber footwear out of New England dominated the market. Goodrich, however, could not compete with the East Coast companies in footwear. Goodrich did bring the seed of a great industry to Akron.

3

The Rubber Industry Comes to Akron Dr. Benjamin Franklin Goodrich, like Charles Goodyear, never lived to see the success of his company and the rubber industry. Goodrich, like Goodyear, knew more failure than success with rubber. The company struggled in its first decade in Akron. There was a lot of competition in rubber products, but Goodrich was focused on industrial products such as belts and hoses. Transmission belting for drive belts was a solid product as it was needed in all types of manufacturing. Rubberized cloth had replaced leather belts in the 1850s in American factories. The main production of general rubber products was centered in Naugatuck, Connecticut, and in England, but the market was moving west. The New England rubber plants had the technological advantage and experience. Goodrich’s advantage was it was close to the industrial markets of the Midwest. Still the B.F. Goodrich Company struggled with cash flow problems throughout the 1870s. Local banker George Crouse and Colonel Perkins had to rescue the company on several occasions. The growth of products such as bicycle tires would help B.F. Goodrich in the long run. Rubber, however, was a costly business with long supply chains. In addition, the American manufacturers had tough competition from British manufacturers, who often controlled the price of raw rubber. The British would, by the early 1900s, control the new, cheaper source of rubber from Asian rubber plantations. Rubber was an international business that Americans needed to learn quickly to keep pace with the British. Akron would, however, become the heart of visionary politicians such as James Garfield and William McKinley, who believed in helping American manufacturing. The process to get rubber to the B.F. Goodrich plant in Akron was a long one indeed. In the 1870s, all raw rubber came from the Amazon River valley of Brazil. The source was the hevea and castilloa trees of this tropic area. These rubber trees of the time grew wild in the swampy forests around the Amazon River. The trees were designed by nature to grow apart from each other and not in groupings or clusters. Natives, usually Tapuyo Indians, were 42

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hired to harvest the latex and were assigned areas of the forest to maintain their collections. The latex is not the live sap of the tree but the sap of the inner bark. The natives that collected the sap or latex were known as tappers or Seringalistas, or Seringueiros. The native had to keep track of the wild trees and establish a routine of latex collection. Trees were often a mile apart. One tapper might work 130 to 200 trees in a weekly cycle, collecting from 1 to 2 gallons of latex a day. Wages were generally high because of the scarcity of labor to live in the deep jungle. Cutting the bark and collecting it in buckets harvested a milky latex liquid. The tapped latex had the consistency of cream. Trees could be tapped every several days. But harvesting was seasonal during the flood season from November to May, when rivers overflowed and the swamp became too high. The native tappers lived in huts on logs above the water level during this inactive period. From 1870 to about 1913, Brazil and its wild rubber controlled 90 percent of the market. This type of subsistence farming was not well suited for the industrial age. Plantations offered a way to cluster the trees and harvest in all seasons. Slowly, Asian rubber plantations run by the British offered cheaper and faster approaches to harvesting rubber. Harvesting the latex was only part of the tapper’s work. The latex was then coagulated using an old Indian practice by the tapper near his shack in the forests. The practice consists of heating and smoking latex on paddle and removing it to build a ball or biscuit of snow-white cured rubber. The process could take days to make a 50-pound biscuit. It was extremely labor intensive and costly. These biscuits often had many shapes and sizes. The very best rubber came in a ham shaped batch known as Pure Fine Para. The tappers brought the biscuits to the city of Manaos to exchange and barter for goods such as cooking pots and knives from middlemen known as aviadors, who were local European traders. The biscuits were then moved by river to seaports such as Para. Cities like Manaos and Para became boom towns with money flowing in to all types of vices and extravagances. This inflated the processing price of the rubber latex. Faster and cheaper methods were developed at African and Asian rubber plantations in the 1900s, but the South American process remained the gold standard of processing, producing the highest quality for decades. During the early years of B.F. Goodrich, the biscuits were shipped to the London auction market to be purchased by the pound by companies from all over the world. Rubber was graded by the dealers and sold to the company purchasers. South American rubber was always sold at a premium because of its quality. In the 1870s, the price was 20 cents a pound, but it increased quickly with demand to about 70 cents a pound by 1900. It would continue to increase reaching over $3 a pound at its peak in 1910. Even as cheaper African and Asia rubber became available, American

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companies, in particular, built products with Para South American rubber. It was called Para rubber or Wild Para because the tappers’ coagulated latex was gathered for sea shipment in the city of Para. Para rubber was specified in the production of early tennis balls. For different products, the first step of production was to blend various quality levels of raw rubber to meet the application of the product. Early tires required a high percent base of Para rubber. In the 1820, Indians in Para molded rubber around clay molds to make shoes, which were sold to traders for 20 cents and then sold in New York for 50 cents a pair. Rubber shoes were popular imported products through the nineteenth century. By the late 1870s, a small amount of rubber was coming out of the African Congo. These rubber plantations used a type of slave or at least indentured servants, which reduced costs. The African natives were more careless with their harvesting and congealing, often taking shortcuts such as boiling the latex to speed up congealing. South American rubber had 15 percent foreign material while African rubber had 30 percent. This was critical, since at the London market rubber sold by the pound. African rubber was considered low quality for decades. Goodrich always preferred the quality of South American rubber. Companies like Goodrich hired inspecting agents to cut and poke biscuits at the London market to test quality. Eventually, tire production in the United States and Britain created demand that led to rubber plantations in Asia. There was also a commodity market in New York for rubber, but the physical rubber still came from the London market. Goodrich would hire New York brokers to purchase raw rubber in the London market. Prices in the late 1870s varied from 50 cents to 70 cents a pound. The market was highly variable from the beginning and prices in the 1870s could spike briefly to as high as a dollar a pound. In a few years, New York importers brought raw rubber direct from South America. From New York, rubber was shipped by railroad to Akron. From the Akron railroad station mule wagons moved the raw rubber to the Goodrich factory. Lots of rubber biscuits came in sizes from 1,000 pounds to 40,000 pounds by 1880. Biscuits in the 1870s would be received in Akron by the Goodrich Company and stored in a special cellar with a wall on the old canal. A cool, dark, and damp place was needed to protect the rubber from its natural enemies of light and heat. Also, in case of fire, the canal water offered an immediate system to end it by flooding the cellar. Fire was a major problem and often resulted in high insurance costs. In the then rubber capital of the world, Naugatuck, Connecticut, rubber companies had to man their own fire departments. The old canal, now reduced in commerce, took on a major edge in fire protection. The biscuits received further grading and extensive testing. Processing began by cleaning the rubber with copious amounts of water from the Akron canal. Once cleaned the rubber would be dried for weeks

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using a heater. All heating and machines were powered by coal-fired steam engines. Rubber had to be compounded for its final use. This required mixing different grades and different quality biscuits with an endless array of compounding agents to achieve the right properties. The compounding, cleaning, and milling of rubber produced rubber sheets to various products to be made. Rubber making also required a great deal of water for cleaning and cooling. The compounds added and the amounts were company secrets. In many cases the formulas were the competitive advantage of the company. In the early rubber factories of New England, compounders were the owners or family. Later companies moved to writing them in code. But even with the code, a compounder was a highly trusted employee. A rubber baron described the compounder as “the only one who knew what specifications were being used — and he might carry these in his head, not trust them to paper.”1 Compounding was an art and science in the 1800s. It used chemists, but the science used was better compared to alchemy. Milling and compounding produced chemical dough. Over a hundred additives could be used. Sulfur was the common additive for vulcanization. Other additives for various properties included zinc oxide, flour, clay, carbon black, mica, talc, ground glass, camphor and others. In the early days of compounding rubber, the mixes were trade secrets. Goodrich made artificial whalebone (a favorite handle material) by magnesia, shellac, and antimony sulfides. Floor covering was made mixing powdered cork and rubber. Flour was often mixed in for rubber stamps. Ground glass was added to make pencil erasers. Some compounds added specific properties, such as carbon for black color (off white to brown was the base color), zinc oxide to whiten, lead to increase heat resistance, charcoal to reduce odors, talc to reduce stickiness, chalk to increase hardness, aluminum to increase heat resistance, mica for fireproofing, and many others for color and aid in vulcanization. Processing depended on the product. Calendar machines used rolls to squeeze rubber into cotton duck. For bicycle tires sheets of cotton and rubber were layered. Shoes, boots, and industrial belts also used cotton. Only the best Sea Island cotton was used for tire building. Compounded rubber was then put in a product (shaping) mold, which was heated to start the vulcanization process. Vulcanization stabilizes and hardens rubber. Vulcanization using sulfur, white lead, and heat is the very heart of the modern rubber making processes. In Goodrich’s day vulcanization led to two general types of product — hard and soft. Soft products had up to 10 percent sulfur. Hard rubber then known as Ebonite or Vulcanite had 33 percent sulfur. Ebonite was the hard plastic of the era replacing wood and glass applications and creating new product forms. Ebonite became a popular form of hard plastic for the pen cases of the Conklin Company, which Mark Twain had promoted. Sulfur was added in

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the compounding process. The compounded rubber is then formed, pressed, or molded into shape before heating is used to complete the vulcanization. Fire hose required the layering of fabric and rubber then running it though a hose shaping machine. Tire making would be developed later and would require layering by hand as well as molding. Vulcanization changed the rubber market since the late 1820s; America was importing 70,000 pounds of Para rubber shoes from Brazil (over 100,000 pairs). These shoes became sticky in summer and brittle in winter. Vulcanization had been invented in New England and Britain and in the 1850s raw rubber came to American and British rubber factories to be made into vulcanized shoes, which were stable in cold and heat. By the time Charles Goodyear invented vulcanization, the market for rubber shoes was over 500,000 pairs. British imports were a significant part of the East Coast market. The high quality of vulcanized rubber shoes almost doubled the market in a few years. This higher quality rubber blended with New England cotton made for mechanical belts to replace leather, which became a growing business in the 1870s along with fire hose. Naugatuck and Boston were the center of this fast growing rubber industry after the Civil War with factories from Maine to New York. As noted Goodrich had been a bit of a career changer before his involvement with the Hudson River Rubber Company at Hastings-on-Hudson, New York. Hudson Rubber was in a solid business of hoses and belts, but it was an extremely competitive business and the New York location had high rent and wages. A young Goodrich had been dabbling in real estate and made a deal to buy into the Hudson Rubber Company in 1869. Goodrich was able to buy in because Hudson Rubber was failing financially. Goodrich became president of the company and realized he would have to close the New York plant. The decade of the 1870s was difficult for Goodrich Rubber. There were a total of fifty-six rubber companies in the United States employing 6,025 people in 1870.2 Most of these companies were in New England because shipping was key to the early rubber supply, and the vast majority made rubber shoes and raincoats. Initially, imported Para shoes were great business. Trading companies bought them in Brazil for 15 to 20 cents a pair and sold them in New York and Boston for $5 a pair. B.F. Goodrich had a strong niche in industrial products, but the recession of the 1870s almost resulted in bankruptcy. Goodrich’s company nearly went under in the recession following the Panic of 1873, one of America’s deepest and longest recessions surpassed only by the Great Depression and that century’s Great Recession. The panic lasted five years with 30 percent unemployed and another 40 percent working for less than seven months a year. Nationwide, three million would lose their jobs while daily wages fell 25 percent. Unemployment nationally was running

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over 25 percent for years. Consumer demand for rubber footwear dropped off over 60 percent. Goodrich’s new industrial products such as belts and fire hose were needed to carry them through this deep recession of the 1870s. The company’s main product was fire hose, which was a steady product for the company. Goodrich Company also had a growing business in industrial belts. Other novelty products found tough competition with the rubber factories of Naugatuck and England. America was importing an equal amount of rubber products during the 1870s. The recession hurt the bottom line, but very important new products were coming on stream. The 1880s saw several product booms. First the economic expansion created new demand for belts and conveyors. Long material handling conveyor belts were being applied in the booming steel and coal industries. The invention of the Westinghouse air brake and the growth of railroads created a demand for air brake hose on trains. Goodrich expanded its production of hard rubber products such as fountain pens, handles, and other novelty items. The company also expanded (with limited success) into the waterproof clothing market. Hot water bottles were also one of Goodrich’s popular products. In those days hot water bottles offered relief for the pain from sore muscles and colds. It even picked up a new product in tennis balls. Later in the decade, Goodrich would move into the bicycle and carriage tire market, which was centered in Ohio. These hard rubber tires proved an improvement over the iron and wooden bicycle tires of the 1870s. In 1880, the competitive market from the hundreds of East Coast rubber companies had reduced profits to the break-even point. Another problem was the vulcanized footwear imported from Britain that also flooded the East Coast. The large number of companies created price wars and prevented any one company from making large buys of rubber. As we have seen, Goodrich moved to Akron to gain market advantage in 1880. In 1883, Goodrich was awarded a patent for a new and improved rubber belting as well as improvements in the vulcanization.3 Goodrich would become known for its technology. Goodrich was not alone; about the same time rubber belts companies opened in Cleveland and Chicago, so Goodrich looked to further diversify. The company incorporated under the name B.F. Goodrich Company in 1881 with capital stock of $100,000. In the 1880s, hard rubber tires for bicycles and carriages were becoming a growth market. The growth of electrical systems and lighting increased the demand for rubber insulation. Hard rubber was making inroads into dentures and surgical implants. President Grover Cleveland even had a rubber implant after an operation for cancer of the mouth. Aprons and bathing caps were becoming popular, and rubber soles for shoes also represented a growth market. Goodrich was forced to manufacture an array of products with various rubber compounds for specific products. Profits did increase throughout the 1880s. In 1881, company profits were $319,000,

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and by 1888 the profits had doubled to $696,000. Dr. Goodrich died in 1888 from tuberculosis at age 46. Tuberculosis was common for those working with the toxic chemicals of rubber making. The presidency of the company was passed on to an Akronite, Colonel George T. Perkins. Perkins had been one of the first Akron bankers to invest in the company in 1870 and was the grandson of the city’s founder, General Simon Perkins. Rubber and Akron were now fused into one entity. In general, Akron was booming during the 1880s. The original investors in B.F. Goodrich were making money and expanding other Akron industries as well. Louis Miller was expanding his reaper company and was making over 20,000 harvesting machines per year by 1881. John F. Seiberling was expanding his grain operations and introduced Mother Oats cereal, which would merge years later into the famous Quaker Oats Company of Akron. Bankers invested in new companies such as iron stove making and clay products. In 1877, the first telephone line came to Akron to connect the private home of B.F. Goodrich on Water Street to his plant manager, Alanson Work, at the rubber plant. Akron in the 1880s would be one of the first cities to experiment with electric street lighting. By the end of the decade, Akron had an electrified streetcar system. Alanson Work was an engineer and experienced fireman who brought advances in technology to the B.F. Goodrich Company. He developed new recipes for rubber mixtures improving product properties. Specialized belting opened new markets in coal conveyors, grain elevators, metal polishing, dehairing animals, oil wells, paper mills, and saw mills. Work implemented the use of hydraulic presses to improve belt quality over hand pressing. His patents and process improvements gave Goodrich a near monopoly in belts and hoses by the end of the 1880s. Work’s improvements also gave the company the position of low cost manufacturer. Still, the company remained at the mercy of crude rubber price swings of 40 cents a pound to $1.40 a pound in the decade. Goodrich had brought together rubber makers in New York to propose a rubber trust to purchase rubber, but he failed to unite these highly competitive companies. B.F. Goodrich was Akron’s first rubber baron and started the tradition of philanthropy and community outreach. He started small giving turkeys and money to his employees on Thanksgiving and Christmas. Community giving included baseball fields and picnic areas for the employees. The company formed a band for summer concerts for the city. The company also had a company store to help with food costs. Goodrich was a great place to work and it thus avoided the union problems of the early East Coast rubber companies. B.F. Goodrich would set the model for the rubber barons to oppose unionization. However, few fully understand the early union movement and

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its opposition. The unions of the 1870s and 1880s were split between a crafts union model and a more general representation. The main unions of the period were the American Federation of Labor, the Knights of Labor, and the Industrial Workers of the World. The American Federation of Labor was led by Samuel Gompers and supported mostly skilled workers such as tire builders, compounders, and calendar men. The Knights of Labor represented the unskilled laborers and were more focused on the eight hour day than union representation. The Knights were more popular in the highly automated industries. The Industrial Workers of the World (I.W.W.) was a socialistic union open to all regardless of race, gender, or skills. The I.W.W. was a political style Marxist European union with limited popularity with the general public. The Knights of Labor had been the first to try to unionize the rubber industry in the 1880s. Woonsocket Rubber Company, owned by Joe Banigan, would be the focus of this early movement. Woonsocket Rubber production of rubber footwear had become less skilled with the implementation of vulcanization. Woonsocket Rubber was manned by Irish immigrants who were on the forefront of a clandestine labor movement in the United States. Joe Banigan was the East Coast rubber baron of Goodrich’s period. Banigan’s Woonsocket Rubber produced footwear and had been a leader in automating the process. He started to substitute semi-skilled labor for skilled labor as he brought in new machines. In 1885, Banigan faced a major walkout by his skilled workers because of this shift to more semi-skilled workers. The Knights had been operating at Banigan’s New England plants since 1882, but the walkout forced solidarity in the union movement. Banigan’s dismissal of workers who walked out led to what is called the first strike in the rubber industry by a union. The strike led to violence as Banigan brought in scabs. Public pressure and the Catholic Church forced Banigan to accept the Knights of Labor. However, the Knights’ belief in combining skilled and unskilled labor into a single union was not generally popular with the Midwest rubber workers. In Akron, rubber tire makers considered themselves skilled workers needing a special type of union, closer to the old guild model of the skilled craftsmen. B.F. Goodrich was a supporter of the view that rubber was for skilled workers. The American Federation of Labor (AFL) was interested in the skilled workers and prohibited unskilled labors, women, and blacks. The AFL was interested in controlling the pace of manufacturing and limiting technology or labor saving methods. The AFL hoped to create a type of industrial guild, similar to the guild system of old Europe. The AFL had seen the Bessemer process in the steel industry of the 1870s eliminate the crafts system and its highly paid skilled workers. This goal of controlling the workplace was the most offensive to the rubber barons, such as B.F. Goodrich. The AFL promoted

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strikes and fought for contractual recognition of the union as the bargaining agent. The AFL gained in strength as rubber barons tried to increase production and the pace of work. Also the rubber barons’ constant application of new labor saving devices pushed up AFL membership. The weakness of this union movement was the pride of skilled workers in their craft and the fact that unskilled workers were prohibited. However, Akron tire workers saw AFL as a better fit for them. The main competing union with the AFL remained the Knights of Labor, which was part of a national social movement. The Knights were committed to representing all the workers — skilled and unskilled. The Knights were at least open to blacks, Catholics, and women. It had gained members and public support for its mission to eliminate brutal twelve hour days. The Knights had some support with paternal capitalists. John Buchtel, Akron’s iron baron, supported the Knights at his Akron Iron Company. More problematic for the barons was the vocal socialistic union of the Industrial Workers of the World, known as the Wobblies. Many Americans distrusted this European type union with strong ties to the Marxists. B.F. Goodrich and later barons particularly opposed the I.W.W. However, the I.W.W. was a very aggressive movement on the lookout for opportunities. The I.W.W. was more of a national movement controlled by eastern socialists, than a local movement. Goodrich in Akron had little union activity compared to Woonsocket Rubber. The Midwest was anti-union at the time and Goodrich paid well. Akron was a new growth area as was the rubber industry there. B.F. Goodrich was personally respected and trusted, making unionization unlikely in his lifetime. Goodrich, like all the early barons, knew the men by their first names and it was still possible to take your grievance to the top man. Growth, however, brought a wider gap between the worker and management. It would no longer be possible to consider the organization a family or even a large tribe with over 1,000 employees. Bureaucracy becomes a necessity with size and with bureaucracy comes rigidity and the organization becomes less responsive to the individual. In 1888, B.F. Goodrich passed away. Goodrich had been sick for months and died in a Colorado sanitarium. George Perkins, the Akron banker behind the formation of the Goodrich Company, took over as president of the company. But the real leadership of the company was in the hands of the young Yale graduate and son of Alanson Work, Bertram Work. Bertram proved the equal of his father in managing the plant. The company remained closely tied to the families of its founders. Goodrich’s own son Charles was a Harvard grad and would eventually take over the Goodrich Research Center. The 1880s proved to be one of local growth for Akron. The population went from 16,500 to 27,600 in the decade. Goodrich’s death came on the eve of a great rubber boom.

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The real first boom in rubber would be the period from 1890 to 1910, when international demand increased sixfold. Rubber had become attached to the very heart of the world’s Industrial Revolution. Driving the boom were the bicycle, electrical, railroad, and auto industries. The bicycle industry had started to boom in the 1880s, but the tires of hard rubber made the ride difficult and they were often known as boneshakers. The real breakthrough became in Scotland when John Dunlop developed a pneumatic tire using cloth wrappings and rubber sheets. The pneumatic tire required a rubber inner tube to pressurize it because the rim seals had not been perfected as we have today. Actually the pneumatic tire had been invented years earlier but Dunlop brought it into production with the Dunlop Rubber Company in 1889. Bicycle races soon proved the new tire’s superiority over hard rubber tires. Within a year the Michelin Company of France entered the pneumatic tire market. Michelin had started in the rubber business in 1889, producing rubber balls for the French game of tambourin. Dunlop and Michelin entered into a legal battle over the pneumatic tires, which Michelin would eventually win. The pneumatic tire had advantages over solid rubber tires of generating less friction, which meant longer tread life and higher speeds. The pneumatic tire created a boom in the bicycle market, which in turn resulted in a rubber boom. The ride opened up the carriage industry for pneumatic tires as well. Alanson Work’s presses and improved rubber-cotton product gave Goodrich an edge in the bicycle tire market, which was focused in Ohio. The 1890s brought another boom in rubber for electrical insulation. The Chicago Exposition of 1893 would herald the birth of electrical power, featuring arc lighting, incandescent lights, electric trains, electric boats, electric motors, electric cranes, lighted fountains, telephone service, electric fire alarms, and endless futuristic appliances. The miles of electrical cable had to carry high voltage alternating current electricity through a previous swamp, requiring flexible insulation superior to that of the gutta-percha of the transatlantic cable. The insulation for the fair would be the best Para rubber compounded with mica and other insulating compounds. B.F. Goodrich also became interested in making rubber core golf balls with hard gutta-percha covers. Golf was becoming a popular game in the 1890s. Goodrich executives such as Charles Goodrich and Bertram Work in 1894 built the Portage Country Club, one of the nation’s first. The club produced its own golf balls, which Goodrich managers experimented in the manufacturing of. Coburn Haskell of Goodrich finally came up with elastic thread wound around a rubber core with a gutta-percha cover in 1901. Goodrich golf balls found acceptance first in Britain after Sandy Herd won the British Open using the Haskell ball, which would dominate the game. In 1906, Goodrich tried a compressed air core, but balls actually started to explode in golfers’

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pockets and Goodrich returned to the Haskell design. The golf ball market grew to 600,000 dozen per year at a price of 75 cents a dozen with Goodrich being the major company. Industrial products boomed with the manufacturing boom during the McKinley years of the 1890s. The railroad boom with compressed air brakes dramatically increased the demand for rubber hose. Coal mining created an enormous demand for conveyor belts. B.F. Goodrich was well positioned in all these products. Still, the boom in bicycle tires, golf balls, industrial products, and electrical insulation would be nothing compared to the rubber boom of the automotive industry. Even B.F. Goodrich at the time of his death in 1888 would not have envisioned the explosion in rubber products by 1900. The boom would bring more rubber companies to Akron and wealth to America. Later rubber manufacturers such as Harvey Firestone and Goodyear’s Frank Seiberling located in Akron in part because from 1890 to 1910, Cleveland was the heart of the automotive industry. Alexander Winston’s Cleveland auto plant was one of the nation’s largest prior to Henry Ford. It was the preferred car of men like Andrew Carnegie, William Taft, and Rockefeller. Winston had been buying bicycle tires from B.F. Goodrich for years, but his new horseless carriage was a heavy brute and hard rubber made the ride impossible. Winston came to the B.F. Goodrich Company to develop pneumatic tires like those on imported gasoline cars. B.F. Goodrich had just put his son Charles Cross Goodrich in charge of the first rubber research center. The Goodrich pneumatic was a crude cloth and rubber extra-strength bicycle tire. In 1896, B.F. Goodrich got its first order of automobile tires from Alexander Winston. Winston paid $400 to develop and deliver a set of 4 tires. Besides research, B.F. Goodrich pioneered branch operations to sell tires and service them as well as developing a distribution network for all its products. In the early 1890s, Goodrich established sales partners in Great Britain, where in 1892, Goodrich sold 1,500 tires. Goodrich first bought out its New York wholesaler, Columbia Rubber, to establish its first branch house in 1898. These branch offices sold in the aftermarket to car owners and also did repair and service work. By 1907, Goodrich had branch houses in Cleveland, Philadelphia, Boston, Detroit, St. Louis, and Buffalo. Goodrich also established sales outlets early on in places like San Francisco. By 1905, Akron was challenging Naugatuck as the nation’s “Rubber City.” There were more people employed in rubber in Akron than any city on the planet by 1907. Akron rubber companies besides Goodrich and Goodyear included Diamond Rubber, Akron India Rubber, Miller Rubber, Swinehart Clincher Tire & Rubber, Kelly-Springfield, Motz Clincher Tire & Rubber, Marathon Tire & Rubber, Faultless Rubber, Union Rubber, Stein Rubber, Portage Rubber, and Falls Rubber.

4

The Greatest of Them All — The New England Rubber Barons The greatest rubber barons are probably the least remembered. Charles R. Flint and Joseph Banigan may be even the least remembered great businessmen in American history. To some degree this was of Charles Flint’s making. Flint lived an off the radar albeit wealthy life, avoiding the public opulence of many of the other barons. Flint’s father owned one of America’s largest clipper ship fleets in the 1850s when Charles was born. Charles would form the country’s first rubber trust of companies in 1892, when he founded the United States Rubber Company in Naugatuck. U.S. Rubber was one of the first stocks in the Dow Jones Industrial Average in 1896. Flint went on to form another trust of rubber product companies as well as trusts in chewing gum and wool products. He would also help the Wright Brothers market their airplane around the world. His opus magnum, however, was bringing together the Tabulating Machine Company, the Computing Scale Company, and International Time Recording Company to form International Business Machines in 1911. He served on IBM’s board of directors until 1930. Maybe the real rival for the “Rubber King” was not Charles Flint and B.F. Goodrich but the “Irish Rubber Titan,” Joseph Banigan. A poor immigrant of the Irish potato famine in 1848, Banigan rose to become one of the wealthiest industrialists. Joseph Banigan built an empire in the manufacture of rubber shoes in the 1870s and 1880s. He became the first Irish Catholic millionaire. He set up his own trading firm for raw Brazilian rubber. He would dominate the rubber shoe market and eventually bring it into United States Rubber, which he became president of. He would be the first rubber philanthropist, building hospitals, homes for the young and aged, and schools in his state of Rhode Island. A strong Catholic he was a major donor to Catholic charities throughout the country. He would give major endowments to both Catholic University and Brown University. Charles R. Flint was a much different baron than the paternal and community oriented Joseph Banigan and the later Akron barons. Flint was a pure 53

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capitalist and Wall Streeter. He was not ruthless but was, by his own admission, greedy. When asked in 1927 why he continued to amass millions he famously stated, “It is pure, green greed…. Greed, and greed alone is a man’s wanting to swell his wad million after million.”1 Flint not only put together America’s greatest trusts, he was a passionate defender of capitalism and trusts in the business journals of the period. The facts are he took nine failed eastern rubber companies and turned them into the nation’s largest and most profitable rubber company in United States Rubber. Considering all his companies such as IBM, he was at least one of America’s greatest job creators. He was a fair and honest businessman but far from paternal. Much like industrialists such as George Westinghouse he believed the best philanthropy to be jobs. His belief in trusts, however, put him at philosophical odds with Harvey Firestone and Henry Ford. Flint also brought an advanced type of scientific management to United States Rubber, which worked better in managing corporations, versus the Fordism of Firestone. Flint applied the committee system of Standard Oil and the standardized operating procedures of IBM. Specifications for raw materials were standardized to improve quality throughout the company. This type of uniformity of standards helped the smooth the merger of many former independent companies. Flint brought the type of expertise needed that no other rubber baron had to successfully bring together diverse company cultures into a successful corporation. Flint would easily be a candidate for the world’s most interesting person. He dined and hunted with the world’s royalty. He was behind world governments and revolutions. He was a frequent visitor to the White House. He had been sent on missions of the United States to most of the world’s capitals. He headed President Theodore Roosevelt’s Committee for the Encouragement of Democratic Government in Russia. Flint personally recruited the Father of American Unionism, Samuel Gompers, to join him on this committee. He had traveled to Russia with the president of United States Steel and Bethlehem Steel, Charles Schwab, to build their industry. He set up loans from J.P. Morgan to help Czar Nicholas try to build up industry. He hunted and golfed with Andrew Carnegie at his Scottish castle, hunted with the Rothschilds in France, flew airplanes with the Wright brothers, and discussed production methods with Henry Ford. He was a member of Carnegie’s infamous South Fork Fishing Club, which was the source of the Johnstown Flood. Flint was a frequent visitor to J.P. Morgan’s and Andrew Carnegie’s libraries. He was able to draw credit with a signature from the world’s great financiers, such as Morgan, August Belmont, the Rothschilds of France, and the Barings of England. He was a founder of the Automobile Club of America with President Howard Taft (a frequent golf partner of Flint). He was often Morgan’s personal diplomat to industry leaders such as John D.

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Rockefeller and Charles Schwab. He had been to the Amazon and set up international rubber deals for many countries and businesses. A friend summarized Flint’s life in his autobiography: He had to do with politicians and patriots, monarchs and usurpers, idealists and pretenders, sages and conspirators. His errands took him behind the scenes of epochal events. They made him the confidant of Tilden, the associate of Blaine, the purse bearer of the Rothschilds, the sponsor of a young South American republic, the host of a great Chinese scholar turned refugee. He was a pioneer investigator of, and investor in, the automobile and aeroplane. He had a direct hand in the earlier development of the submarine and dynamite gun. He owned and sailed the fastest yacht in American water. He built and owned and captained — and largely designed — the swiftest steam yacht that ever split salt. He would win yachting’s America’s Cup. He partnered with circus king P.T. Barnum to profit from public shows on the Wright brothers’ airplane. To balance his time he recommended executives take weekend vacations versus taking individual weeks. He was the first man to shape and perfect a great industrial combination in this country. For forming this one and many more they long ago dubbed him “the Father of Trusts.”2

He had advised President William McKinley on the trade principle of reciprocity that ushered in America’s greatest industrial boom. Flint would in many ways also be the “Father of the American Rubber Industry.” In the 1880s, the rubber industry consisted of hundreds of small companies unable to get the price breaks of large rubber purchases and competitively battling each other in the marketplace. In addition, British imports flooded in. The industry was split into two segments. The shoes and boots segment was 48 percent of the industry and mechanical rubber products (belts, hoses, and solid tires) made up another 50 percent. There was a small but growing segment of athletic goods such as golf balls and bicycle tires. A.G. Spalding and Fisk Rubber were the biggest in this segment. Goodrich had realized the market problems and in 1882 tried to bring together the industry with the formation of the largest companies into one, but the shoe and boot producers refused. In 1886, Benjamin F. Goodrich tried to bring together the mechanical rubber goods companies, which were growing in the Midwest. The short lived type holding company was formed and called the Central Rubber Company. It was one of the country’s earliest trusts, but Goodrich could not hold it together. One problem was his deteriorating health. Goodrich would die in 1888 in a Colorado sanatorium and be buried in his hometown of Jamestown, New York. After Goodrich’s death, George Perkins became president and continued to look at ways to stabilize rubber product prices without success. In 1889, most of the shoe and boot rubber companies formed an association to stabilize the prices. The Rubber Boot and Shoe Association had 10 of the 14 companies in that segment. The association included the two largest

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in Boston Rubber Shoe Company and Woonsocket Company. In 1889 Woonsocket Rubber Company plant was the largest rubber mill in the United States with 1,500 employees. The boot and rubber companies dominated the East Coast. The association did stabilize shoe prices but did little to control the purchasing price of rubber, which continued to increase with the popularity of bicycle tires. In 1889, the State of New Jersey created a corporation law that would allow consolidation through a holding company. This law would usher in the age of trusts. At the same time the famous holding company of Standard Oil was forming, another capitalist was looking to form a rubber trust. New England financier Charles Flint and New York banker August Belmont were putting together what would become United States Rubber in 1892. In 1871, Flint entered the trading firm of his father — W.R. Grace & Company. At the time W.R. Grace specialized in trade with South America, particularly sodium nitrate for explosives. A young Charles learned much from trade and travel with W.R. Grace. In the 1870s, Charles Flint tried to put together a nitrate trust but failed. However, the effort made him friends with the Rothschilds, the most powerful bankers in the world. Later Flint became a critical international diplomat for the United States in South America, Germany, France, China, and Japan. He worked with Republican leader James Blaine and President William McKinley to implement strong tariffs while having trade reciprocity agreements with South America and Japan. Failures were often Flint’s teachers. He was a very successful merchant and diplomat. He had been successful at consolidating wool manufacturers using his trading company in New England. In 1879, Flint was offered the presidency of the United States Electric Lighting Company from a board of its wealthiest investors. Flint had stepped into what would become known as the war of the currents. The war would center on whom and what company would control electric lighting and power generation in America. Edison in 1879 had the patents on the famous incandescent light and direct current generation, but he had many competitors. Hiram Maxim of United States Electric Lighting had a competing lighting system. Brush Electric in Cleveland had a very competitive arc lighting system, which was favored in outside applications. Inventors Edward Weston and Elihu Thomson also had a competing patent for an incandescent light. In addition, several European inventors had patents on the European continent. And finally George Westinghouse had an entirely different electrical generation system using alternating current. The board of United States Electric Lighting had brought in Charles Flint because of his famous diplomatic skills. The electric lighting industry of the early 1880s was best described as a state of war. Hundreds of lawsuits were being filed against competing companies costing thousands of dollars and stopping market progress. Edison Electric and United States Electric

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Lighting were the best organized but all the companies were dominated by head-strong egoist inventors, unwilling to give ground on their legacy. Flint could not get Edison and Maxim in the same room. Both were sworn enemies. Flint honed and proved his business skills in an effort to take over the market. His first move was to purchase Weston Company, which had a complete marketable electric lighting system, albeit under heavy ligation from Edison Electric. The lawsuits and counterlawsuits were the main block to any company making a profit. The cost of the lawsuits to companies was now in the millions. Flint decided that a market consolidation was the only answer. Flint realized that Maxim was a problem with his ego; Flint enticed him to go to his European offices by promising that the French government would award him the Legion of Honor. George Westinghouse was at the time a smaller player and opposed to any trust. Still Flint was able to bring together inventors Brush, Weston, Thomson, Houston, and a representative from Edison Electric together in his office. The deal came close, but Edison required the trust be called the Edison Corporation, which was too much for the others. Flint resigned the presidency of United States Electric, moving on. United States Electric would merge with Westinghouse Electric, while J.P. Morgan would buy out Edison and consolidate the other companies into Edison General Electric Company. The battle between General Electric and Westinghouse has never really ended. Flint would say, “After my failure to bring about the electric light and power consolidation, I made up my mind that I would profit by my experience and endeavor to bring about consolidation of some of my rubber customers, the manufacturers of rubber boots and shoes.”3 Charles R. Flint had many customers of rubber using his trading company. He had traveled to and studied South American rubber exports during the previous decades. In addition, most of the rubber industry was New England based near ports because it was a major import and export industry. In 1890 the rubber shoe business was a large industry of $22 million a year. Flint believed he had failed at the electric consolidation because he was one of the inside companies. Now with rubber he was a knowledgeable outsider. Boston Rubber Shoe Company and Woonsocket Rubber controlled 37 percent with 12 other companies making up the other 63 percent. Boston Rubber Shoe and Woonsocket were controlled by rubber shoe baron Joseph Banigan and for a while would be a roadblock to Flint in forming a rubber footwear trust. Joe Banigan was a contemporary of B.F. Goodrich and a true rubber baron in his own right. In the 1880s, Goodrich controlled rubber hoses and belts while Banigan controlled rubber shoes. Banigan was an Irish immigrant who learned about rubber through self-study in Providence, Rhode Island. In the early 1860s, Banigan with some other investors took over a small company that made rubber rolls for the textile industry. In 1867, Banigan incor-

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porated Woonsocket Rubber in Rhode Island. The company made rubber shoes and rubberized clothing and had developed a strong niche in the mining industry. Rubber shoes were extremely seasonal and mild winters in the 1870s coupled with the Panic of 1873 nearly bankrupted the early company. Banigan’s rubber company was one of the first to face labor strikes over the twelvehour day. Banigan lived up to his toughness, having been an immigrant laborer himself. He took to the road to develop markets and like Levi’s jeans, Woonsocket Rubber’s boots attracted a niche market with the miners. Banigan automated his factory and by 1880 could produce 135 cases of boots a day. He also diversified, expanding his line of rubber erasers and bottle stoppers. Banigan’s business grew rapidly with automation and improved manufacturing to hold costs down. He proved a good manager and while his workers unionized with the Knights of Labor, Banigan’s Irish roots proved invaluable with peaceful coordination with the Knights in the 1870s. He hired Irish workers in a state known for its hatred of Irish immigrants. The Knights on a national level were best known for their quest for an eight-hour day versus the common 12-hour shift. The Knights of Labor was a crafts union which treated rubber production as a craft to be learned and honored. In many ways the Knights were modeled after the old craft guilds of Europe. The Knights, of course, had little interest in organizing the majority of the workers that were in the unskilled labor positions. Banigan protected their wages and jobs in tough times. He donated heavily to feed and clothe all who were out of work in the community. He refused to use child labor in a state where it was an accepted practice. Banigan was a paternal baron and much respected by his Irish laborers. His work with labor won him a knighthood in the Order of St. George by Pope Leo XIII for his practices and philanthropy. By 1885, Banigan controlled over 30 percent of a very competitive market in rubber footwear. His boots were internationally renowned and the favorite of American miners. Price competition and a slow market forced Banigan to meet his competition in reducing wages. What appeared on the surface to be a change in policy created a new opportunity for the Knights of Labor, which were at their peak of membership. His most skilled workers went on strike at two of his factories. Banigan was typical of all the rubber barons in his dislike of the union organization and his inability to give up any authority. The strike would be one of months of struggle. Banigan was a tough Irishman who felt betrayed by the workers. When he brought in scabs, violence broke out at the factories. Eventually, Banigan compromised with the Knights of Labor, but the strike hurt his paternal image. A striker would note, “Mr. Banigan, who turns out the best goods in the country, is himself the smartest rubber man in the world but with all his generosity and enterprise, has lost the opportunity to place the crown on his head.”4

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Banigan would claim the crown of rubber king even in an era with B.F. Goodrich and Charles Flint. Banigan was the first to look at vertical integration into the raw rubber of the Brazilian jungles. He traveled the Amazon area incognito to study the market in 1882. A few years later, Banigan made history purchasing a million pounds of crude rubber at the lowest price in history at 51 cents a pound. Banigan and his competitor Charles Flint were able to take over 50 percent of the British monopoly. In 1890, Banigan became the first rubber baron to import crude rubber directly to his Woonsocket plant via the port of Providence, Rhode Island (about 20 miles away). By doing this he bypassed the New York brokers, reducing his costs by a third. When he wanted to expand his Woonsocket plant, he negotiated with the town for more tax breaks. When Woonsocket’s city council didn’t approve, he built the plant across the state line in Millville, Massachusetts. Through the 1880s, Joe Banigan dreamed of a monopoly capable of offsetting the control of the crude rubber suppliers. Banigan had in 1890 started a purchasing arrangement with Boston Shoe when Charles Flint started to pull together his trust of rubber shoe companies. Flint was able in 1892 to put together the following rubber shoe companies: American Rubber Company (Cambridge), Goodyear Metallic (Naugatuck), L. Candee (New Haven), Lycoming Rubber Company (Williamsport, Pennsylvania), Boston Rubber (Chelsea), Meyer Rubber (Milltown), New Brunswick Rubber, New Jersey Shoe Company and Bristol India Rubber (Bristol, New Jersey) to form United States Rubber. In 1893, United States Rubber brought in Goodyear’s India Rubber Glove Company. The same year, U.S. Rubber gained control of the second largest rubber shoe company in Woonsocket Rubber Company of Rhode Island. The new trust expanded the rubber reclaiming operations at Naugatuck to over 40,000 pounds a day. Still Boston Shoe (the largest rubber shoe company) and Banigan’s companies were not in the initial United States Rubber Company trust. To bring Banigan in, U.S. Rubber paid far over face value and made Joseph Banigan president. The trust also added Boston Shoe in 1896 with its daily capacity of 55,000 pairs and Charles Goodyear’s iconic company India Rubber Glove at Naugatuck. The only small but serious competitor of United States Rubber on footwear was B.F. Goodrich. Charles Flint had used his genius to put U.S. Rubber together, but it would be Joseph Banigan who organized it efficiently during the Panic of 1892. His cost cutting and raw material control brought them through a difficult recession. The success of U.S. Rubber required both types of men. Banigan formed a team of managers to visit each plant and look for ways to improve and consolidate the operations. Banigan automated the older factories and improved methods. He vertically integrated buying textile mills to improve raw material costs. He purchased buckle manufacturers to supply

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the shoe plants. Banigan, however, was not a compromiser needed in this type of merger. Also United States Rubber was a new type of entity known as a holding company, which had a board of individual company representatives. At U.S. Rubber the corporate approach of Charles Flint fused with the paternal capitalism of Banigan. The model was that of the United States Steel Corporation, which Flint had studied. In 1904, U.S. Rubber initiated an employee stock program. The company expanded into a profit sharing program. U.S. Rubber became one of America’s first companies to offer a pension program as well. U.S. Rubber also established community programs in the cities where plants were located. Banigan, in particular, promoted these community programs. It was Banigan’s dynamic and centralized leadership that had made him a rubber baron, but now such leadership skills became a liability. A huge conglomerate of companies had a number of founder owners and powerful managers that needed to be brought into a new team. Banigan correctly identified that United States Rubber had too much inefficient capacity, but he didn’t understand the ability of a holding company to change things. Flint understood better that mergers were consolidations of cultures as much as production. Flint and the U.S. Rubber Board became concerned as old structures battled each other. Banigan for his part was not used to dealing with a corporate board, especially a board made up of former owners and barons. Banigan would resign and form a new rubber shoe company. The 20th century would be the century of organizers such as Charles Flint. Banigan built Joseph Banigan Rubber Company to take back the premium rubber boot market. Banigan took back the high end by getting back his old skilled workers. Banigan became Providence’s great industrialist. In Providence he was known as the “Rubber King.” He built the Charles Flint in 1906. city’s first skyscraper of ten sto-

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ries. He had the city’s most opulent mansion on its East Side. His giving on a percentage basis was probably unequaled in the Gilded Age. His death in 1898 brought a huge gathering of Catholic bishops to mourn a man that had done so much for the poor. It was said that thousands of nuns prayed for him in his final illness after he had given so much to the church. However, the new lords of the rubber industry would be closer to Charles Flint, who built an empire from others’ innovation, using another type of creative genius. For Flint, the rubber shoe trust was just a beginning. Flint’s friend and banker August Belmont would ask Flint to help in forming a trust of mechanical rubber companies. These companies made hoses and belts for industrial applications. Flint was again an outsider but one with experience in rubber. During his failed effort to form an electrical trust, he got to know Edison and he often called on Edison for advice. At this time Edison was studying belts for his iron ore mining project. Belmont was behind the New York Belting and Packing Company, which was struggling with industry price wars and competition. New York Belting had been in the business since the days of Charles Goodyear, but its major competition was Goodrich Rubber, Cleveland Rubber, and Chicago Rubber. While most of its products were hose and belting, the company had a unique patented product in rubber emery grinding wheels. Flint realized Goodrich would not be interested because it was the market leader. Flint was looking to build a company that could take on Goodrich in the marketplace. The start of the Panic of 1892 and its resulting recession was the perfect time. Flint was able to put together an association or limited trust in 1892. This association would control prices and to some degree market share. The association also tried to share and control patents between companies. Flint brought in Cleveland Rubber, Chicago Rubber, New York Belting, and Stoughton Rubber and Fabric. For a time Flint was chairman of the executive board of individual company presidents. The association was called the Mechanical Rubber Company and it functioned until 1905 when the various companies were purchased by U.S. Rubber. The organization achieved Flint’s purpose in reducing costs, sales overhead, and legal patent battle costs. The companies also prospered as the McKinley administration used tariffs to protect against British dumping of rubber products. Goodrich Rubber lost market share in hoses and belting and briefly joined the association in 1903, but arrangements were not favorable. Charles Flint became a passionate and well versed defender of capitalism and trusts. He argued that large corporations improved efficiency and reduced costs. In an age of hatred for robber barons, Charles Flint often wrote in their defense. Pointing to Henry Ford he declared, “Low-priced cars have done more to eliminate class distinction than any other single agency, as I have observed that the man with the Ford does not envy the owner of a Rolls-Royce.”5

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Flint’s United States Rubber would lead the nation in rubber production for decades. Few remember that Duryea Motor Wagon Company of Springfield, Massachusetts, was America’s first automobile company in 1894. Hartford Rubber Company supplied the first pneumatic tires to Duryea in 1894. Hartford Rubber had a license to manufacture Dunlop pneumatic tires in America. United States Rubber moved briefly into car and bicycle tires in 1896 but left a year later only to return in 1905. These early U.S. Rubber tires were solid rubber.

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Seiberling Brings Goodyear to Town While B.F. Goodrich was the man who brought rubber to Akron, it would be F.A. Seiberling and his brother Charles who brought the name Goodyear to Akron. F.A. Seiberling would also design its winged-foot trademark inspired by the Greek god Mercury. Seiberling was the son of John F. Seiberling, who was an original investor in Goodrich Rubber in 1870 and owner of a large farm machinery factory in Akron. Seiberling would prove to be one of Akron’s most loved barons. The Seiberling family had made its money in grain milling operations. Young Seiberling had worked in his father’s factory. He borrowed $3,500 to buy an old factory on the Little Cuyahoga River for his new rubber company. His brother Charles Seiberling was also a major investor, but F.A. Seiberling took the lead role. Seiberling saw an opportunity in the rubber industry as the 1890s bicycle boom created demand for tires. The boom would bring four competitors of B.F. Goodrich to the Akron area. “Match King” O.C. Barber formed Diamond Rubber in 1894, followed by the Pfeiffer Brothers, who opened a factory for druggist rubber supplies. Kelly-Springfield, a carriage tire maker, moved in to Akron from Columbus. Finally, Goodyear Tire and Rubber was created at the end of the decade. B.F. Goodrich’s success had created interest with local businessmen and investors. Seiberling named the company Goodyear Tire & Rubber to honor Charles Goodyear in 1898. The company hoped to manufacture bicycle and carriage tires. Frank Seiberling’s eight-year-old daughter, Irene, would turn the switch to start up production. The company had 13 employees and a payroll of $217.86. Seiberling’s first purchase was a 60-cent accounts book.1 The first years were difficult because the company was manufacturing under questionable rights owned by Consolidated Tire Company. The company had only thirteen employees and other than carriage and bicycle tires only a few products such as poker chips and rubber horseshoe pads. After winning the patent fight, the Goodyear Company supplied Henry Ford several pairs of 63

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tires for his Detroit racers. In eighteen years in 1916, Goodyear would become the world’s largest tire manufacturer. The year 1897 brought the rubber carriage tire to popularity. It came with Akron’s congressman, William McKinley, becoming president with a parade of carriages sporting hard rubber tires from B.F. Goodrich. Both Goodrich and Goodyear would benefit from the new rubber tire popularity. The market was not just little Goodyear and town giant B.F. Goodrich and national giant United States Rubber, but the two other new Akron rubber companies — Diamond Rubber and Miller Rubber. Rubber was becoming a high tech growth industry. Three local druggists formed a short-lived small rubber company in 1892 to make gloves; it would be Akron’s second rubber company. This failed company was reincorporated in 1898 to form Miller Rubber, which was more focused on rubber gloves, toys, and novelty items. Diamond Rubber was started in 1893 by the Sherbondy brothers (George, Walter, and William), who were workers in Goodrich’s bicycle tire department. Diamond was Akron’s third rubber company. The original capital came from the “Match King,” O.C. Barber of Akron, president of the famous Diamond Match Company. He later took over Diamond Rubber. The company focused on bicycle and automobile tires. Its factory was built on the old canal near the B.F. Goodrich plant. Barber hired Harvard chemist Arthur Marks to head up tire manufacture in 1899. With Marks and additional capital Diamond Rubber diversified into hose, gloves, belts, and druggist supplies. Ohio Columbus (O.C.) Barber was the most diversified of the rubber barons. Barber was born in 1841 to a farming and manufacturing family near Akron. Besides farming the Barber family and the Seiberling family had built a cereal and grain company, which would ultimately become Quaker Oats. The family had a side business of homemade matches, which they made in a little red barn on Akron’s Market Street. Barber took the family sideline and built Barber Company into one of the nation’s largest match manufacturers by 1881. Then in 1882 he guided a merger with eleven other match companies to form Diamond Match Company. As production reached over 250 million matches a year and 85 percent of the American market, Barber moved the company from Akron to nearby Norton Township in 1891. He developed a new community, the city of Barberton. During the 1890s, O.C. Barber built companies such as Barber Fertilizer, Barber Concrete, Stirling Boiler, and Diamond Rubber. Under Allied Industries, he manufactured clay sewer pipe, steel tube, and building products. He was also president of First-Second National Bank. He made Barberton into a working republic with low cost housing for his workers. It was an industrial utopia with total community resources for his workers and a model for Goodyear and Firestone. He was one of the earliest paternal capitalists and was wealthy from many sources. His boiler and rubber companies excelled nation-

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Diamond Rubber in 1899.

ally. Stirling Boiler would merge with Babcock & Wilcox to become the largest manufacturer of boilers in the world. He would take Diamond Rubber to the number 2 spot in the rubber industry. Diamond Rubber’s edge in the market came from a process of reclaiming used rubber. The alkali reclaiming process was patented by Marks in 1904. The use of reclaimed rubber gave Diamond a cost edge as it was considerably cheaper than new raw rubber. Diamond soon became a recycler for competing tire manufacturers just as B.F. Goodrich. But in 1898, Diamond was just starting and offered little competition. The local fight was the veteran company, B.F. Goodrich, versus the 1898 start-up of Seiberling’s Goodyear Tire & Rubber. It was Goodrich, Goodyear, and Diamond who hoped to cash in on the bicycle solid rubber tire boom. Bicycles also created demand for new rubber products such as handle grips, pedals, and plugs. F.A. Seiberling’s new Goodyear Tire & Rubber hoped to make its fortune in 1898 supplying carriage and bicycle tires, and maybe a few auto tires, which there was a small market for in 1898. Carriage rubber tires were also becoming fashionable in the 1890s.

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B.F. Goodrich was the major bicycle tire manufacturer in the 1890s and had expanded its manufacturing in the mid–1890s to 2,200 employees. Still, the market demand had overwhelmed Goodrich, creating an opening for new companies. Carriage tires were at the time solid rubber controlled by an early patent of Kelly-Springfield of Columbus, Ohio. B.F. Goodrich was also promoting a pneumatic bicycle tire. Bicycle solid rubber tires were controlled by a Hartford Rubber patent. Goodyear and Goodrich were operating under a challenging patent. Kelly-Springfield challenged Goodyear as well as other Akron rubber companies such B.F. Goodrich, Diamond, and Miller. Kelly-Springfield had dominance in the market in 1898. Harvey Firestone almost went to work for Kelly-Springfield instead of starting Firestone Tire and Rubber. Kelly-Springfield had a factory in Akron as well. The ensuing patent battle over solid tires challenged Akron’s place as a rubber manufacturing center. It was F.A. Seiberling who took the challenge to the courts in 1898 and fought for three years. It would be the first of many great patent battles in the rubber industry. Seiberling, however, had literally bet the company on the this early lawsuit and won the battle. The celebration was described as “one of the memorable events in Akron’s history. All Akron rejoiced over Seiberling’s successful resistance of the infringement suit. Bells were rung throughout the city. Whistles were tooted. It was not only a Goodyear victory — but an Akron victory and the citizens turned out en masse to celebrate.”2 Bicycle production in the United States went from 12,000 in 1882 to over 1.2 million in 1896. On a peak day in 1901, Goodyear would build 4,500 rubber bicycle tires. The victory also created a flood of new Akron rubber companies such as Faultless Rubber Company, Motz Clincher Tire and Rubber, Marathon Tire and Rubber, Portage Rubber, Falls Rubber, Union Rubber, Stein Double Cushion Tire, and Rubber Products Company. Most of these companies were built on the old canal locks where large quantities of water were available. By 1907, the bicycle tire market had collapsed and now companies were moving quickly to pneumatic automobile tires. Goodyear, unlike Goodrich, was a tire company. Goodyear was also a pure Akron company with all local investors. Goodyear realized its future was linked directly to the Akron community. Frank A. Seiberling was a paternal capitalist from the start, having deep roots in the Akron community. His family had ties of marriage with other Akron manufacturing families and several of his brothers-in-law were managers at Goodyear. Seiberling was a Christian with a German Lutheran background, but like Henry Ford, he refused to join any particular church. Frank also had the strength of personality in his brother Charles. It was often said in the early days of Goodyear that Charles knew everyone by their first names.

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Charles supplied a personal touch by visiting sick employees or families having problems. Charles certainly filled a unique position in the early organization that gave Goodyear its reputation as a people oriented company. Business and management experience wasn’t the issue. Frank Seiberling had strong business skills. Seiberling knew part of his weakness was lack of rubber experience, so he set out to find a rubber manager with his belief system. Rubber was at the time on the cutting edge of science, and both Frank and Charles Seiberling were smart enough to realize they needed engineering support. The big breakthrough for Goodyear Tire & Rubber came with the hiring of a young Paul Litchfield for a salary of $2,500 per year, just slightly less than F.A. Seiberling’s salary of $3,000. Litchfield started in 1900. Litchfield proved to be a fair but tough operations manager. Initially, Litchfield addressed the poor discipline in Goodyear’s bicycle department. Implementing discipline resulted in a short sit-down strike by the workers, but Litchfield prevailed. Litchfield also improved the quality of Goodyear’s bicycle tire by improved processing steps. It was Seiberling’s vision that rubber tires would be the real future of the industry, and he needed one person to be committed to the vision. It was one of the first corporate uses of a product manager approach to cross all corporate lines to see a product come to reality. Litchfield was the perfect operations man. He was a young graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who had worked summers in the New England rubber mills. He came from an old line of New England Whigs and Yankee traders. He would be a natural fit for the old businessmen of the Western Reserve. Litchfield was at MIT with a distinguished group like Alfred P. Sloan, future head of General Motors; Irene du Pont, future head of Du Pont Chemical; Gerard Swope, future head of General Electric; William Newell, future head of Bath Iron Works; and Harry Fisk, founder of Fisk Rubber. In the summers, he worked for the L.C. Chase Company, a manufacturer of bicycle tires and rubber sheeting, where he rose to be an assistant compounder. His last summer in college, he worked for Passaic Company, a manufacturer of rubber belts, hoses, gaskets, and other rubber products. All of these experiences gave him the background for tire design. Litchfield combined production skills with marketing to move into the auto tire market. Seiberling and Litchfield was looking for a corporate niche for Goodyear Tire & Rubber. Even though less than 4,500 cars were made in 1900, Litchfield and the Goodyear Company saw auto tires as the future. The problem was that American auto producers all used what was called a clincher-type tire, the rubber tire being clinched to the trim of the wheel through rim grooves. The clincher system had originally been developed for bicycle tires, but the auto tire business was rapidly overtaking the declining bicycle tire market. In the Midwest, B.F. Goodrich had most of the rubber

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tire business, and in the East it was U.S. Rubber. U.S. Rubber had supplied Duryea Motor Company tires in 1896, and Duryea was one of the major car manufacturers at the time. By 1900, pneumatic type tires were entering the auto market. The main style for pneumatic tires was the clincher type, which would be the basis for another industry patent battle. Clincher pneumatic tires had a special patented method of attaching the rim to the rubber tire. The patent was licensed to a group of tire makers such as U.S. Rubber, Diamond, Goodrich, and Goodyear which enjoyed 85 percent of the business. Goodyear was restricted to 2 percent of the market, but a new competitor was on the horizon. Harvey Firestone was blocked out of the association. He was being forced to pay to make clincher tires and his market would be restricted to a few tires by the association. Firestone had already developed a superior straight sidewall tire, which would be the precursor to today’s system. The problem was auto wheels were being produced to fit only clincher tires. Harvey Firestone developed his straight sidewall system using a purchased Maxwell auto he modified. As Firestone developed his system, he defied the clincher association by making clinchers while being sued. Goodyear would find an ally in this new competitor. For both Firestone and Goodyear their future was in auto tires, as they lacked the diversification of B.F. Goodrich and U.S. Rubber. Such an association was legal in 1901, but would be illegal today. The association was ironclad agreement, and the only way out would be the invention or design of a tire not covered on the clincher license. Goodyear was blocked out of the market also, but the clincher type tire had lots of shortcomings that could be improved on. For starters, tire life was a few hundred miles and replacing the tire took hours of very hard work. Tire failure was generally a blowout or rim failure versus wear. Based on pure wear, a tire might last 1,500 miles. The development of a new tire became the quest of Paul Litchfield. The auto tire market in 1901 was a very small part of manufacturers such as B.F. Goodrich and U.S. Rubber, but F.A. Seiberling and Paul Litchfield at Goodyear saw it as the future for the industry. To a large degree, clincher tires were holding up the development and market growth of the automobile. Tire replacement was a serious problem, and without today’s springs and shocks, the ride of the car was dependent on the quality of the tire. Poor roads and tires meant the tires had to be changed often. Tires became a problem to bringing in new customers to the automobile. Paul Litchfield was assigned the problem for Goodyear. Litchfield hoped to break the clincher tire association with a new type of tire known as the straight wall, or straight side, which Firestone had been pioneering. Goodyear introduced the new tire in 1902 but struggled to get automakers to switch. Litchfield paid his own way to Europe on a freighter to enter Goodyear straight walls in an auto race from London to Edinburgh. British Dunlop tires and

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French Michelins took the race, but Litchfield contented he learned a lot about tires watching the race. The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company went into the red in 1902, but work continued on improving the straight-side tire. Harvey Firestone, who was also blocked by the clincher association, had his own type of straight wall. The problem was more than technical. Clinchers dominated the manufacturing of automobiles. Another style of tire would require converting a major auto manufacturer and being able to support the supply in the replacement market. This is where U.S. Rubber, B.F. Goodrich, and Diamond Rubber had major blocks to new product entry into the auto tire market. Goodyear continued to make clincher tires; but under court order, all money was held in escrow until a decision was made on the patent rights. Goodyear got a favorable decision in late 1902 and it increased production. Goodyear, however, continued to push its improved straight-wall tire selling it as a “quickdetachable.” The pre–Ford Model T automobile industry consisted of two segments — the expensive luxury cars and the big carriage type cars. The luxury models cost over $5,000 and were names like Winton (of Cleveland), Pierce-Arrow, Packard, Pope-Toledo, White, and Duryea. Luxury cars dominated the early auto market. These luxury cars used clincher type tires from companies like B.F. Goodrich, U.S. Rubber, and Diamond. Luxury car costs limited the growth of the auto market. Many of these cars were handmade and driven by chauffeurs. However, many inventors were working on cars that the average person could buy. These were the carriage type cars. The carriage type cars were the Buick, Studebaker, Overland, Oldsmobile, and Cadillac, which were at least open to straight side design of Goodyear. Frank Seiberling drove an early Cadillac. The total car production for 1905 was 77,000 cars. Goodyear was able to win over Buick, Oldsmobile, and Overland in 1905, equipping a total of 400 cars with its straight side design. Goodyear also made clincher tires to supply the luxury market and the new Model T. Across the street, B.F. Goodrich Company and Diamond Rubber were making most of its money off automobile tires. B.F. Goodrich had secured the tire business of Pierce-Arrow, Winton, Franklin (electrics) and Stanley Steamers. Still, most of the business was clincher style tires. U.S. Rubber had most of the clincher tire market because of its ownership of Dunlop’s patent and its huge Detroit tire plant. In 1906, the U.S. Rubber tire plant could produce an amazing 300 tires per day. U.S. Rubber (New York) was the biggest tire maker with 26 percent of the market; B.F. Goodrich followed with 21 percent in 1907. In Akron, Goodyear, Diamond, and Firestone combined equaled only two-thirds of B.F. Goodrich’s total output. Car ownership surpassed 100,000 in 1907. The future of rubber was now clearly defined as the auto market.

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U.S. Rubber’s emergence as the nation’s largest tire came with its 1905 takeover of Flint’s other trust — the Rubber Goods Manufacturing Company. Hartford Rubber, which originally supplied Duryea Motor Wagon, was part of Rubber Goods Manufacturing brought into U.S. Rubber. In addition, U.S. Rubber picked up a Detroit tire plant (Morgan and Wright), which they expanded in 1906. This new plant was the nation’s largest tire plant when car production was 25,000 per year. However, in two years, car production doubled, and U.S. Rubber made $18 million in tire sales. In 1906, Louis Chevrolet won the Indianapolis 500 using Goodyear straight side tires. Goodyear tires also won several races in Europe. The straight side had successfully broken the monopoly of the Clincher Manufacturer’s Association. Still, the straight side was more expensive and Goodyear was making both types. In 1906, Goodyear received a large order for straight sides from the then major Winton Automobile Company. In 1907, Goodyear had an order for 1,400 clincher tire sets from Henry Ford, but Ford preferred straight side. Firestone’s first orders shipped to Ford would be for straight sides. The final battle between the two types was fought in the advertising claims, but by the end of the decade, straight sides had won over clinchers. It would not be the last of the tire technology battles that would internally revolutionize the business. Headed by Paul Litchfield, Goodyear focused on technology to break into the market. It even had special cord reinforced rubber tires for electric cars, which had substantial market share from 1900 to 1908. Between 1900 and 1915, a total of 35,000 electric cars were built with the manufacturers centered in Ohio. Heavy electrics ran at lower speeds and required different engineering for good tire life. Goodyear experimented extensively with additives to improve tire wear and performance. The company designed grooved treads for better traction. Since pneumatic tires of the time required inner tubes to hold in air pressure, Goodyear invented a tubeless tire in 1905. The tubeless tire was patented but never went to market until the 1930s. Much of Goodyear’s aggressive investment in tire design would pay off years later. Tire making in 1905 was a handicraft. The tire was hand built on a tension machine with sixteen plies of Brazilian rubber and Sea Island cotton layers. The rubber was soft and gummy during the building, and all tires of the period were natural white color. The final additions were the side and the tread rubber. The layered tire was put in a mold to add a one-and-a-fourthinch tread by pressing. The mold was then heated to 245 degrees Fahrenheit to start the vulcanizing process. The quality of the tire was dependent on the skill of the tire builder. It was often said that “the life of the hand built tire depends very materially on how the builder’s wife felt at breakfast.”3 By 1908, Goodyear and Firestone had won the straight side tire battle. Goodyear gets most of the credit with an aggressive advertising campaign for

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its straight side design. The straight side cost 10 percent more than the clincher, so Seiberling had to prove its better ride was worth the money. Frank Seiberling was a marketing man, but he needed the operating strength of Paul Litchfield. In 1908, Goodyear turned a huge profit, which it poured into research and plant investment. In 1908 there were 140,000 cars on the road, and by the next year the number reached 200,000. General Motors was also formed in 1908, consolidating a lot of Goodyear sales. In 1910 Goodyear would supply tires to a third of all cars made. Goodyear was running neck and neck with its rivals, B.F. Goodrich and Diamond. The company had moved from 90 tires a day in 1905 to over 1,000 a day in 1908. The Akron rubber worker was becoming one of the better paid in America. A starting laborer made $1.60 a day versus the industrial average of $1.20. A tire builder with incentive pay could make over $3.00 a day. Foremen also made about $45.00 dollars a month, and department mangers made as much as $75 a month.

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A New Baron in Town B.F. Goodrich brought rubber to Akron. Seiberling was Akron’s hometown baron and his Goodyear Tire & Rubber was considered the hometown’s favorite. In New England, Joseph Banigan was the “Rubber King.” For Wall Street, Charles Flint was the greatest rubber man. Harvey Firestone, however, was the rubber baron’s baron. He was the iconic rubber baron for America. Firestone would mean rubber tires for most of the world; but before that, like the other barons, he would know failure. His life and his friends, such as Henry Ford and Thomas Edison, made the headlines nationally. It would be Harvey Firestone’s straight wall tire contract with Henry Ford that would be the tire industry’s first revolution. Firestone would enter the business after the Akron tire companies of Goodrich, Goodyear, and Diamond. Firestone, however, would be all about tires from the beginning. Harvey Firestone’s first break came not so much in Akron but in Dearborn, Michigan, on a dirt track. A business acquaintance of Firestone’s would help Henry Ford wrestle the auto-racing crown from Cleveland’s automaker, Alexander Winton. On October 10, 1901, an automobile race between Alexander Winton and Henry Ford would set the future of American automobile and tire sales. Steam, electric, and hydrocarbon-gasoline fueled automobiles were all popular in 1901. The nation’s rich such as Henry Clay Frick, Charles Schwab, Andrew Carnegie, J.P. Morgan, and John Rockefeller had all three types in their garages. At New York’s first auto show at Madison Square Garden, there were 34 models exhibited. Of these models, 19 were combustion engines, seven were steamers, six were electrics, and two were hybrids of gas and electricity. Most had solid rubber tires, but some of the racer gas models had pneumatic tires. There were over one hundred manufacturers, most building a handful of cars each year with Cleveland’s Winton Motor being the biggest, producing about 300 cars a year. In hindsight, Harvey Firestone would say, “I cannot say that the new tire company was particularly welcome in Akron.”1 Harvey Firestone and Firestone Tire & Rubber would always be an outsider. Goodrich, Diamond, and 72

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Goodyear often cooperated to divide up the market, but Firestone was the ultimate competitor. Harvey Firestone was different from the other rubber barons. B.F. Goodrich was a scientist, F.A. Seiberling was an investor, Charles Flint was a capitalist, Banigan was a rubber worker, and Paul Litchfield was an operations man, but Harvey Firestone was a tire salesman. Harvey S. Firestone was born on a farm in Columbiana, Ohio, on December 20, 1868. The Firestone farm was on the main stagecoach route between Pittsburgh and Cleveland.2 Firestone had a strong secondary education based on the McGuffey Readers, like that of Henry Ford and the other rubber barons. As the barons go, Firestone was well educated; he attended Columbia High School and went on to take college accounting at Spencer Business College in Cleveland. His strong education landed him a job as the bookkeeper for a Columbus, Ohio, coal company, but it would be short lived. Firestone started his career in Detroit in 1892 selling buggy tires for the Columbus Buggy Company. Rubber buggy tires were not cheap at $110 a set. Firestone had become well known for his hard rubber tires, and racing a horse driven buggy on the streets of Detroit. It was there that he first met Henry Ford, who was still perfecting a workable auto, in 1895. Firestone would not get to see Henry Ford’s quadricycle on the streets of Detroit. The Columbus Buggy Company was forced into bankruptcy by new buggy tire companies selling at $35.00 a set. This bankruptcy occurred right after his marriage to Idabelle Smith of Jackson, Michigan. Firestone moved to Chicago in 1896 to start his own buggy tire business. Firestone started Firestone-Victor Rubber Company with $500 to make solid rubber buggy tires. Firestone purchased rubber from India Rubber in New England and Diamond Rubber in Akron and cut it to put on steel rims. The only way rubber was attached to wheels in those days was by welding wires. When an electric welding machine monopoly prevented him from purchasing welding machines, he developed a hand welding method to stay in business. His hand system, using a torch, proved more effective. In 1896, he started selling pneumatic buggy tires. By Firestone’s own account it cost him $14.00 to make a set of tires he sold for $40.00.3 Firestone proved adept as a businessman and an accountant. First National Bank of Chicago saw him as a visionary and he got loans. He bought out Imperial Rubber of Chicago to expand. When a competing company developed a better product, he bought them out as well. After four years, Firestone sold the company for over a million dollars to a buggy tire trust. Firestone started to experiment with pneumatic buggy racing tires versus the solid buggy tires. A young Henry Ford purchased a set of these for his experimental car. Firestone was convinced that rubber pneumatic tires were the future of the horse-drawn buggy and maybe the horseless buggy. There

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were over 20 million horse buggies; but in Detroit, the future was in some form of horseless carriage. Amazingly, Firestone believed the future in horseless carriage tires would be solid rubber tires on electric cars. Firestone had for years been selling solid rubber tires to Woods Motor Vehicle Company of Chicago, which made electric cars. Firestone recollected, “The storage batteries in these early years were cumbersome, but it seemed only a question of time until the weight of batteries would be reduced and their life lengthened. We all thought of electricity as the coming motive power for everything. The few domestic gasoline cars which I had seen impressed me as being ingenious rather than useful.”4 The horseless carriages of 1900 might be powered by an electric battery, wood-burning steam engine, vegetable oil powered diesel engine or gasolineethanol-kerosene powered engine. Electric cars were the leading sales type in 1900, but they had limitations with a range of 20 miles to 50 miles, a cost of $2,000 to $3,000, and top speeds around 15 miles per hour. In 1901, when President McKinley was shot at the World’s Fair, a Riker Electric ambulance took him to the hospital. Baker Motor of Cleveland was the largest manufacturer of electric cars. Baker Motor did improve the miles per charge from 100 miles in 1909 to 240 miles in 1911. The Baker Electric was top of the line with a $3,200 price tag. The stock market was betting on electric cars to emerge victorious. However, steamers were the most popular car. They held the speed records and could reach over 100 miles per hour. They cost around $2,500 but could carry 4 to 6 people. Electrics and steamers at the time favored solid rubber tires because of their slower speeds. The gasoline type cars were just coming into their own with Winton leading the way. They were cheaper ($1,000) and ran on gasoline, kerosene or ethanol. A Cleveland industrialist, Alexander Winton, was the reigning champ in auto racing in 1901. Winton had moved from bicycle making to automobiles in 1897 and had an automobile factory in Cleveland, Ohio. Winton bicycles and cars were a major reason for the rubber boom in Akron. While Winton had a growing business in gasoline cars, at the time most of the gasoline and diesel type cars were imported, such as Benz, Panhard-Levassor (gasoline), and Daimler. There were over sixty manufacturers of gasoline type cars. Some imported diesel engine cars ran on peanut oil. In 1901, the Cleveland Company of Winton Motor Carriage Company started to increase market share in gasoline type cars with advertising and car racing publicity. With new technology such as the electric starter and Goodrich rubber tires Winton produced the most autos. Still, imports controlled the early auto market. A congressman from Ohio, now President William McKinley from the Akron-Canton area, was pushing hard to help domestic manufacturers. The McKinley administration had a 40 percent tariff on imports to allow American

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auto manufacturers to grow, but the wealthy customers still preferred the high quality of imports. Still the total market was around 5,000 cars and imports controlled most of that. The auto market was a tough place in 1901 as a young Henry Ford entered the market. Ford’s first company, the Detroit Automobile Company, had just gone bankrupt because it was unable to maintain product reliability, quality, and a lower price tag. Now Ford was near personal bankruptcy and having problems attracting new investors. The Winton was hand built and was often customized for specific customers. The lowest cost Winton was advertised in newspapers for $1,000. More expensive models had padded leather seats and other extras and ran as high as $5,000. Winton cars were the best on the road, with Winton having 100 patents and world racing records. Industrialists like John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie owned Wintons. Industrialists Vanderbilt and H.J. Heinz preferred the French-built gasoline Panhard-Levassor with a price tag of $21,000. Wintons had cruising speeds of 30 to 40 miles per hour, but even these speeds were limited for most dirt roads. The next most popular gasoline type car was the Duryea in New England. Steamers were heavier and able to maintain road speeds better. Stanley Steamers alone outsold all gasoline type cars from 1899 to 1906. Alexander Winton had gone into racing to prove the durability and operation of his gasoline cars. Lack of fuel availability was still a problem. In October 1901, Henry Ford was looking for venture capital for a new auto manufacturing company. Alexander Winton was coming to a racetrack in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, and it was an opportunity for Ford to show his car to the public. Ford had been building prototypes since he saw his first Panhard-Levassor auto at the Chicago World Fair of 1893. Ford’s first cars tended to be very light; and while fuel efficient, these Fords made poor racers. Ford had to get permission to use a Winton steering system in his car to make it competitive. The race track was a ten-mile dirt track. That beautiful autumn day about 8,000 would see the race. The winning prize was a $1,000 and a cut-glass punch bowl, but the potential was what Ford really needed. It was a lot of money, but Ford already had $5,000 in making his race car and was in debt due to the failure of his first company. Ford’s car appeared too light for most investors who saw the future in heavy, high horsepower models like Winton’s. Winton’s car was 50 horsepower while Ford’s was 26 horsepower. The Winton weighed about 5,000 pounds while the Ford was 2,200 pounds. Winton’s car had Goodrich tires, Ford’s tires were modified carriage tires from the Columbus Buggy Company. His salesman for the tires had been Harvey Firestone. The race had three categories — electric, steam, and gasoline-diesel. The main attraction among the 10 entries was the Winton against the French Panhard-Levassor. At race time there was only Winton and local boy Henry Ford;

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mechanical problems plagued the other entries. In those days, a racer had a driver and an on-board mechanic. Henry Ford would win in the last lap as Winton had mechanical problems. Ford immediately found investors for his new company. One of the investors at the race that day was coal baron Alexander Malcomson. Henry Ford built two more heavy racers to promote his new car company, Ford and Malcomson. Ford’s commercial vision was a car for the masses, which was different from most manufacturers of the time who aimed at the wealthy, such as Winton. The Ford racers continued to popularize Ford in the new partnership with Malcomson, but Ford fought to produce a commercial prototype. The Ford partnership struggled as it signed a contract with the Dodge brothers of Niles, Michigan, to supply 250 engines. In 1903, Ford Motor was formed and capitalized at $100,000. Ford Motor had 125 workers and made 1,700 cars in three different models using Harvey Firestone new car tire. Ford was leasing a machine shop from the Dodge brothers. He looked to emulate Winton’s success using advertising and dealerships. Ford was not pleased with the early direction of the company, which was to sell higher priced cars. He wanted to follow the mass production model of Ransom Olds, who was producing 5,000 cars a year at a price of $700.00 each. Ford worked relentlessly to bring down the cost and price. They standardized parts, automated handling, and introduced other mass production methods to allow Ford to drive costs down. He would not achieve his dream, however, until the release of the Model T in 1907. The Model T would weigh 1,200 pounds and cost $825 and use Firestone tires. It could run on a variety of hydrocarbon fuels, such as kerosene and ethanol. In 1907, Ford Motor decided to hand make 10 Model T’s, and by 1910, Ford dominated the market. Ford’s ultimate success would give rise to a new rubber baron in Akron. Why the 1901 race was so important goes back to Harvey Firestone’s relationship with Henry Ford. Firestone worked for his uncle’s Columbus Buggy Company on Jefferson Avenue in Detroit. In 1896, Henry Ford’s Quadricycle was a familiar sight on the streets of Detroit. Ford had seen Firestone’s pneumatic tires change the racing of horse buggies. At the same time, another invention was turning heads; Firestone’s rubber buggy tires were wired to the rim. Firestone had already developed a name in Detroit racing buggies with solid rubber tires, but his pneumatic tires increased speeds. The first Ford product was a prototype truck that required strong pneumatic buggy wheels. It was seemed only natural that the two innovators would meet. Henry Ford would purchase a set of these new rubber tires for his horseless carriage to improve its poor ride. Unfortunately, the relationship didn’t last long as the Columbus Carriage Company went bankrupt in late 1896, forcing Firestone to leave for Chicago to sell rubber tires. But both men would remember the purchase. And when Ford started his second company after the great

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race, Harvey Firestone was there to sell an improved rubber tire for Ford’s Model N. Firestone had started his tire company in 1900, and he was purchasing his tires from Goodrich. Firestone offered Goodrich a strong market network to sell tires. Harvey Firestone had been successful at selling tires to the carriage industry, and his experience in Detroit convinced him the future was in the automobile. Firestone was quick to move into the auto market even though he lacked manufacturing capability. He expanded to selling tires to all the auto manufacturers by purchasing tires from Goodrich. Firestone expanded his sales outlets through the country to sell buggy tires also. Firestone teamed up with an Akron inventor to perfect a tire fastening system. Firestone went into the tire business for himself in 1900, forming the Firestone Tire & Rubber Company. Firestone selected Akron for his new tire company so he could buy directly from Goodrich. The initial focus was selling buggy tires to his old accounts in Detroit and Chicago. He also tried to sell auto tires from various manufacturers, getting most of his tires and supplies from B.F. Goodrich. Firestone’s first plant was an old foundry on the corner of Miller and Sweitzer avenues. Using his sales experience, he offered the customer knowledge on making the best selection of tire-solid, clincher pneumatic and straight side pneumatic. He also started manufacturing on a limited basis. He pioneered a solid soft center tire to cushion the blows from poor roads. Firestone struggled to make money as a middleman tire dealer. In 1902, Firestone’s small factory had 12 workers. He had to borrow $4,500 from local bankers to buy the factory, but Akron was full of ready investors in rubber. Ford had continued to improve on his racecars. Ford’s 999 would enter and win a number of races in 1902 with Firestone tires. The 999 would capture several speed records, putting Ford Motor’s name in the forefront. Ford driver Barney Oldfield would become a major supporter of Firestone racing tires. The search for better tires launched a great research war in Akron. By 1903 Firestone had a small manufacturing operation in Akron. He was very successful in the solid tire market for buggies, trucks, and electric cars. Firestone even manufactured the rims. He also expanded his sales network by partnering with Fisk Rubber in Michigan and Studebaker in California. His solid tires sold from $32.00 a set for a two-and-a-half-inch solid tire to $730.00 a set for the eight-inch-thick tire. Firestone set up exhibits at national auto shows and at the 1904 St. Louis World Fair. He had sales branches in Chicago, New York, Boston, Detroit, Philadelphia, and St. Louis. In smaller cities, Firestone had lined up independent tire dealers. This sales network gave Firestone an edge in the replacement market. Harvey Firestone was the best salesman in the business. By 1904, Firestone was the largest solid tire manufacturer in the world.5 Firestone domi-

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nated the fire truck market in major cities as well as horse drawn cab tires. One of his largest customers was St. Louis’s Anheuser-Busch fleet of electric trucks. At the 1904 St. Louis World Fair Firestone tires were on all the exhibited automobiles and Firestone won the first gold medal. Firestone supplied solid tires to the nation’s largest automobile manufacturers — Maxwell, Stanley Steamer, White Motors, and Premier. Firestone also supplied tires to other major rubber companies such as Fisk Tire & Rubber. Goodyear had the Winton Motor account. Firestone’s manufacturing methods had brought down the cost of a set of solids from $400.00 to under $100.00. Harvey Firestone drove a Maxwell runabout in Akron although he preferred the horse and buggy. Of course, Maxwell had been one of Firestone’s major buyers of solid rubber tires. U.S. Rubber (would become Uniroyal in 1966), B.F. Goodrich, Goodyear, Diamond, and Firestone were locked in a long-term battle as automotive tires became the single major product in the rubber business. U.S. Rubber and B.F. Goodrich used their distribution models to maintain their share of the tire market. Firestone, Diamond, and Goodyear used technology to gain share. Goodyear had used design to first break the clincher tire monopoly. With chemist Arthur Marks, Diamond had demonstrated the power of technology to not only improve product but also greatly reduce costs. First, Diamond solved the recycling of vulcanized fabric bonded rubber. The alkali process dissolved the fabric and unlocked the sulfur, allowing for a reclaimed product. Diamond advanced the science of rubber making further with the discovery of anilines to speed and improve vulcanization. Vulcanization time was reduced by 75 percent. Anilines also added strength and durability to tires and allowed grades of rubber less than Para rubber to be used, further reducing costs. Firestone would also enter the great clincher versus straight wall battle. Firestone, like Goodyear, was blocked by the clincher association from making clincher tires. Firestone, also like Goodyear, focused on breaking the clincher monopoly through better technology. Interestingly the clincher association, like all monopolies, would inspire competition through technology. Firestone lacked a research group but purchased the straight fastening system of James Sweinhart of Akron. Firestone developed a new mechanical rim system for the straight wall tire, allowing for easy replacement of tires, which made it extremely popular with the public. The rim system would be a boon for the straight wall sales of both Firestone and Goodyear. The clincher system was held in the rim by a steel channel with converging flanges. The Sweinhart system used wires and held the tire on the rim much better than the clincher system. It also allowed for quick tire replacement. This dismountable rim was the precursor of today’s tire. The Sweinhart system did remain in the market as Akron investors flocked to it. Sweinhart would become vice president of

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the Sweinhart Tire and Rubber Company on its incorporation in 1904. Firestone continued to hone its edge in mechanical research and development. While diversified, Goodrich took little notice of Firestone as Diamond and Goodyear looked to improve their technology to compete. Research would become the cornerstone of the rubber industry, and Buchtel College (the future University of Akron) would play a key role in the past and future of rubber and polymer science. All of the rubber companies would contribute to Buchtel as a means of getting basic research done. The college had been started in the 1880s by Akron iron baron John Buchtel, but it would be Pittsburgh steel baron Andrew Carnegie who built the Knight Chemical Laboratory with a $25,000 donation in 1904. Years earlier, inspired by the rubber chemistry of B.F. Goodrich, Charles Knight built a primitive chemical lab (one of the first at a university). After the Knight Laboratory was completed in 1908, Knight went on to offer the nation’s first course in rubber chemistry. The individual rubber companies also built their own research centers, using Buchtel graduates. Buchtel would supply many of the industries chemists and scientists, but the rubber companies also hired the best from Yale and Harvard for their labs. While Firestone had the best mechanical engineers, Diamond Rubber had the most talented rubber chemists in Akron. Besides Arthur Marks, Diamond had another Harvard chemist, George Oenslager. Oenslager worked on non-toxic vulcanization accelerators to replace the toxic anilines that created the famous bluemen of Akron, turning skin a deep blue color. Aniline production was controlled by Germany, which became problematic as World War I approached. Diamond had also pioneered rubber reclamation processes, making recycled rubber competitive with natural sources. Marks’ patent on reclaiming used rubber gave Diamond a real market edge until 1912 when U.S. Rubber purchased Mishawaka Rubber Regenerating Company, which had a unique process of its own. In the long run Diamond became the high tech company in the industry. Harvey Firestone looked to Buchtel for chemical technology, while Diamond invested heavily in chemical research. Oenslager discovered thiocarbanilide as a replacement, which in 1916 would bring an end to the toxic aniline. These accelerators cut the vulcanizing time in half from five hours to two and half. Oenslager’s other breakthrough at Diamond was the use of carbon black to strengthen and improve the abrasive resistance. At U.S. Rubber’s Mishawaka plant, it had been discovered that high levels of carbon black increased the durability of rubber soles. Mishawaka had shown the wearability of carbon black rubber to be beyond anything prior. Diamond started to manufacture carbon black threads on their milky white tires on limited basis. Carbon black treads also added thousands of miles to the life of tires. In 1912 when Goodrich purchased Diamond Rubber, black treads would become standard. Also, the war in Europe reduced

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our supply of the primary whitener of zinc oxide. The style of white walls with black treads would continue for decades. Goodrich in response built a large research center. By 1909, Goodrich had thirty-seven researchers with assistants at their research center. Goodrich even moved into basic research in chemicals, which would pay dividends decades later. While Goodrich had more assets in research, Diamond’s talent and specialized focus on tire making gave it the advantage. In addition, in 1909 a number of Akron rubber executives funded a basic rubber research lab at Buchtel College personally. Diamond’s research efforts in Akron started a new concern — secrecy. Workers and managers shared the same saloons and neighborhoods, and pieces of critical information were often passed on accidentally. The company actually had saloon spies. Diamond realized it had gained some key technological advantages over Goodrich, and it needed to buy far less premium Para rubber. To hide the breakthrough, information about the process was limited within the company. Diamond also continued to purchase huge amounts of Para rubber to fool Goodrich. Diamond smuggled Para rubber out of the warehouses and resold it on the open market.6 They also had secretly been manufacturing aniline oil for years, while the rest of the rubber industry was dependent on Germany. Diamond’s research scientists were the best in the rubber industry; only U.S. Rubber’s Naugatuck research center was close to Diamond’s. Akron’s Big Four entered what would become a battle for Midwestern dominance. B.F. Goodrich in 1904 was four times bigger than Goodyear, Firestone, and Diamond combined. However, Diamond was the most feared by B.F. Goodrich because of the cost and technological advances. B.F. Goodrich formed a joint venture with Diamond using their recycling process. Goodyear and Firestone, however, were making the major inroads in the auto industry. Firestone also dominated the solid tire market, and by 1907 no longer needed to purchase any Goodrich tires. Firestone’s relationship with the little Ford Motor Company seemed to be of no significance as late as 1907. Interestingly, as the auto tire boom grew, the bicycle tire market was collapsing. The bicycle slump was fast and deep and really was not driven by the increase in auto sales. The value of bicycle tires dropped from $26 million in 1898 to only $3.7 million in 1904.7 In a few years, bicycle tires had gone from 35 percent of Goodrich’s sales to 7 percent by 1905. The slide in bicycle tires made B.F. Goodrich look to more diversification. In 1905, Goodrich added footwear to its product line. Goodrich set up a wholly owned subsidiary — Akron Rubber Shoe Company, which quickly became a success. Footwear represented a $30 million segment of the total rubber market, but most knew that the future was in automotive tires.

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In 1904, the Big Five tire makers were U.S. Rubber, B.F. Goodrich, Goodyear Tire & Rubber, Diamond Rubber, and the up and coming Firestone Tire & Rubber. The city of Akron made 70 percent of the domestic tires made. It would be the beginning of Akron’s tire wars that would last for decades. Akron was growing, with workers coming north on Route 21 from West Virginia to man the gum mills. These workers often had some union backgrounds. The workers had started the first union organization, the Amalgamated Rubber Workers’ Union, but it was basically an underground organization at the time. The union died out after the companies obtained the member list and started to blacklist employees. The companies also took more positive steps such as paternal capitalism and community outreach. B.F. Goodrich and Diamond Rubber were particularly aggressive at resisting unions. In 1905, worker associations were formed, and wages rose to block efforts by the union. There was a spy system formed among the workers to identify union leaders. Rubber workers were well paid in a time when the average worker made about 12 cents an hour. The going rate in 1905 was 16 cents an hour for a new hire into an Akron rubber plant. A tire maker with a production bonus could reach 30 cents an hour. A supervisor got around 27 cents an hour. A department manager such as receiving got $70.00 a month. Akron still had not taken the full title of the “Rubber City” as the giant rubber company of U.S. Rubber was located in New York. For U.S. Rubber, 1905 was an important year as well. U.S. Rubber took over the Mishawaka Woolen Company of Mishawaka, Indiana. Mishawaka had become one of the most innovative rubber companies in the world. It had become the nation’s most famous footwear company as it also had made major advances in technology such as rubber soles, the use of carbon black, and rubber recycling. Many of these advances would be applied to tire production at other plants. In 1912, U.S. Rubber purchased the Mishawaka Rubber Regenerating Company, bringing in a new source of rubber. U.S. Rubber with Mishawaka and its Naugatuck plant had developed a technological edge in its products in 1905. Firestone in 1907 would make its mark in the auto industry with its relationship with the booming Ford Motor. Harvey Firestone would struggle to meet the 2,000 straight side tire sets order of Henry Ford in early 1906 for the Model N (precursor of the Model T). This would be the largest tire order ever made, and Firestone sent Ford an engraved Winchester rifle as a gift. One of the reasons that Firestone got the order was a price of $55.00 a set versus the clincher tire monopoly price of $70.00 a set. Ford changed his wheel design of the Model T to accept Firestone straight wall pneumatic tires. Both Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone hated business monopolies like the Clincher Tire Association, and their partnership would be part of the asso-

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ciation’s downfall. Ford broke with other manufacturers who produced autos for the clincher tire. Ford and Firestone made the Model T the first mass produced straight wall tire auto. By the end of 1906, Ford upped the order to 6,000 sets, making Firestone the leading producer of automotive tires that year.8 By 1907, the big four in total rubber production were U.S. Rubber with $39,716,000 in sales, B.F. Goodrich with $12,930,000 in sales, Goodyear with $2,190,000 in sales, and Firestone with $1,681,000 in sales. Firestone, however, had the inside track with Ford Motor, which was just starting its Model T production. Firestone also had a complete line — solids and pneumatics — of tires for electrics, steamers, gasoline cars, trucks and horse buggies. Firestone’s quality impressed Ford. Harvey demanded that only the finest Para rubber be used with Sea Island cotton. Firestone had to borrow a great deal to produce that first order for Ford. Then another problem surfaced; while the straight walls were superior, Firestone didn’t have the capacity to make the replacement tires needed, so Firestone had to once again produce some clincher tires until they could build market share. The other companies such as Goodyear started to move into straight wall tires as well to help break the clincher monopoly. Firestone had to invest in a four story addition to his Akron factory. Goodyear had also invested in straight walls, having been restricted by the monopoly. Goodyear and Firestone had been informal partners in the battle for pneumatic straight walls. Eventually, customers demanded the straight wall tire because of its ease in replacing flat tires. When Firestone lacked the capacity to make enough tires for Ford, orders went to Goodyear. The friendly relationship would be very short lived. Tires for the Model T began a battle for tire business between Firestone and Goodyear. When Goodyear got a backup order of 1200 sets from Ford in 1907, they shipped the tires to Detroit in cars with large banners celebrating the order. Firestone’s link with the new Model T drove their sales to over a million a year in 1907. Still, Firestone could not keep up with the exploding sales of the Model T, and Ford had to purchase tires from B.F. Goodrich and Diamond. However, the bigger market in 1908 was more concentrated in a cluster of Midwest companies such as Cadillac, Oakland, Durant, Oldsmobile, and Overland that would ultimately become General Motors. Initially, Goodyear’s straight wall design drove its sales in 1907 as the market moved away from clincher. Goodyear, Diamond, and U.S. Rubber had most General Motors business. U.S. Rubber was in the best geographic position with its massive Detroit tire plant. Firestone had a small but growing control of the Ford Model T business. Michelin, a French tire company, built an American plant in 1907 to supply this new auto production in the Midwest. Goodrich and Diamond set a strategy to increase their market share through technology.

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Goodyear countered massive research investments by B.F. Goodrich and Diamond Rubber by moving into national advertising. The tire wars were on with Goodyear borrowing heavily to advertise. Goodyear launched a quarter million dollar program, which included hiring the best ad men in the business and full page spreads in national magazines. Goodyear advertised and marketed to the consumers in this early era of the automobile. Goodyear addressed some evolving issues of the new automobile era. The motorist had to hand pump air in tires routinely. Goodyear started to supply free compressed air at its branch offices to win over consumers. Goodyear even sold and advertised compressed air bottles good for five fillings. Firestone used its large sales force and branch sales offices to counter Goodyear’s national advertising and Goodrich and Diamond’s technology edge. The year 1908 would be a year of another industry wide improvement in tires. The tread in early tires was a smooth belt of rubber. Until 1908 most tires were smooth treads, which made them useless in winter. In fact, most car owners of the time did not drive in the winter. Cars were often put in winter storage. Firestone, Diamond, and Goodyear, which were dependent on car tire technology for almost all their profits, started to look at other design improvements. Who first came up with the non-skid tread is debatable, but Firestone and Goodyear were producing them by late 1908. Firestone appears to have been first, although treads had been used in bicycle tires. The rubber tread layer was one-fourth of the tire thickness for smooth treads and one-third for non-skid. Firestone’s pattern actually consisted of the raised words FIRESTONE and NON-SKID. The words were engraved in the tire mold. The tire builder put a specially compounded tread belt on the tire. In the mold, the hot rubber and hydraulic pressure put on the pattern. The angles and points of contact prevented skidding. Goodyear followed with its All Weather tread with a diamond-based design the same year, followed by Diamond Rubber. In 1909, “forty percent of the 105,000 tires sold were non-skid, sixty percent the next year.”9 The Detroit Morgan and Wright factory of U.S. Rubber started manufacturing a knobbed tread in 1910. Chemical improvements to treads included carbon black, which started a natural evolution to the white sidewall. Smooth tires had the natural white cream color of the rubber with zinc oxide added as a strengthening agent. Firestone had the Model T business, but it lacked the technical resources of its competitors and needed to catch up. Firestone, by his own admission, was slow to understand that rubber chemistry was the foundation of the industry. Firestone first wanted to expand on its strength in the mechanical system versus rubber improvements. Firestone issued more stock for investment capital. He hired John Thomas, a chemist, for a salary of a $100 a month in 1908

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and set up a small lab. Thomas had a degree in chemistry from Akron’s Buchtel College and had worked a short time for Goodrich. Thomas turned out to be one Firestone’s greatest assets, eventually becoming chairman of the board. In the end Firestone would become Akron’s and the industry’s wealthiest rubber baron.

7

The Rubber Boom and Rubber Cartels The decade of the 1910s was one of vast industrialization for America. The nation and the rubber industry had gone from industrial craftsmen to mass production in ten years. In 1910 there were an estimated 300,000 cars and 6,000 trucks on the road. By 1920, there were eight million cars and a million trucks on the road. The average price of an automobile went from about $1,550 in 1910, to $1,125 in 1911, to $850 in 1913, to $450 in 1920. The Model T price went from $600 in 1910 to $395 in 1920. Average manufacturing wages went from two dollars a day to about four and half dollars a day in the decade. The rubber industry average was above $5.00 a day. The working hours of a rubber worker went from thirteen hours a day to eight hours. By 1920, rubber employment in Akron reached 75,000. Tire technology changed in the decade from fabric clincher type tires to straight side cord tires, and tire life doubled to 5,000 miles. The decade started with U.S. Rubber leading in tire sales followed closely by B.F. Goodrich and Diamond Rubber with Goodyear in fourth place. Fisk Rubber of New England started the decade in fifth place. Firestone was the fastest growing with its close ties to Ford. At the end of the decade, the order among the tire companies was Firestone, Goodyear, and B.F. Goodrich, followed by U.S. Rubber. The upcoming company was Akron’s General Tire which suffered as New England lost auto manufacturing. In 1910 there were still nearly 200 auto manufacturers. They included electric car producers such as Franklin and steamers such as Stanley. The gasoline manufacturers included both familiar and now-forgotten names such as Olds, Buick, White, Winston, Cadillac, Peerless, Locomobile, Duryea, WillysOverland, Studebaker, Reo, Pierce-Arrow, and Hudson. Auto manufacturing had clearly shifted to the Midwest. There were plenty of imports, too, such as Mercedes, Rolls-Royce, Fiat, Renault, Benz, and Panhard. The country lacked driving infrastructure as well. There were few gas stations. Compressed air and tire shops were not common. Changing tires required hard work and 85

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often mechanical skills. While carriage and bicycle tire markets were in decline, motorcycle tires were emerging. Goodyear and U.S. Rubber focused on this market. Trucks were also starting to emerge and needed solid rubber tires. These fast growing markets were straining infrastructure and natural resources. Rubber was in demand and rubber prices were moving up fast, creating an inflationary bubble. The rubber bubble of 1910s has been compared to Holland’s 16th century tulip mania.1 In the early years of the decade, the price of rubber went from 50 cents a pound to $2.00 a pound. Entrepreneurs and investors poured into the rubber commodity market and new rubber companies. New sources of potential rubber plants created land booms in Mexico, Asia, and Africa. The boom created a wave of rubber barons. It drew politicians into the business as well. “Dollar Diplomacy” became Washington’s strategic initiative into the rubber bubble. It funded expeditions in Africa and South America. New kingdoms and nations were created to supply rubber. The combination of an economic bubble and inherent greed would bring out the worst in many. Rubber products were in high demand in America and Europe. The rough breakdown for the rubber industry in the decade prior to the war was 48 percent tires and tubes, 17 percent boots and shoes, 6 percent hose, 3 percent druggist and 13 percent general products. The uses of rubber were expanding into electrical applications such as insulation and battery covers. The South American rubber producers could not keep up with demand. From 1910 to 1920, Akron and the rubber industry entered a boom driven by sales of tires. Nearly 70 percent of the world’s raw rubber was being shipped to Akron by the end of the decade. During this decade Akron added an amazing 144,000 residents, which made it America’s fastest growing city. The lights were on around the clock as thousands of workers changed shifts throughout the day and night. Saloons, diners, and bars were open around the clock to cater to shifts. Mugs of beer and shots of whiskey were lined up at the ends and beginnings of shifts. Where the steel mills of Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Youngstown had brought European immigrants and the Ford factories of Detroit brought southern blacks, Akron brought in the hill people of West Virginia. This also brought in racism. One historian called Akron “the largest center for the Ku Klux Klan outside the South.”2 While the companies were open to hiring blacks, the community resisted. Not surprisingly, there were fewer than 700 black people in Akron in 1910. Some blame the rubber barons for promoting a white, southern workforce, but it was strictly an issue of labor costs and availability. Labor shortages pushed the rubber industry to actively recruit in Appalachia to bring workers to the great gum mills of Akron. Over 10,000 West Virginians would come in the decade, and it was estimated that as many as 70,000 West Virginians lived in the city by 1920. By 1919 the West Virginia Club boasted 25,000

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members.3 Locals called these West Virginians “snake eaters.” Comedians called Akron the “capital of West Virginia” and “Sodom on the Cuyahoga.” The socialist and communist movements of the decade did lead the barons to hire southern Americans versus Europeans. But again the main wave of European immigration was over, and the American South was in hard economic times. Southern workers could be attracted with little cost. The success of rubber brought rising wages, price increases, monopolistic behavior, shortages, economic warfare between nations, international cartels, a search for new domestic sources for latex, and jungle plantations to produce more latex. Akron would become the first city to feel the impact industrial globalization. The decade of 1911 to 1920 would be the beginning of the great tire wars. The decade started with New England’s U.S. Rubber controlling 25 percent of the tire market to be the biggest. The market for tires went from 2.4 million in 1910 to 37 million in 1920. The big three Akron companies would take away U.S. Rubber’s lead as the Midwestern auto companies took over. It would end in a reversal of the Akron companies as well. Firestone would become the biggest Akron tire manufacturer producing 20,000 tires daily, with Goodyear at 19,000 daily, and B.F. Goodrich at 15,000 daily. Diamond had been bought out by Goodrich. In New England, U.S. Rubber was producing 2,500 daily as Akron manufacturers took the market. U.S. Rubber’s percent of the tire market dropped from around 25 percent in 1910 to 7.3 percent in 1920. In overall rubber sales Goodyear started the decade as a small company; but by 1920 it was the second largest rubber company in the nation and the largest in Akron. Goodyear, under the leadership of Seiberling and Litchfield, had an aggressive growth plan, moving into general products and aeronautics with its core of tire making. Goodyear would come to dominate in pneumatic truck tires and airplane tires. The company led the way in pneumatic truck tires in 1916. Goodyear built 2,000 pneumatic truck tires and 125,000 solid truck tires in 1916. Prior to 1916, truck tires were solid rubber. Most believed pneumatic tires could not long haul on America’s poor roads. To demonstrate the potential, Goodyear vice-president Paul Litchfield took on the challenge. He started Goodyear’s own truck line — the Wingfoot Akron-Boston Highway Express. Goodyear in particular wanted to prove that pneumatic tires on trucks could routinely make the trip across the Allegheny Mountains. Goodyear also started its own bus line using their tires to take employees from their homes in Goodyear Heights to the Akron factory. The Goodyear Heights Line was the nation’s second bus line after New York’s Fifth Avenue Line. The employee paid two cents for a half mile to mile ride. Paul Litchfield would make a famous prophecy: “With pneumatic tires, the truck is destined to become a lifeline of our economy. From city streets and alleys, trucking will spread over every mile of existing highways in the

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nation and over highways yet to come. Moreover, they would carry everything from heavy machinery to eggs.”4 The prediction would lead to a battle for truck tires in the next two decades. Goodyear pneumatic truck tire production grew to 40,000 in 1918, but solid truck tires for the military accounted for 500,000 that year. Solid tires limited the speeds and loads of trucks. By the end of the war, the military started to switch to pneumatic truck tires. Harvey Firestone moved into truck tires as well. Firestone, as head of the rubber association, and the nation’s rim manufacturers headed the effort to standardize the vast number of truck tire sizes. Firestone also developed a sixteen pile pneumatic truck tire for the military. He also promoted better roads as a necessity to expand the use of trucks. Working with the War Board, Firestone set up efficient truck-railroad shipping, which would augur today’s intermodal development in shipping. Firestone help set up the nation’s first two-way trucking systems with his Akron-Cleveland Motor Express. After the war, Firestone started the “Ship-By-Truck” national campaign. Firestone sponsored transcontinental truck parades. Firestone even produced a short motion picture on trucking for movie theaters. By the end of the decade both Firestone and Goodyear were strategically placed in the truck market. Goodyear was also the most aggressive in going into the export business, but the B.F. Goodrich Company was also aggressively expanding sales and manufacturing in Europe. Another difference in the big three Akron tire companies was their strategies for growth. Firestone and Goodyear poured profits into new factories and equipment. B.F. Goodrich looked to merge with competitors and control market share and price. It would be a losing strategy for Goodrich. Goodrich would drop to fifth place in tire production by the end of the 1920s. During the decade, both Firestone and Goodyear built major new factories in Akron. While expanding in tires, U.S. Rubber also looked to diversification for growth. The company struggled with the shift of auto production to the Midwest. U.S. Rubber, as a well-diversified rubber company, remained the number one rubber company in sales. U.S. Rubber still had its Detroit Morgan and Wright tire plant that was supplying General Motors, but it needed more capacity in Detroit. Akron, with Goodyear, Firestone, B.F. Goodrich and some smaller companies, was making nearly 80 percent of the tires in America by the end of the decade. U.S. Rubber did expand into a dominant position in footwear, belts, hoses, and golf balls. Change was the story of the decade and the rubber companies were looking to the future with very different strategies. By 1910 the city of Akron was changing too with the success of the American automobile. Portage Country Club, founded in 1894 by Goodrich executives, had now become the exclusive club for all the top rubber executives in the area. Thrifty settlers from Connecticut as part of the Western Reserve had founded Akron. The earliest of the settlers were Irish canal diggers who

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stayed in the 1830s. The first wave of industrialization after the Civil War had created industrialists in clay, cereal, and farm equipment. It was these industrialists who created wealth. They had built their great wooden Victorian mansions on Market Street. Now rubber had created a new breed of rich from founders to chemists to marketing men. A few barons such as Charles Seiberling built new mansions in the West Market area, but the new rich looked to new areas. These new rich were moving to the southwest to the area of the old Indian trail known as Portage Path. There they started to build Gothic, Tudor, and Georgian mansions. The workers were creating new neighborhoods as well. Italians were building on North Hill, Hungarians favored Barberton, and the West Virginians headed for Lakemore and Rittman. Akron was evolving into a major American city. It would be the rubber barons who would leave the lasting mark of its character. Harvey Firestone built his Georgian mansion, Harbel Manor, in 1912 on sixty acres.5 It had stables, a barn, polo field, and a greenhouse. Firestone was a horse breeder as well, and had come from a large farm in Columbiana, Ohio. He built a riding path that went to the Seiberlings’ Stan Hywet mansion. Harbel Manor would grow into a city farm of more than eighty acres. Firestone kept many horses for his hobby of polo, and a number of his sons played for the Princeton polo team. The Firestones and the Seiberlings supported fox hunts as well. A large polo field was built next to the estate. At one point he had thousands of chickens and over 100 cows, over 50 sheep, and numerous hogs. Firestone became a major milk producer in the area and also supplied Akron grocery stores with fresh eggs. Firestone was far from a country boy. He loved formal dinners which required one of his dapper suits. Thomas Edison was a frequent guest as was Henry Ford. President Howard Taft and other government officials stayed at Harbel Manor. Shortly, after Firestone started his mansion, F.A. Seiberling of Goodyear started his country estate of Stan Hywet. The Seiberlings and the Firestones were neighbors in the new Portage Path area. The Seiberling mansion became the iconic mansion of the rubber barons. It was modeled as a country estate. The estate was built around an old stone quarry (Stan Hywet is Old English for stone quarry) on Portage Path. It would take four years to build with a railroad spur being needed to bring materials and furnishings to the site. The Stan Hywet mansion would have 65 rooms, 23 bathrooms, an English great hall, and 23 fireplaces. Like an English manor it had secret passages. It had a built-in pool, a large library, five-hole golf course, a tennis court, and expansive world class gardens. The estate had 700 acres and was later expanded to 1,700. It had stables and a ten car garage for his Model Ts, one-cylinder Cadillac, Thomas Flyer, limousine, trucks, bus, and a 1915 Milburn Electric. The cost would reach $4 million (about $50 million today). Much of the building

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material and furnishings were brought in from European manor houses that the Seiberlings had toured. The mansion would be the site of many grand parties that often included the families of the other rubber barons such as Harvey Firestone and family. Sam Miller of competitor Mohawk Rubber and brother-in-law of Seiberling often stopped over to play croquet. For the more demanding game of roque (offshoot of croquet), F.A. Seiberling had a professionally designed court. Stan Hywet had a long list of distinguished guests including President William Taft, President Warren Harding, President Calvin Coolidge, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Will Rogers, and Helen Keller. Yet, Seiberling proved less of an aristocrat than other industry barons, often having mid-level managers and foremen over for picnics. Firestone, not to be outdone, would over the years expand his mansion to 118 rooms and stables for 75 horses. The Firestones and the Seiberlings shared horse riding paths. The Seiberling boys would play polo on the Firestone polo field. Since the Seiberlings had the only gym, the Firestones and Seiberlings played on the same neighborhood basketball court. While Firestone preferred animal farming, the Seiberlings had orchards of apples, peach, pear, and cherry trees. Large quantities of potatoes and corn were grown also at Stan Hywet. Gertrude Seiberling designed grape arbors as well. Both Frank and Gertrude would apply these loves to the design of city parks. Excess acreage was rented out to local farmers. Frank Seiberling was also a student of nature and loved bird watching. He hunted and fished with his boys and took the girls on nature walks. Stan Hywet, like the Firestone mansion, was manned by a staff on the level of a hotel with 40 to 50 employees at times. Twelve of them lived in the house. The following describes a piece of daily life at Stan Hywet: “The morning light so carefully calculated to fill the Breakfast Room filled the Seiberlings’s days. This was a happy, optimistic, bustling family, and its day began in the Breakfast Room, F.A.’s favorite room in the house. Invariably, he would arrive first, ready to launch into the day, mixing a huge breakfast with big ideas…. As one of the maids saw to it that F.A. had a breakfast of two softboiled eggs, bacon, orange juice, coffee, toast buttered, torn apart, and dipped in egg, he would read the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the only morning paper in those days.”6 Still, with all the luxury, Seiberling was a hard worker with an extensive office with direct telephone lines to the factories. Firestone continued to work long days until the late 1920s and then spent more of the morning at home. Earlier on, Firestone was known to arrive at the plant at eight in the morning and work till seven in the evening. Firestone then liked to bring an executive home for dinner and had a particular discussion of interest in the operation until 10. It seemed to be the later tradition of both Seiberling and Firestone to start work at home and arrive midmorning at the plant. Firestone earlier on worked on Saturdays as well.

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F.A. Seiberling at his Stan Hywet home in 1920.

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Mrs. Firestone and Mrs. Seiberling were very unique and dynamic individuals in their own right. Both were avid gardeners and landscapers. Mrs. Seiberling, more than anyone, was the designer of Stan Hywet. Gertrude Seiberling had attended Buchtel College, taking courses in architecture, landscaping, interior decorating, and horticulture. Gertrude Seiberling worked closely with the professionals in the design and landscaping of Stan Hywet. She and Frank had toured Europe searching for art and architectural accents. Gertrude was an accomplished singer and musician as well and had sung at a White House party. The greatest rubber mansion of them all was that of O.C. Barber, the founder of Diamond Rubber. The Barber mansion was in nearby Barberton, Ohio, and was known as the finest mansion between New York and Chicago. It was a 52 room mansion with four floors. The mansion and all related farm buildings were in French Renaissance style. The Barber Mansion was built in 1905 on 300 acres. It included elevators and skylights at a total cost of six million dollars, a huge sum at the time. Marble was imported from Siena, Italy. Barber built a railroad connection and cranes to handle the building. The wood came from all over the world, including the finest American oak and circadian walnut. The grand ballroom had a teakwood floor. Barber had concrete block cast at his cement factory and moved by rail. It was on the level of any of the New York robber barons’ mansions. O.C. Barber loved farming like Harvey Firestone. He built a 3,000 acre experimental farm on his estate. All the farm buildings were in matching French Renaissance style. He wanted to improve farm efficiency as he did manufacturing. Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone would become avid followers of this endeavor. Barber’s greenhouses and barns were some of the largest in the world. One greenhouse covered 300 acres. His number 3 barn was 751 feet long and three stories high. He raised over 50,000 free range chickens. One barn held 140 thoroughbred Belgian horses. Most importantly, Barber, Seiberling and Firestone saw Akron and its workers as family. Harvey Firestone’s personal touch was remembered: “He made it a point to know the people who worked for him. He was concerned about their lives and their families. He would go through the factory and ask one worker how the new baby was, another one whether his wife was feeling better. He cared. He was one of the first in the country to offer company stock to his employees at reduced rates, so that they could be part of the operation.”7 The barons realized work, family, and community were integral parts of one’s life. You can’t make them separate boxes and be successful in both. The barons planned major family Christmas parties and summer picnics. Young family members got preference in getting a job at the rubber mill. The wealth of rubber making flowed into the growth of Akron. In 1888, the city had an electric street system to take people to and from work. The

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growth of a middle class of well-paid tire builders created demand for an interurban electric rail between Akron and Cleveland. The middle class, like the rubber barons, enjoyed going to Cleveland to shop. These light rail systems offered transportation to all to nearby lakes and amusement parks. Lakeside Park on Summit Lake was a type of summer resort to the hard working city. A system of connected lakes known as Portage Lakes offered a local summer resort for the growing middle class of Akron. Akron had even become too small for some rubber makers. Portage Path wasn’t good enough for rubber baron Bertram Work, president of B.F. Goodrich. Work wanted to take his place with the great steel, railroad, and financial barons of New York. Work loved the social high society of New York and moved his corporate headquarters to New York in 1909. He built his mansion on prestigious Fifth Avenue and a fashionable summer home on Oyster Bay on Long Island. Here Work could mingle with the top executives of U.S. Rubber or play a round of golf with President Howard Taft. Goodrich chemical wizard and executive Arthur Marks, like Work, was happy to move to the New York headquarters. Marks loved the high life and built his mansion outside the city limits. He named his country estate Elmcourt. Marks stocked his estate with prize dairy cows. He built a summer home at Marblehead, Massachusetts. Like other Goodrich executives, Marks was a member of several yacht clubs, such as the prestigious New York Yacht Club and the Columbia Yacht Club. Marks’ wealth was augmented by his many chemical patents, and he owned several yachts, such as his 98-foot gasoline yacht. In 1916, he built a massive steel 157-foot yacht with several dining rooms. These excesses proved inspirational to Akron managers but less so to the workers. Mansions in Akron were one thing, but New York mansions were viewed in a whole different light by the workers. Other key executives emulated Work and Marks at Goodrich, and the company suffered from it. Executives lost touch with the Akron gum mills, and labor problems grew worse than those of their competitors. The Akron community, which had been the birthplace of the B.F. Goodrich Company, was now feeling closer to the new company of Goodyear. B.F. Goodrich had also lost touch with the Midwestern tire market, which would be reflected in their fall from the top Akron tire maker to the bottom by the end of the decade. About the same time, U.S. Rubber moved its headquarters from iconic Naugatuck to New York. In 1911, the world’s two largest rubber companies, Goodrich and U.S. Rubber, were in New York. U.S. Rubber built its headquarters, a 20-story building on Broadway and 58th Street, in 1912. New York was now the center of the rubber executives, although the manufacturing was moving west. U.S. Rubber’s largest tire manufacturing plant was in Detroit, positioned for its auto customers. U.S. Rubber’s biggest belt plant was in Cleveland. U.S. Rub-

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ber continued an aggressive strategy of diversification and vertical integration (raw materials). U.S. Rubber had earlier on gotten into the production of chemicals needed for tire production. U.S. Rubber purchased textile mills for fabric and in 1910 started the planting of rubber trees in the Dutch Indies. New York seemed the logical place to manage such diversification. Goodrich and U.S. Rubber were the most aggressive companies in developing international branches and factories. U.S. Rubber purchased Canadian Rubber Consolidated in 1907. This Canadian company had a long history going back to the 1850s and produced footwear, fire hose, bicycle tires, and auto tires. Goodrich was interested in going into foreign manufacturing versus expanding Akron operations. Using its New York banking connections with J.P. Morgan, Goodrich built plants in 1908 in France and England. The plants were set up and run by Akron executives. The success of the American auto and rubber markets was having a rippling effect around the world by 1910. European auto manufacturers were booming also, creating a huge bull market for raw rubber. Rubber had risen to $2.22 a pound on the world market in 1909 as total U.S car production raced to 2 million. The Para rubber barons could not push the natives any harder. The price rose to a peak of $3.06 a pound in 1910. Rubber companies quoted tire prices to automakers per bid but the rubber price was rising daily, cutting profit margins by the time of manufacturing. Speculators were making fortunes on the commodity price run up of South American market. The market was on the verge of collapse, but few realized it. The seeds of the rubber market’s collapse had literally been sown in 1876. Rubber brought many fortune hunters to the industry in the second half of the 1800s. One of those fortune hunters was Englishman Henry Wickham, who packed up his family in 1871 and headed to the jungle rubber capital of Para in South America. Wickham failed to accomplish much and was left nearly broke. To survive, he joined a colony of expatriated Confederate soldiers. Finally, Wickham was hired by some British agent to smuggle rubber plant seeds to England. In 1876, Wickham shipped these seeds to London’s Royal Botanic Gardens. These 70,000 seeds would be the basis of Britain’s great Asian rubber plantations. Queen Victoria would knight Wickham for his part. The price of rubber was the key driver in rubber product manufacturing, accounting for 50 percent of the manufacturing cost.8 The Asian plantation rubber system would grow slowly at the end of the 1800s with plantations in places such as Malaya and Sumatra. Crossbreeding was required to improve plant adaptability and yield. The British used scientific planning to develop these plantations. They were located close to ports to minimize transportation costs. The high density of planting was superior to the miles of jungle trails in Brazil. Cheap labor was imported from China. The approach would pay

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huge dividends. When the United States took over the Philippines after the Spanish-American War, President William McKinley (who had represented the Akron area in Congress) promoted a plan to grow rubber for America there. In 1900, Asian plantations produced only 4 tons of raw rubber compared to Brazil’s 38,000 tons. The tipping point would come in 1913, when the Asian plantations produced 47,618 tons versus 39,370 tons of Brazilian rubber. Still believing they were in a monopoly position, Brazil actually started to increase export taxes on their rubber. Companies and countries started to look more aggressively into non–Brazilian sources. U.S. Rubber in 1910 developed an 80,000 acre plantation in Sumatra, becoming the first American rubber company to do so. Sumatra was a Dutch controlled colony outside British influence. Nor was the rest of the world just watching in the early 1910s. Belgium and Germany were expanding their raw rubber production from Africa. America was experimenting with Mexican rubber from guayule plants. But rubber’s rapid rise to $1 per pound in 1902 spurred many new alternative sources of rubber. Alternative rubber would have its own baron in Republican senator Nelson Aldrich of Rhode Island. Aldrich would prove the most unusual of the rubber barons being part politician, part capitalist, and part financier. Aldrich (1841–1915) had been one of the pioneering architects of the American system of tariffs who had built the rubber, steel, oil, and glass industries. Aldrich had a genealogy tracing the very history of the nation. He was a friend of Charles Flint and had profited from his advice on investments. He was the nation’s businessman in Congress. He was educated in the problems of rubber supply to the United States. Nelson Aldrich in 1904 joined a number of prominent investors to form the Intercontinental Rubber Company. The investors were a list of American capitalists including his son, who was the brother-in-law of John D. Rockefeller, Wall Streeter Bernard Baruch, Charles Flint, John D. Rockefeller, John Regan of Standard Oil, Paul Morton of Equitable Trust, and Levi Morton. The group originally formed to build a raw rubber trust based on that of Standard Oil. The company would be run by Bernard Baruch who was a rubber baron in his own right. Baruch would become the nation’s foremost expert on rubber. Intercontinental Rubber looked at developing African rubber as well as guayule rubber in Mexico. It initial focus was the development of a guayule rubber industry in Mexico and Texas. Guayule was a woody shrub about two feet high. It was first promoted in Mexico’s exhibit at the 1876 World Fair. It required the processing of the whole plant but yields were high and there was plenty of desert to regrow a new crop in a four-year cycle. Diamond Rubber of Akron had been working on the processing and was beginning to get the costs down.

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Intercontinental Rubber Company had been experimenting with Mexican and Texan guayule rubber since 1904, but its quality was lower than South American, Asian, and African rubber. Diamond Rubber of Akron had developed a process that brought the cost of guayule rubber to 90 cents a pound, which made guayule rubber competitive. Intercontinental purchased over 3 million acres of Mexican guayule. In 1905, Intercontinental imported over 10,000 tons of rubber to East Coast rubber product manufacturers. Diamond Rubber research had ruled guayule out for use in tire manufacture. Still, in 1905 guayule rubber accounted for 19 percent of America’s rubber.9 Guayule rubber fell as fast as it rose. Intercontinental Rubber had developed a relationship with United States Rubber. United States Rubber and East Coast manufacturers were having problems by 1910 with the poor quality of guayule rubber. Large orders were canceled. Intercontinental had looked at actually taking over United States Rubber, but 1911 brought cash problems with returned poor quality rubber. Bernard Baruch and other investors got out at the peak as Intercontinental was reduced to a minor low cost supplier of rubber to the United States. In addition, Intercontinental suffered asset losses during the Mexican revolution of 1911. Rubber stockpiles were burned and factories destroyed. The story of Intercontinental and guayule rubber was not over as it would be tried by Edison and Firestone in the 1920s to manufacture tires and would find the renewed interest of Bill O’Neil of General Tire during World War II. Intercontinental would try to form a partnership with King Leopold to produce African rubber; Leopold’s slave-produced rubber would make it politically impossible, with Senator Aldrich being a major owner. During 1910 to 1912, most of the tire prices of the automobile companies were based on $1.75 a pound rubber, which made alternative rubber latex competitive. The problem for the Akron rubber companies was long-term supply and quality. Para rubber was still needed for airplane and racing tires. Para rubber was also mixed in lower grades from Africa and Asia. Mexican guayule and chicle (chewing gum resin) lacked the quality. In 1907, B.F. Goodrich was experimenting with the Colorado rubber plant pinquay, but its quality was also inferior. Goodyear was also looking at Mexican rubber from the guayule plant. Still, guayule rubber lacked the tensile strength and elasticity of Brazilian rubber. The winds of war in Europe were further complicating the rubber market by 1912. Goodyear and its founder, Frank Seiberling, went to Brazil in 1910 to purchase farms and supply lines in hopes of taking control of the South American sources. Prices of rubber fell to under 50 cents a pound, slowing interest in alternatives. The price had dropped to under a $1 a pound consistently, and by 1920, the price would be a mere 20 cents a pound. A change in the jungle of Brazil was just one of the new problems of the

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rubber industry. The rubber companies were having trouble keeping up with demand during the boom of 1910. After a visit, Harvey Firestone and his right hand man, John Thomas, were forced to quote a below cost price to increase the Ford business. Firestone returned to Akron to launch a plan for a new modernized factory (Plant Number 2). He looked to a cornfield in south Akron as a site. The site was 23 acres but had nine owners, which Firestone handled through a Cleveland real estate broker to hide his identity. He got the land for a mere $1,000 an acre. The new factory was to be a brick and steel complex with four stories and lots of windows. Instead of canal water, water was pumped from Summit Lake a mile away. Initially, Plant Number 2 could produce 5,000 tires (2,500 were pneumatic) a day using 81,000 pounds of rubber. Firestone purchased the best equipment available to push up capacity to 10,000 tires a day, but within a few years it reached 16,000 tires a day. The production increase was achieved by applying Ford assembly methods. Tire building was split with the first part done on a machine. The second operation was done by a finisher who was paid by piece rate. The finisher or tire builder made $3.50 an hour. This new machine method cut the cost of production in half. The new factory had about 1,800 employees including 100 supervisors and foremen. The rubber and auto booms forced competitors to expand as well. Goodrich expanded its plant, making it the pneumatic tire plant. Goodrich was highly diversified. It had a separate department for solid rubber truck tires and airplane tires. Diversification and lack of investing in new tire making technology would cost Goodrich its leadership. Firestone and Goodyear put everything into the mass production of automotive tires. The factory floors of all the plants were in a state of flux as the industry boomed with auto sales. Firestone was struggling to meet all the tire orders his friend, Henry Ford, was willing to give him in 1912. That year U.S. Rubber was the biggest tire producer followed by B.F. Goodrich, Diamond, and Goodyear. Goodyear was aiming at becoming the biggest tire manufacturer. The best a tire maker could do in 1910 was about six tires a day, hardly the pace needed for a booming auto industry. In 1912, Firestone brought over Clyde Stevens from Goodyear Tire & Rubber. Stevens was a self-trained engineer with years of experience in this new field. Stevens had experimental machines at Goodyear allowing 20 plus tires a day. Within a few months at Firestone, he had semi-automatic machines producing 70 tires a day by man. The total production of the machine was still dependent on the man, which led Firestone to implement a piece rate pay system. The result was the implementation of new incentive programs for workers. The story was similar for Goodyear, which built their Plant Number 2 in 1916. U.S. Rubber entered the battle for reduced costs and improved productivity as well. Originally, U.S. Rubber applied the stopwatch scientific man-

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agement of Fredrick Taylor, but it also had help from close ties with IBM. Its production control methods were the industry’s best, and its application of scientific management was the most extensive in American industry. In 1917, U.S. Rubber hired the famous efficiency expert Frank Gilbreth to do motion studies. Many of these changes were considered revolutionary and are today part of lean manufacturing systems. U.S. Rubber also pioneered applied research into production methods. U.S. Rubber had established a centralized corporate research center in 1912. It also expanded research into product testing and improvement, challenging the dominant position of B.F. Goodrich in rubber research. U.S. Rubber also invested in expanding its Detroit tire making plant. Both Firestone and Goodyear were interested in applying the mass production of Fordism and the scientific management of Fredrick Taylor. The system was that of scientific management which used process timers with stopwatches to establish standards. Interestingly, one of the process timers at Firestone Tire & Rubber would be future movie star Clark Cable. Frank Seiberling at Goodyear put in a system allowing tire builders to earn up to $6.00 a day. Firestone followed but put in required standards. At Firestone, the men rebelled, wanting the old wage scale. Tire builders had a craftsman tradition and resented being pushed for more production. The tire builders, however, viewed themselves as skilled laborers, not to be united with the unskilled laborers. This played into the hands of the crafts union of the American Federation of Labor. Other grievances of the workers included long hours, unhealthy conditions, and importation of cheap labor. These issues had been addressed decades earlier by the failed Knights of Labor. The union had a very tough sell against the paternal barons of Goodyear and Firestone but found more success with the Goodrich operations. Most of the violence and disruptions would center at Goodrich. At the same time the Industrial Workers of the World, IWW, or Wobblies, were organized. The IWW comprised out-of-town workers with strong Marxist ties, but they had an outpost on South High Street. The Wobblies represented an all-inclusive view of workers which was not popular with the skilled rubber workers. The Akron rubber companies had successfully stopped unionization in the previous decade with paternalism. Diamond Rubber had replaced striking workers with scabs in 1908, so there was a bitter history in place. The IWW was there to help fuel a Firestone walkout in February 1913. The strike lost momentum because it was not really about overall wages. Rubber workers averaged about 36 cents an hour versus 23 cents an hour for most manufacturing. The strike moved from Firestone to Goodrich and on to Goodyear. It was over stopwatch production standards versus money or working conditions.

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At its peak, about 15,000 out of Akron’s 22,000 rubber workers were on strike. Fearing violence the mayor ordered all saloons closed. The strike was disorganized with walkouts shutting other departments. B.F. Goodrich, with its removed executives, faced the most violence and the most complaints over working conditions. Goodrich’s footwear manufacture was manned by women, who were prohibited in the AFL and Knights of Labor. Blacks were not represented by the AFL either. Only the IWW was willing to take up their causes. The workers lacked the solidarity to be successful in a strike. Union leadership was being contested between the IWW and the new American Federation of Labor, which was affiliated with the remnants of the old Amalgamated Rubber Workers. John L. Lewis came to Akron to fight against the IWW. Workers tended to favor the American Federation of Labor because they saw their jobs as skilled and crafts related. The IWW saw workers in a struggle with the capitalists and the labor movement as a social movement. Tire builders considered their work a craft and thus resisted the deskilling of Fordism and Taylorism as well as the laborer mindset of the IWW. The entrance of the IWW with its red flags cost the strike gaining public support. Ohio state senator William Potting framed it as “a conflict between the stars and stripes and the red flag of anarchy.”10 As IWW violence continued, the community organized a citizens committee of over 1,000 men to restore peace. The citizen force gave outsiders gathered up 24 hours to get out of Akron. The strike lasted about six weeks, but enthusiasm, internal problems between skilled and unskilled workers, lack of supportive public opinion, competition between unions, and lack of organization doomed it. Many characterized as a fight between the AFL and IWW versus the barons. The companies, on the other hand, were well prepared and had a spy infrastructure in place. Seiberling actually had a spy getting typed notes of union minutes. Spies were a natural part of paternal capitalism and viewed themselves as loyalists. Few historians understand unionization; they too often see it as a struggle or type of class warfare versus an evolution. Still, one needs to look at these strikes as an evolution in understanding each other and a compromising over differences. The workers returned on March 30, 1913, without winning a single demand. The companies did learn from the strikes and within a few years implemented the eight-hour day, higher wages in line with Henry Ford’s five-dollars-a-day wage, and better conditions. Still, many problems would remain, surfacing in the 1930s. The 1913 strike did invoke Senate hearings, at which Harvey Firestone testified for two days. Seiberling testified for only a day. The strike also forced the rubber companies to move to the paternalistic approaches of industrialists like Carnegie, Westinghouse, and Heinz. Frank Seiberling of Goodyear spearheaded the corporate move to paternalism. In 1912, Goodyear started the building of a worker neighborhood that came to be called Goodyear Heights

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Charles Seiberling (left) Paul Litchfield (center) and F.A. Seiberling, 1921.

at the bequest of Seiberling. The board and P.W. Litchfield both opposed the project at the time. Both Frank and his wife borrowed against their stock to finance the project. The average cost per home to the worker was $3,500 with no down payment and a company backed mortgage. Seiberling sold the houses at cost. Should the worker be laid off, the company would help the worker with the mortgage. Firestone would build its own employee neighborhood of Firestone Park in 1915. The homes were Tudor style to mimic the mansions of Akron, and to many workers, they were mansions. Firestone built an employee clubhouse and added free life insurance for employees. He added sidewalks, sewers, water, gas, and paved the streets. For the factory, Firestone set up a club house at a cost of $350,000. The club house had a swimming pool, bowling alleys, library, gymnasium, and lunchroom. Medical and dental services were provided there as well. A barber shop was also added. A savings bank was set up for employees. In 1916, Firestone led the way by instituting the eight-hour day. Goodyear Hall, completed for employees in 1920, was six stories high. At Goodyear, Frank Seiberling and Paul Litchfield respected service, and some of the nation’s best pension plans were established in 1916. Litchfield started an employee service pin

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organization in 1915, giving a year of his salary ($100,000) to the organization’s operating fund. Both Goodyear and Firestone in 1914 instituted a liberal paid vacation plan. Employees with five years’ service got one week paid vacation and men with ten years got two weeks paid vacation. The Firestone employee housing plan was the best in the nation with one exception — it was limited to white employees, as was Goodyear’s. This was part of an unusual culture developing in Akron from southern immigration. Several thousand immigrants were black in 1919, but with the southern whites came the Ku Klux Klan. Akron’s growth took on the nature of highly segregated neighborhoods. The rubber barons continued to hire blacks but left their integration into the city to political racists who dominated the city government. The Ku Klux Klan would control local politics until the mid– 1920s. The Ku Klux Klan also influenced the workplace of the rubber companies, forcing segregation of the lunch rooms. Blacks were banned from the skilled labor positions. Most of these Jim Crow conditions were the result of the workers rather than the rubber barons. Harvey Firestone and Henry Ford had both been promoters of hiring blacks, but in white Akron, they were unwelcomed in the community. The few blacks who came to Akron lived in the swampy Little Cuyahoga Valley along North Street. Racism ran deep in Akron, which would not have its first black tire builder until 1955. Catholics didn’t fare much better until the establishment of General Tire by Irishman Bill O’Neil. Firestone also pioneered employee stock plans in the rubber industry. The foreman’s ability to fire an employee was restricted by the use of a personnel department review. Shift rotation was eliminated and preference for day shift was given to senior workers. The rubber companies implemented the eight-hour work day in 1915 after Harvey Firestone’s lead. Firestone and Goodyear added employee lunchrooms and factory hospitals for employees. Both Goodyear and Firestone built parks and extended mass transit. Akron represented the best of America’s company towns. F.A. Seiberling and Harvey Firestone supported hospitals and churches throughout the city. They both served on the city planning commission, and Firestone was on the Ohio Council of Churches. Frank Seiberling was a major supporter and served on the board of trustees for Buchtel College. In 1915, Seiberling built a library for the college. Frank’s brother Charlie gave to the smaller but important community efforts such as the Boy Scouts, Community Chest, and boys camps. Paul Litchfield of Goodyear, a Boy Scout supporter, built two Boy Scout camps for employee sons. Litchfield became part of the national council for the Boy Scouts. Middle and lower management were considered family by both Harvey Firestone and F.A. Seiberling at Goodyear. Foremen were taken to their man-

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sions for picnics. Firestone had a major picnic each year at the family farm in Columbiana and had Henry Ford or a presidential candidate attend these. By 1940, the Goodyear annual picnic entertained over 50,000 employees and family members at Euclid Beach on Lake Erie. In general, employees of the tire companies were satisfied, but automation created worry and tension about the future. Ironically, the owners didn’t understand that automation favored unionization. Craftsmen had traditionally resisted the earlier union movement in the United States. It was one thing that the rubber barons never fully understood. They thought it was about money when it was about pride. They scratched their heads as tire builders turned down higher wages by increased production rates. They realized too late that the crafts model was their best defense against unionization. B.F. Goodrich preferred a variation of paternal capitalism known as welfare capitalism to limit unionization. The New York board of Goodrich turned down the idea of employee housing in Akron to match Firestone and Goodyear. Goodrich hired doctors and nurses to offer employee health care. The company even pioneered the use of free legal advice for employees. In the end, Goodrich’s approach didn’t look much different from the other rubber companies. Like the others, Goodrich improved wages, developed employee programs, and made the foreman more responsive to the workers. B.F. Goodrich had bigger problems with the implementation of scientific management as well. Goodrich’s move to New York headquarters did make the company seem less involved in the community. Goodrich’s managers wanted to become executives in New York versus staying in Akron. Goodyear and Firestone had the local presence of the baron families. Harvey Firestone went a step further than the other barons in bringing in Christian principles. It was a risk, since any mistake would allow his critics a new line of attack; still Firestone held that Christian principles were necessary in business. Firestone noted, “Industry must give more thought to religion if America’s prosperity is to continue. No man can operate a successful business in America today without applying Christianity at every step. If I am accounted successful, I attribute much of the credit to the practice of those ideals. To a certain degree, the company has an influence over a worker’s thoughts and actions. Hence the atmosphere in which he works must be one of honesty and inspiration. It has been my experience that every department of the business rises or sinks to the level of the man at the head. Therefore, it devolves upon the company to pick men of good character as its executives.”11 Similarly, Frank Seiberling believed Christian principles to be a good basis for management. The tire companies were endlessly automating their factories. The new machines at Firestone not only resulted in strikes but also caused lawsuits to be filed by F.A. Seiberling of Goodyear as well. The machines in this case

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were for steel rims. Goodyear had developed rim machines and was licensing them to other companies such as U.S. Rubber and Goodrich at a rate of 25 cents a tire. This license arrangement was called the United Rim Company. Frank Seiberling of Goodyear filed suit against Firestone. It was basically another monopoly from Firestone’s point of view and had been encouraged by Henry Ford and Thomas Edison in his lawsuit. The lawsuit would be dragged out for years with appeals. Still, the two barons would continue to socialize and work together on community projects. The families socialized and helped build a hospital in Akron. They personally lobbied the governor to improve roads and establish road signs. Lawsuits seemed almost inspirational to Harvey Firestone. Firestone continued to produce his tire system with steel rims. Taking Henry Ford’s lead, he vertically integrated into steel rim production. He asked his friend and steel magnate Charles Schwab to get him a steel man to manage a new rim factory. Firestone perfected the detachable rim and went on to become the largest rim manufacturer by 1910. He busted the rim monopoly of Goodyear and Goodrich in the marketplace. By the end of the decade Firestone was selling rims to his competitors. This rim making division would be a highly profitable segment of Firestone Rubber for decades. Eventually Firestone won the court battle in 1917 as well. This decade was the beginning of the golden years for Akron rubber companies. However, B.F. Goodrich would lose its dominance of the tire market by the end of the decade. The company had started to diversify as a corporate strategy. B.F. Goodrich hoped to challenge U.S. Rubber as the nation’s largest. The strategy, however, would eventually cost them leadership in tires. Footwear, mattes, and golf balls gave way to research time for tires. Furthermore, B.F. Goodrich retailing branch strategy in major cities was more focused on the aftermarket than original equipment. Meanwhile Goodyear, Diamond, and Firestone were putting their resources into tire making. Diamond Rubber was leading in tire chemistry and lower production and rubber reclaiming costs. Firestone and Goodyear were focused on tire design. In addition, Harvey Firestone was convinced by his friend Henry Ford that tire building had to be automated, and Firestone invested in improved tire-making equipment. Still in 1912, tire building was a hand process capable of nine tires per hour per tire builder. The quality of the tire was in the hands of the builder. Racing would be one way to prove one’s quality. Firestone entered into racing after seeing the success of his friend Henry Ford in using racing as advertising. In 1909, Firestone set up America’s most famous racer, Barney Oldfield, to do a speed test with Firestone tires. After the test Oldfield made his famous statement —“My only life insurance is Firestone tires.” Using Firestone tires, Oldfield won the Indianapolis 300 that

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year and the first Indianapolis 500 in 1911. For a few years Firestone and Goodyear tires battled for honors. Goodyear won its first 500 in 1919 and then decided to drop out. Firestone tires would continue to win, and Firestone tires would win 47 straight races from 1920 to 1966. Firestone’s racing successes were a boon to sales. Harvey Firestone had a private box at the track, and he often put together car caravans from Akron to Indianapolis. Firestone poured money and advertising dollars into the famed race. Firestone’s sales managers filled the stands with customers and friends. Indy also became the testing ground for tires. As long as Harvey Firestone was alive, this was his race and weekend. The advertising value was huge as Firestone grew strongly in the replacement market. Posthumously in 1974, Harvey Firestone entered the Racing Hall of Fame as one of its pioneers. B.F. Goodrich was losing in tire sales to Firestone and Goodyear but was a fully diversified company. B.F. Goodrich, while wanting to maintain diversification, realized it was too far behind in tire technology to stay in the business in the long run. Goodrich made the decision to buy Diamond Rubber as a meaning catching up in technology. Actually, Diamond was considered the best in the world in rubber chemistry, and the purchase would pay dividends for Goodrich’s management for decades. Goodrich had already established some partnerships with Diamond, but it was Diamond’s research center that was the jewel. Goodrich made the decision to take over Diamond Rubber in 1912. The Diamond executives with large stock holding were set up to make a fortune. Another lesser known motivation was that Diamond had a processing problem and it was facing a major recall of tires. The Diamond executives moved quickly to close the deal. Diamond was in debt, and New York bankers wanted to bring Goodrich, Diamond, and Firestone into a single rubber tire trust, but Firestone refused. Diamond middle management felt they were sold out, and Goodrich moved quickly to eliminate the Diamond name and culture. Old Diamond managers would eventually be forced and pushed out. In addition, factory overlap was rationalized and rightsized. It would be Akron’s first taste of globalization’s effect on the community. Another part of Goodrich buying out Diamond was the start of a new technology battle. Diamond had the European rights of India Rubber to a new design known as the cord tire from Palmer Tyre in England. In the United States, U.S. Rubber had been experimenting with cord tires since 1906. Most tires in 1910 were rubber and square woven fabric. The cord tire had a fabric with the strands in one direction with a few light cross threads. The cord tire cost about double, but it tripled tire life; early statistics showed tire life improved from 2,500 miles to 7,500 miles. The cord fabric cut the sawing action and lowered friction, which in turn increased tire life. Cord tires were popular with the automakers by 1912. Diamond Rubber introduced its famous cord tire, called Silvertown after the English town where it was invented.12

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While Diamond and Goodrich pioneered cord tires in America, it was the Goodyear design that captured the market. Goodyear would also strategically integrate into cotton production to assure cord leadership. Goodyear improved on the cord design with thinner cords over the Diamond design. Of course a patent fight was launched, but the Goodyear cord tire was proving out in the field. It was an industrywide battle; B.F. Goodrich had actually been the pioneer of cord tires for bicycles. India Rubber of England had clearly modified the principle of the bicycle cord tire to car tires. United States Rubber was also making progress on cord tires. By 1916, the Goodyear cord had propelled it into tire sales leadership. The need for high quality cord forced many companies to vertical integration. Goodyear and U.S. Rubber purchased fabric mills, and Goodyear started farming cotton in the South and Arizona. Goodyear’s success in tires made it sensitive to high quality cotton prices. Goodyear needed a stable supply of high quality cotton to maintain leadership in cord tires. High quality cotton presented a major problem to tire manufacturers after World War I. There were only two sources of long staple cotton supply for tires in 1916 — Egypt and the Sea Islands off Georgia. The price rise and shortage of long staple cotton was of great concern to tire makers. George Washington Carver had pushing for southern farmers to switch to the more profitable long staple, but the boll weevil had devastated most of the South in 1916. The European war was cutting off full supply of Egyptian cotton as well. Experimental agricultural stations throughout the country were working on developing long staple cotton production. Arizona’s Salt River Valley near Phoenix offered the ideal (Nile-like) location to grow long staple cotton. Teddy Roosevelt in 1912 had built a major dam to reclaim this once waste area. Frank Seiberling and Paul Litchfield of Goodyear came to the area to offer incentives for farmers to plant cotton. Farmers were not interested, forcing Goodyear to buy land, develop further irrigation, and bring in labor for a 33,000 acre farm of their own. For construction jobs and farming, the government allowed Goodyear to bring in Mexican labor if they were sent back after the project was complete. The cost was huge, but in 1920 when cotton was selling for $1.00 a pound, Goodyear was growing it for 60 cents a pound. The cotton ranch kept Goodyear successful in the cord tire market, and Firestone and Fisk began paying Arizona farmers to grow cotton. Cord tires increased the life to 10,000 miles versus the 4,000 mile maximum for the square-woven tire. The average fabric tire lasted only 10 months, but the cord lasted 15 months. U.S. Rubber captured the early market for cords with its U.S. Royal Cord Tire (U.S. Rubber) by advertising a service range of 22,000 to 41,000 miles! However, after falling behind at the beginning of the decade, Firestone improved their cords by the end of the decade with

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Tire building at Firestone Tire and Rubber, 1918.

gum-dipping that reduced heat build-up and ply separation. Gum-dipping achieved this by fully impregnating the cords by running them through a vat of rubber prior to tire building. Gum-dipping was believed to add another 5,000 miles to service life. Other Akron companies came up with their variations of gum-dipping. This was typical of the Akron rubber companies; one

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company would invent something, and the other companies would improve on it. A lot of this was due to the informal sharing of information at the parks, bars, and country clubs of Akron. Still, U.S. Rubber was the leader in cord tires and by 1923 had developed their own gum-dipping process. Their U.S. Royal Cord was testing out at over 22,000 miles. B.F. Goodrich continued to challenge New England’s U.S. Rubber for total rubber industry leadership. Goodrich’s move into U.S. Rubber’s footwear market was countered by U.S. Rubber’s move into Goodrich’s golf ball market. Golf balls were the fastest growing market in the 1910s with huge profit margins. United States Rubber moved into golf balls in 1915 at its Cleveland plant. Golf balls, however, took manufacturing precision and time. It took 28 days to manufacture a golf ball in the 1920s. Still, the real growth was in tires. The real technological battle of the big four (Goodrich, U.S. Rubber, Goodyear, and Firestone) in the 1910s and 1920s was over truck tires. While the automotive industry had moved to pneumatic tires, truck tires were still solid rubber. In 1914, all truck tires were solid rubber with Goodyear having the largest share of the market. Firestone had a strong share of the truck market with its quick-detachable and demountable rims. The battle for the development would take 14 years when pneumatic tires over took solid tires on trucks. Goodyear invested heavily in the development of pneumatic truck tires, even though Goodyear controlled the solid truck tire market. Goodyear, however, would come to own the truck market as Firestone took the auto market. Their own trucking firm had proved out the use of pneumatic tires. Goodyear’s pneumatic truck tire would take over the market by the mid–1920s. The battle for pneumatic truck tires was between Goodyear and U.S. Rubber. Firestone stayed close with its giant pneumatic truck tires. The decade of the 1910s also saw the emergence of the rubber barons. It was a matter of pride that Akron had its own set of industrial barons. F.A. Seiberling of Goodyear and Harvey Firestone became the region’s royalty. It also was an era of unusual cooperation, at least informally, between companies. The executives and managers shared the same country clubs, restaurants, and recreation. The closeness between companies in the Rubber City was much stronger than in other cities. Amazingly, Goodyear and Firestone executives had close relationships, often sharing ideas over drinks. P.W. Litchfield even encouraged this type of informal exchanges. Paul Litchfield was to rubber what Charles Schwab was to the steel industry. Litchfield was a hard driving manager hired by F.A. Seiberling, who built Goodyear. Litchfield was the working baron who had a close relationship with the workers of Akron. Paul Litchfield would also make major contributions to management and American mass production. As a youth, Litchfield had been forced to work every job in the rubber factory, and it was an experience he believed all

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should have. As a reaction to the 1913 strike, Goodyear developed a plan to bring together antiunion company loyalists. In 1913 Litchfield promoted an employee team known as the Flying Squadron. These men were utility men trained to do any job in the plant. They were volunteers and, of course, very motivated individuals, hoping to rise quickly in the company. Litchfield envisioned a new approach to mass production and corporate organization. It proved a very effective management training system. They became the core of Goodyear’s international expansion and were able to train employees in foreign plants. In its initial founding, it helped break the monotony of mass production for more ambitious employees. These teams proved effective in increasing productivity. In this respect, Litchfield was ahead of his time auguring today’s job rotation plans in assembly plants. These teams also would foretell of today’s problems with employee teams and organization. Foremen often resented these teams when they came into the department to help improve teams. They had their own type of reporting structure within the organization, such as Six Sigma and employee teams today. Such a motivated group would easily overplay its role. In the 1910s and 1920s, other employees had problems with the Flying Squadron pushing production goals and standards. In the union organizing years in the 1930s and 1940s, the squadron created serious tensions on the factory floor, which sometimes led to violence. Litchfield would talk proudly his whole career about the squadron: “The squadron strengthened our whole production system, gave us an unusual flexibility…. If any department got in trouble, day or night, it could always turn to the Squadron and get help, no matter how hard the job…. The Squadron men have started production in every one of our outside plants.”13 Litchfield’s Flying Squadron proved a major advance in management over Henry Ford’s mass production system and Goodyear’s competitor Harvey Firestone. Goodyear Tire & Rubber became known for its emphasis on time with its massive, iconic clock towers at their factories. When Goodyear built its Gadsden, Alabama, plant in 1929, the 12-story electric Seth Thomas clock was started to much fanfare by a switch on the desk of President Herbert Hoover. Gadsden was built to produce 5,000 tires a day. It was the first major shift of rubber production to the South. Gadsden became a model of low cost production and efficiency. Productivity and efficiency were the cornerstones of tire production and price reduction. Time is central to productivity. Tire manufacturing productivity had early on made the automobile affordable for all Americans. With America’s early cars, a set of tires could cost $300 to $500. This was the major roadblock to Henry Ford’s dream of a car priced for the average American. As much as Ford’s assembly line, it was the production methods of the tire companies that made cars affordable for all Americans.

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The 1910s were also the decade in which Harvey Firestone won national prominence with his sponsorship of the Indianapolis 500 and his road trips with Henry Ford and other famous personalities. In 1914, Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Harvey Firestone, and John Burroughs vacationed together in Florida at Edison’s Fort Myers home. Edison had already become Ford’s best friend. Eventually, Ford and Firestone would build winter homes there. Ford and Edison grew closer over the years, with Ford financing many of Edison’s projects, as Edison’s fortune had been used up. Ford also gave Edison a new Model T every Christmas, and in later years gave Model Ts to all in the Edison family. The four friends spent time exploring and camping in the Everglades that year. The trip would be followed by years of camping trips by the “Four Vagabonds” around the nation. The longer trips included the West Coast, Middle Atlantic states, and New England. They often added famous guests such as Presidents Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, and Warren Harding or stopped to visit prominent men such as Luther Burbank in California. On an East Coast camping trip Firestone’s popular Indy driver Barney Oldfield joined them to the delight of the press. Firestone was a poor camper and often

Firestone Farm, 1950.

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might go to a hotel for a shower or nap. At a 1921 campsite around Hagerstown, Maryland, President Harding joined them for a dinner of lamb chops, ham, corn, potatoes, and biscuits. John Burroughs called Ford’s food wagon the “Waldorf-Astoria on wheels.” The 1921 trip included a Firestone truck refrigerated with 100 dressed chickens. After dinner, President Harding went to Ford’s tent for a nap. For this trip, Firestone had a truck with six riding horses for the group. When President Harding died of a heart attack in 1923, Firestone, Edison, and Ford took a camping trip to the funeral in Marion, Ohio. The group then went to Edison’s birth home at Milan, Ohio, and on to Ford’s Dearborn, Michigan, estate before traveling to Northern Michigan. Firestone also used this trip to test his new balloon tires. This was the same year Firestone built his Florida home, Harbel Villa, in the community with Ford and Edison. The Vagabonds made a trip to New England in 1924 to visit President Coolidge. This trip included a stop at a regional picnic of farmers and a tour of a cheese factory by President Coolidge. A future president, Colonel Dwight David Eisenhower, joined them at the campfire in 1919 to discuss a national road system for the military and the needs of tire and auto manufacturers. The Vagabonds understood well the poor condition of American roads, but they were divided on how to fund them. The private sector had failed to supply the needed funding. Fisher Body Corporation had in 1913 tried to publicly finance a transcontinental highway by forming the Lincoln Highway Association. The association raised $4 million with U.S. Rubber giving $130,000 and Goodyear giving $75,000. Frank Seiberling gave $25,000 of his own to the project. Frank Seiberling was elected the first president of the association and was responsible for naming the highway after his personal hero — Abraham Lincoln. While Harvey Firestone and Thomas Edison contributed, Henry Ford refused, believing roads should be built by the government for the good of the people. The association soon found that it would need local, state, and federal government to help fund such a huge project. U.S. Rubber and the State of Indiana were able to build a small section of the Lincoln Highway in 1916. In 1920 when Eisenhower made his famous cross country study of American roads, he stopped off at the Firestone farm in Columbiana for a chicken dinner. This great transcontinental trip of Eisenhower and his visits with Firestone and Ford would ultimately lead to the Interstate Highway System decades later. Firestone, in particular, had been the first major supporter of good roads in the state of Ohio. Firestone was also spearheading the national political movement of the Rubber Club for good roads. In 1919, only 12 percent of the 2,300,000 miles of roads was paved.14 Firestone and the Vagabonds helped the Lincoln Highway Association pave the Lincoln Highway in four states. Besides Firestone’s camping trips, he often sent caravans of trucks across

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country to stress the importance of paved roads and sell his pneumatic truck tires. Eisenhower’s transcontinental truck convoy featured truck tires from over twenty tire makers. Firestone and Goodyear pneumatic tires outperformed solid tires, changing truck tire buying habits. Harvey Firestone had emerged as the tire industry’s spokesman and a favorite of the national press. Firestone for years also sponsored a national essay contest on the need for good roads. The winning student got a four-year, all expenses scholarship for colleges such as the Universities of Wisconsin and Michigan and Princeton University. Firestone took advantage of the contest to have President Harding present it to the student at the White House with an army of reporters. Reporters followed Harvey Firestone and friends through the woods and mountains. Press photographs included fireside chats and chopping wood. Harvey Firestone became a close friend to Ford, and Ford often came to Akron to stay at the Firestone mansion. The families of the Vagabonds would remain life-long friends with Bill Ford, the grandson of Henry, marrying Martha Firestone, the granddaughter of Harvey, in 1947. Edison also came to Akron

1923 road trip — seated: Henry Ford (far left), Thomas Edison (next), President Harding (center), and Harvey Firestone (far right).

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often since it was the home of his wife’s family. Their camping trips, however, made headlines, with reporters following with their own campsites. The trips were hardly rustic excursions into the wild. These caravans often had up to fifteen cars with reporters following. Interestingly, not all were Fords. Edison often had a Cadillac, and Firestone a Pierce-Arrow. Ford supplied Model Ts to carry supplies and for the reporters. The lead cars had the Four Vagabonds and their chauffeurs. Harvey Firestone assured that there were plenty of spare tires for all the models. Firestone used the trips to test new types of tires as well. In later years, the trips included the wives and family members. One Model T was equipped with a mobile kitchen and a refrigerator to store fresh steaks, eggs, and fruit. John Burroughs, in particular, loved a good steak. Ford often brought along a Japanese cook to prepare meals. Firestone also enjoyed doing some of the cooking, such as grilling chicken and steaks. The dining table could seat 20. Edison, on the other hand, tended to be a light eater, and like Ford went through different dietary phases. An Edison power generator was included to provide electric lighting. There were large monogrammed tents for each of the Vagabonds. They did take back roads, as Edison and Ford loved to explore streams, rivers, and the associated water mills. These trips offered time to dream and find inspiration for new projects. These trips helped make the family automobile vacation part of the American psyche. The campfires were filled with conversations on mass production and new approaches to the workforce. It would be no accident that Firestone often followed Ford Motor in the implementation of the eight-hour day and improved wages. Both Firestone and Ford ranked personnel management as more than finance. They shared ideas on the development of industrial personnel departments. Both Firestone and Ford’s major headaches of the new mass production system was high turnover. Just as important was that these trips gave Firestone and Ford first hand feedback on their products in the field. They spent a lot of time changing and repairing tires on these trips. The range of industrial inquiry for the Vagabonds remains striking, and their insight would be valuable today. These industrial vagabonds represented the founders of the nation’s three great industries of auto, rubber, and electricity. Another common campfire topic of the Vagabonds was energy. Their discussions could still be pertinent today. Both Ford and Firestone believed the ideal auto fuel mix to be 40 percent ethanol and 60 percent gasoline. The Vagabonds stopped at every major stream and river to calculate the potential energy from a water turbine. One of the friends of the Vagabonds reported the following discussion: “We are like tenant farmers, chopping down the fence around our house for fuel, when we should be using nature’s inexhaustible sources of energy — sun, wind, and tide. Firestone responded that oil and coal and wood couldn’t last forever. He wondered how much hard

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research was going into harnessing the wind, for example. Windmills hadn’t changed much in a thousand years.”15 There were many other trips such as Ford and Edison’s trip to the 1915 Panama Pacific Exposition in San Francisco. The men and their wives took Ford’s private railroad car to California and then motored to the coast to the exposition on Edison Day at the fair. Harvey Firestone would meet them at the exposition. The three families would take part in the all electric kitchen dinner at the exposition. All three families spent ten days at the Inside Inn of San Francisco followed by a trip to Santa Rosa to visit the famous botanist Luther Burbank. This was the trip that would turn Edison’s interest to that of botanic research in rubber. On this trip the Vagabonds discussed the huge rewards for alternative sources of rubber. Harvey Firestone helped push the building of a rubber laboratory at their summer residence in Florida. Rubber was one of the nation’s biggest and fastest growing businesses. It was also one of America’s strategic materials, and we were dependent on foreign sources. By 1917 Firestone was one of the nation’s fastest growing businesses; however, Goodrich was Akron’s largest rubber company. Ford was inspired by his traveling vagabond friend, Harvey Firestone, and launched a program to find an alternative plant for rubber production. It was in 1916 that Edison brought George Washington Carver to Menlo Park to discuss making rubber from sweet potatoes. Edison would inspire Carver to look at goldenrod as a potential source of rubber latex. Firestone had to double the price of his tires after World War I because of the British monopoly on crude rubber. Ford enlisted Thomas Edison’s help and put his Rouge lab on the project as well in 1923. Edison, Ford, and Firestone set up additional labs in Fort Myers near their summer homes and plantation. Ford and Firestone set up a research company for Edison and purchased about 30,000 acres in Florida for rubber farming, creating a land speculation boom in Florida. In addition, Ford built a lab at Ways Station, Georgia, in 1924. The work progressed slowly to find alternative rubber sources. Edison, and later George Washington Carver, did produce small amounts of rubber from dandelions, goldenrod, and sweet potatoes. Edison even started to work with Intercontinental Rubber Company on the possibility of using Mexican guayule rubber. He purchased some rubber from Intercontinental to experiment with in 1927 at his Fort Myers lab. Edison had Firestone produce tires and tubes for his Ford Model A truck to test. The test proved a disaster with the tires going to pieces in just over 4,000 miles and the tubes failing in under 500 miles. Edison believed the low quality was due to bark and impurities in the rubber. The B.F. Goodrich Company followed up on Edison’s experiments with the same results. Amazingly, guayule rubber work would again resurface during World War II in the 1940s. Another factor of the 1910s was the drop in price of plantation rubber to well

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1921 road trip: Harvey Firestone (third from left) and Henry Ford (right).

under a one dollar per pound. Guayule was reduced to an emergency reserve at best. During the late twenties and until Edison’s death, Firestone, Edison, and Ford would meet in Florida to celebrate Edison’s birthday on February 11. The guest list would grow over the years to include presidents and other pioneers such as Charles Lindbergh. The 1929 birthday party included a visit from President Herbert Hoover. The parties were held at Edison’s rubber laboratories in Fort Myers. It was at the 1929 party that Edison made public his success in making rubber from goldenrod. Edison assured his friends that as much as 12 percent of their rubber needs could be obtained from goldenrod. In addition, the goldenrod waste could be made into a fuel equivalent to coal. Edison had looked at over 1,700 different plants at his Fort Myers lab. The cost of $2.00 a pound was far above Asian imported rubber at 30 cents a pound. The three friends had become investors in the Edison Botanic Research Corporation. Firestone was a bit less enthusiastic than Ford, who was building a pilot goldenrod rubber plant at his Georgia plantation. During the boom decade for rubber of the 1910s, no serious amount of alternative rubber came on the market. The Diamond, now B.F. Goodrich, reclaiming system did become an important source of rubber. As the war

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approached, B.F. Goodrich sold quarter shares in its Philadelphia Rubber Company in Akron, allowing Goodyear and Firestone to gain reclaimed rubber resources. U.S. Rubber also had major reclaiming companies in Mishawaka, Indiana, and at Naugatuck, Connecticut. The decade also saw the influx of major sources of raw rubber from British Asian plantations. Goodyear and U.S. Rubber also invested in Asian rubber plantations. The entrance of the United into World War I would bring further changes to the rubber industry.

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The War and Auto Sales Change the Industry By 1917, B.F. Goodrich’s diversified Akron factory was the world’s largest rubber factory. The company employed 20,000 of Akron’s 150,000. The plant had 59 buildings taking up over 63 acres. B.F. Goodrich estimated that, based on a family of four, the single factory supported over 50 percent of Akron’s population. It stood as the number two rubber company in the nation and world. One day’s production represented 60 miles of insulated wire, 15 miles of rubber hose, 60,000 pairs of rubber heels, 15,000 pairs of shoes, 4,000 water bottles, 18,000 battery jars, 11,000 golf balls, a ton of rubber bands, 7,000 bulbs, and 20,000 automobile tires. As big as Goodrich was, Goodyear was rapidly approaching it in tire production and total rubber production. In total rubber production, the great corporation of U.S. Rubber in New York remained number one. The biggest challenge of the decade would be World War I. The advancing war in Europe affected the raw materials of rubber making by 1914. The war would set many changes in motion. Fear of a cutoff of rubber supplies started Harvey Firestone, with his friends Henry Ford and Thomas Edison, in search of American crude rubber sources. In 1917 about half the world’s rubber was being shipped to Akron. Firestone also started growing cotton in Arizona as the supply of Egyptian long staple cotton was cut off. In 1916 Goodyear became the first to establish a rubber plantation on the island of Dutch Sumatra with a million rubber trees. As early as 1914, the rubber companies faced shortages of the chemical aniline needed to accelerate vulcanization in rubber tires. The Germans controlled the aniline chemical market. Goodrich and Goodyear rubber companies led the way to manufacture aniline and find substitutes for. All the rubber companies found profits in war materiel production. Like the Civil War, World War I expanded both the amount and types of rubber products. Goodrich, in particular, found a boom in raincoats, boots, surgical tubing, hose, and hard rubber casings. All of the big four supplied tires, with 116

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Goodyear leading on solid tires for military trucks. Goodyear supplied most of the tires for aircraft and Firestone for lighter vehicles. A new product of rubberized fabric for dirigibles emerged. Goodrich and Goodyear both entered this new field, but only Goodyear fully invested for future production. Firestone produced large balloons for the war as well. The war also created a rubber boom and a rush of wealth into Akron. The only other city in the world that showed such economic growth for the period was the Asian rubber port of Singapore. United States rubber consumption went from 60,000 tons in 1914 to 240,000 tons in 1919. The eastern ports struggled to get raw rubber, but rubber shipments from Asia to our western ports boomed. Asian planation rubber was selling at 50 cents a pound while jungle Brazilian rubber was 90 cents a pound. The problem was the United States could get only 50 percent of the planation rubber since the British controlled Asian production. The American rubber industry needed a plan for future growth. At the start of World War I, 66 percent of the world’s rubber was being shipped to America. An amazing 33 percent of the world’s rubber was going to Akron. Harvey Firestone, as head of the American Rubber Association (Rubber Club), led the effort to secure America’s rubber supply. Other than some small Goodyear plantations, America lacked a significant presence in Asia. America had some potential in the control of the Philippines gained from the Spanish-American War of 1898. The United States had restricted growers in the American controlled Philippines, but the restrictions were lifted as America entered the war. The then-governor of the Philippines and ex-president of the United States, William Taft, had a friendship with Harvey Firestone, and he got things moving. Of course, Taft was from Ohio with ties to the overall rubber industry and was considered a rubber man. For Taft, it was personal, being an automotive enthusiast with many cars. Taft had been the first president to use a car, and he wanted to see America’s car production boom. The land laws, however, restricted the rubber companies until war was all but certain. Still, the rubber companies were at the crossroads in 1915. England was imposing embargos and trade restrictions on rubber and cotton. Rubber was one of the few strategic materials that was completely dependent on foreign sources. The problem was that as the war progressed in Europe from 1914, America remained neutral. American rubber companies and others were shipping to Germany. The American rubber companies were also dependent on Germany for vulcanization chemicals. Firestone took to the press to make his case for independent American supplies of rubber. Both Goodyear and Firestone opted to improve their small but growing operations in Asia. Still, the decade of war created a panic about the country’s total dependence on outside sources for rubber; Harvey Firestone, as president of the Rubber Club of America, was promoting a search for domestic sources.

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Firestone and Edison’s alternative rubber plant research in Florida even created a speculative land boom in Florida. Edison had found some success with plants like milkweed, guayule, and goldenrod, but other than some Mexican guayule, nothing came out of it from actual production. Paul Litchfield of Goodyear also had an interest in developing guayule rubber. Firestone did make a set of tires out of guayule rubber for Edison to test, but Edison reported cracking problems. Edison made good rubber from goldenrod, but the cost was $2.00 per pound (2 to 3 times market price). The country managed to get the rubber and cotton needed during the war, but the rubber industry had to replace German chemical aniline. Goodrich’s purchase of Diamond Rubber had brought in two of the nation’s greatest rubber chemists — Arthur Marks and George Oenslager. They would take a leading role in bringing aniline production to the United States. Similarly, the United States Rubber chemists at Naugatuck unlocked the secrets of making aniline from tar coal. United States Rubber and B.F. Goodrich moved into the production of aniline by 1915 within weeks of running out of aniline and shutting down American auto production for lack of tires. The major needs for the war were truck pneumatic tires as the allies needed more horsepower than horses could supply to move war materiel. The War Department also set the rubber companies into making the gas masks so badly needed in the chemical warfare of World War I. The problem became a lack of manpower as men joined the army. Women had to be utilized in the production and they became known as bloomer girls. Goodyear and Firestone expanded their use of handicapped and deaf employees. As the war progressed, the high wages in Akron attracted thousands to the city. However, housing became a problem. Landlords started to rent by the bed, with men rotating in three shifts at a cost of $3.00 a week per man. Food problems came next. Firestone Tire & Rubber plowed many acres and even paid the workers to plant food at 94 cents an hour.1 The war pushed the population of Akron from around 90,000 to over 200,000. While both Goodyear and Firestone expanded their own housing, the housing needs were too big for individual companies. Goodyear, Firestone, and Goodrich joined together to form the Akron Home Owners Investment Company. War production created boomtowns around the U.S. Rubber plants in Naugatuck, Connecticut; Providence, Rhode Island; and Mishawaka, Indiana. The war made profits for the rubber companies, but they also invested in capacity. Harvey Firestone, Bill O’Neil of General Tire and Paul Litchfield of Goodyear were shown to be national patriots. O’Neil and Litchfield would go on to become the nation’s spokesmen for American capitalism and our form of government. They would oppose any movement towards socialism during the 1930s. The war brought other changes to the industry as well. One would be

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the seed of unionization. The rubber industry did not have a troubled labor history prior to World War I, as did the steel industry, but the government war boards were determined to bring employee representation to heavy American industry under President Woodrow Wilson. President Wilson’s progressive view led him to create a special agency for handling labor disputes in the war industries in 1918 if union or employee representation was lacking. Wilson’s agency was known as the National War Labor Board (NWLB). The board had limited authority, requiring the president to force compliance. The worry was more in their mission as stated. Priority one was to prevent production disruption caused by strikes and lockouts. However, the NWLB stated their principles as: the right of labor to organize, no action against organizing efforts by the companies, the right of union shops to exist, and the right of the worker to a living wage. The Wilson administration often used these broad principles to award contracts to unionized companies. Even more disturbing was the government’s propensity to support union activity and collective bargaining where it did not exist. The NWLB often strong-armed factories whenever possible. Collective bargaining became an unofficial requirement for government orders under the Wilson administration. The American Federation of Labor saw it as an opportunity to expand organizing in the rubber industry. Samuel Gompers, who headed the American Federation of Labor, had been a strong supporter of President Wilson. The NWLB was able to get non-union contractors to form shop representation committees. Contracts started to require some type of collective bargaining. The big four tire companies decided to cooperate with the government by forming their own employee representation programs. These programs were alternatives to an independent union. Bargaining committees were formed and functioned well during the war. These employee representation programs did bring in better wages, working conditions, and employee insurance. Critics would see the agreement as a company union. Goodyear led the way in applying the concept of a republican workplace as an answer to the union movement. Other industries were applying the concept as well in a response to President Wilson’s progressive policies. Millvale Steel and Bethlehem Steel had developed their own version of industrial democracy. Goodyear took the concept further than most under Paul Litchfield. Litchfield characteristically added enthusiasm and creativity to the implementation of the employee assemblies. The Goodyear Industrial Assembly would allow the employees to even have a say in wages. The structure included local councils following department lines and two larger bodies, a Senate and House, modeled after the American Constitution. The plant manager had full veto rights over any plans or decisions. The Industrial Assembly got some pay increases through, but in 1926 a 12 percent increase was vetoed.2 The Industrial Assembly did function as a pressure valve for heated disagree-

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ments, but its value was viewed as mixed by the employees. Paul Litchfield took the concept of a republican workplace as far as possible for a stockholder owned organization. The assembly functioned for 16 years and had strong support from Litchfield and his loyal supervision. Its success was rooted in the strong paternal management of Litchfield and Frank Seiberling. Still, the veto right of management was always a major sticking point for the workers. Goodyear certainly had the most success in American industry with these company unions. The company financially backed the assembly with wages and expenses for its operation. Of course, a valid criticism was it functioned as a company union. The assembly was viewed as enough to meet the employee representation activism requirements of the Wilson administration, although just barely. It was hated and opposed by national labor leaders. In 1936, the Wagner Act would make it illegal since it was a company supported operation. In retrospect, the Industrial Assembly proved not to be a substitute for a labor union, but it did help the healthy evolution of labor-management relations in the United States. It helped end the IWW, which saw unionism as a political and social movement versus a labor relations movement. It further helped differentiate the American labor movement from the socialistic union movement in Europe. It was an important bridge to ultimate unionization. The employee work councils and meetings did help the companies in some other ways as well. Turnover was a major problem in the rubber industry, running as high as 60 percent. It was much higher than the 30 percent of the Ford plants, which was considered the result of mass production techniques. Goodyear reported “33,000 people on the payroll in 1920, but [it] had to hire 60,000 people a year to keep the total up to that figure.”3 That represented a cost of about two million dollars a year for Goodyear. Most of this turnover occurred within the first three months of employment. Clearly the toxic environment was not for everybody. The wartime efforts of these employee systems helped workers at least talk about the problems. The war also forced further expansion of the paternal capitalism of Firestone and Goodyear. Firestone and Goodyear opened their own banks, health clinics, ran bus lines for employees, and started employee stock plans. Harvey Firestone opposed Woodrow Wilson’s push for employee representation more vocally than the other company leaders. Firestone noted, “We have no formal organization. We do not believe in shop committee or in any form of self-government in the shops. But we do believe in being fair, and when a dispute of any kind arises, we take the position that the workman is right and proceed on that basis.”4 While it may sound idealistic of Firestone, he had proven his paternal handling of the workers was fair. Firestone did pay wages above what most industrial workers received with superior benefits. He had an employee stock plan and health benefits. He had furnished homes

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to workers with easy payment plans. B.F. Goodrich had been far behind Goodyear and Firestone in paternalistic practices and chose to move in this direction than form worker councils. U.S. Rubber operated as a decentralized corporation allowing local management of labor relations. Some U.S. Rubber plants did form worker councils in 1919, but they were short lived. U.S. Rubber merely hoped to satisfy the Wilson administration without the long-term commitment shown by Goodyear. Things improved for middle management as well at the Akron rubber companies. Middle managers were offered stock and good housing. F.A. Seiberling at Goodyear built an upscale neighborhood — Fairlawn Heights. Similarly Firestone Heights offered housing for lower to middle management. Fairlawn Heights opened its own country club in 1919 for the upscale neighborhood. Akron, in many ways, was America’s first company city. Still, the war boom continued to strain housing resources in Akron. The three Akron companies also backed city efforts to expand housing. Firestone and the other rubber companies expanded the use of the Ford mass production system. With his close relationship with Ford, Firestone took Ford’s philosophy to more extremes. Firestone tried, where possible, to set up a factory to make one standard size tire where the mass assembly benefits could be maximized. Such standardization was rarely achieved other than Plant Number 2, which made tires for light cars. Like Ford, Harvey Firestone used some of Ford’s key measures of automation. Firestone also measured energy expended, and like Ford, he measured energy use by horsepower per man. It was a measure that Ford, Edison, and Firestone could talk about endlessly. Firestone struggled, however, to achieve the type of automation in a Ford plant. Tire making remained a craft in the age of the rubber barons. Still, for most of the decade, Firestone more than the other rubber companies made progress toward the goal of automated tire making. American rubber companies where the most automated and productive in the world as the war began. Goodyear started its Market Street clock tower plant number 2 in 1915, which it expanded throughout the decade. The clock tower would be a symbol of the company and its dedication to efficiency and time management. This time was the peak of the scientific management movement of Frank and Lillian Gilbreth, which highlighted time and motion studies. It would also become a symbol for paternalism and the Old Guard, which would mark their annual reunion with the ringing of the bell tower chimes. The Old Guard consisted of the employees who joined the company prior to 1900. The clock tower might have been the inspiration of rubber baron Joe Banigan, whose 1889 Woonsocket plant (the world’s largest) had two beautiful stair towers. The new rubber plants of Akron had an amazing similarity to Banigan’s Woonsocket buildings, but the internal layout was far different. Mass production

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determined the layout. The war years, with massive demand, required ever more automation and efficiency. On an international front, the war in Europe, which started in 1914, would permanently change the rubber industry. One interesting one was the loss of horses by battling armies was driving up the prices of horses and increasing car and tire sales. Demand for trucks boomed and with it, the need for tires. Initially, truck tires were solid but the need to travel on rough terrains spurred the development of pneumatic tires for trucks during the war. The problem became the inability of the American rubber companies to get the necessary raw rubber to meet demand. Britain and Germany were at war and both countries controlled the raw

Inner tube making at Goodyear Rubber, 1919.

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rubber and shipping market. Of course, Britain controlled over 90 percent of the raw rubber going to the United States. The United States was neutral during the early phases of the European war. In fact, Germany was a good customer for rubber tires as Dunlop of England and Michelin of France were cut off for the Germans. The United States was caught between the two. Initially, Britain imposed an embargo on all rubber shipments to cut off Germany. The embargo included shipments to United States. The loss of work affected 250,000 American rubber workers. The rubber companies had the embargo lifted by promising no exports to Germany. However, the Rubber Club of America under Harvey Firestone was not holding down secret shipments to Germany. England moved to a naval blockade of Germany. The Allied blockade of Germany had closed down rubber shipments, forcing the creativity of the Germans. German submarines were picking up tires from many sources out of control of the manufacturers. Submarines were leaving Baltimore and Connecticut with rubber, but it never amounted to any significant amounts. The German started a search for synthetic rubber that would be the foundation of its production in the 1940s. The German chemical company Bayer was able to produce a synthetic rubber from coal, limestone, and grain alcohol. The product was not very good, but it would be the basis of a future breakthrough and be critical to Germany in the next war. The demand of the war years also brought smaller new rubber companies to Akron and revitalized older ones. Mohawk Rubber Company started in 1913 as a small tire producer but grew rapidly during the war years. The company investors were Francis Seiberling (attorney and cousin of F.A. Seiberling), S. Miller, J. Williams, C. MacLaughlin, R. Pilmore, and F. Mishler. It started out making 20 tires per day, and after the war reached 1,500 tires a day. The war demand opened opportunities for new rubber barons as well, and Akron would function as an industry incubator. General Tire & Rubber was started in 1915 by William O’Neil, son of Akron’s department store magnate Michael O’Neil. William O’Neil would become an Akron rubber baron. The O’Neils’ first connection to the rubber industry was that a brother-in-law had invested in the failed Swinehart Rubber Company in 1884. The O’Neil family first expressed interest in rubber as many of the rubber companies would come to O’Neil’s department store to get fabric to make their products. Orders for E duck cotton were large and O’Neil grew wealthy after investing in a New England mill to supply local rubber companies and their employees. The O’Neil family became Akron’s first philanthropists through the building of hospitals and churches. He was an Irish Catholic who gave much to local charities as well. With wealth, Michael was able to send his son William to Holy Cross College in Massachusetts.

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As an Irish immigrant from the great potato famine, Michael knew the importance of work to a family. He would set the standard of paternal capitalism in Akron. He set a policy, which he later assured in a written contract when he sold his store to May Company, that no employee could ever be dismissed except for dishonesty. The tradition was famous throughout the area, even though many argued his wages were low. Young William O’Neil would be a lot like his immigrant father. Both were thriftily, temperamental, and religious. It was no accident that William started General Tire on St. Michael’s Day (September 29), St. Michael being the favorite of Irish Catholics and his father’s patron saint. After graduating, William had gone to Kansas City to work for Harvey Firestone. William O’Neil and his partner, Winfred Fouse, formed Western Tire and Rubber. Fouse had owned a Firestone dealership in Kansas City and had formerly worked as an accountant for Diamond Rubber of Akron. O’Neil soon became interested in his own rubber company, although Harvey Firestone hoped he would take on Firestone’s Canadian operations.5 Like the founders of Cooper Tire, O’Neil and Fouse moved into the growing market of tire repair first. The rising price of tires and war shortages created a booming market for tire repair. The two partners brought in other Firestone sales managers to create a unique approach. O’Neil brought a new business model to the industry in focusing on the customer tire replacement market. General Tire focused on retailing and dealerships for the replacement market. O’Neil focused on the higher cost, higher quality end of the market. O’Neil grew his local Kansas City sales center into a regional distributor. He broke his exclusive partnership with Firestone and began looking for more suppliers such as McGraw Tire and Rubber Company of East Palestine, Ohio. With war demand stretching the major manufacturers, it was clear that William would have to go into tire making. William O’Neil used the synergies of Akron’s established rubber industry to build his own company. O’Neil built on the main Akron asset of intelligence and experience in rubber making. He hired Firestone people and brought in his own rubber chemists. He purchased used rubber machinery were possible and attracted local rubber workers with good pay. O’Neil used his family name to get local banks behind his financing. He extended credit to franchise dealerships across the nation. In production, he started with the best methods of Firestone, Goodyear, and Goodrich. O’Neil used the best natural rubber, never mixing in reclaimed rubber, and his tires were known for their longer life. He advertised the lowest price per guaranteed mile. O’Neil introduced a new business model in franchised dealerships, major advertising in consumer magazines, and money for trade-ins. He pioneered advertising tires in the Saturday Night Post, going direct to customers with full page color ads. O’Neil also pioneered the sales approach of tire trade-ins.

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General Tire had very little original equipment business. Its consumer approach proved highly successful for the company, which turned a profit in its first year. During the war years, General boomed in the replacement market as the big tire makers struggled to meet original equipment demands. General Tire would soon become part of Akron’s big four and part of the rubber community. O’Neil’s philanthropy was typical of the Irish as well as the other rubber barons. He gave quietly to churches and charities, but it was well known in the Catholic neighborhoods. St. Vincent’s in Cleveland where his mother’s brother was the pastor was one beneficiary. He continued to support Akron’s famous St. Thomas Hospital which had been started by his father. Bill O’Neil, like P.W. Litchfield at Goodyear, sponsored religious radio programs and anticommunism advertisements. He would often put the good name of General Tire behind these efforts. The old remnants of the canal building Irish in Akron flocked to the General Tire plant. O’Neil used his Irish catholic background to an advantage, recruiting Irish Catholics who had often been discriminated against in the other rubber companies. Often outstanding Catholic rubber workers were unable to make the ranks of the tire builders in the other companies. O’Neil attracted these workers as Joe Banigan had done decades earlier with Catholic workers in New England’s labor market. War demand and a growing auto market brought another famous company into the tire business. Two lesser known Akron barons were brothersin-law, John Schaefer and Claude Hart, who founded Cooper Tire. Schaefer and Hart entered the tire boom in 1914 through the repair market. Pneumatic tires and inner tubes were costly and prone to puncture, creating a side market for repair kits, patches, and rebuilding. They started making repairs and then in 1915 purchased a tire rebuilding company. The Akron Company was Giant Tire & Rubber, which was benefiting from the tire boom and required a new factory. While Giant Tire had less than 100 employees, there was a labor shortage in Akron as the tire companies expanded. Hart and Schaefer moved the fledging Giant Tire & Rubber to Findlay, Ohio. Findlay had a labor excess as the area glass industry had collapsed due to a lack of natural gas. Giant Tire also took over the failed rubber company of Toledo Findlay Tire Company. It was in Findlay in 1917 that Ira J. Cooper joined the board of directors. Ira Cooper had been in the auto parts business in Cincinnati. He quickly learned the tire business and in 1920 formed the Cooper Corporation to produce new tires; it focused on the replacement tire that by 1920 was growing faster than original equipment. In 1930, Ira Cooper would bring Giant Tire, Cooper Corporation and Falls Rubber (Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio) together to form Master Tire & Rubber. In 1946, the company would be renamed Cooper Tire & Rubber. The company in its first two decades made about 3,000 tires

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a day for the replacement market. Ira Cooper would be to Findlay what Harvey Firestone and Frank Seiberling were to Akron. Cooper would be a family company, which was known for its excellent treatment of employees and guided by Christian principles. There were other tire companies in Akron as well. Star Rubber, founded in 1907, was making 600 tires a day by the end of the war. Other smaller companies included Swinehart Tire & Rubber, India Tire & Rubber, Mason Tire & Rubber, and Kelly-Springfield Tire. Akron also had large non-tire rubber companies such as Miller Rubber in druggists supplies and Philadelphia Rubber in reclaiming. There were also at least 40 various types of rubber companies in a ring of cities around Akron. This rubber metropolis made it a place for a young professional to make a career with plenty of opportunity to change jobs and companies. It was also a competitive environment for pay, working conditions, and benefits. The decade ended with Goodyear as top dog and hometown favorite. The war brought development in more than just tires. Soldiers’ shoes were a major area of research. Goodyear expanded their role in rubber soles with the development of Neolin, a rubber fabric sole. The war brought new interest in shoes as men and women started to buy pairs for work, dress, and leisure. In addition, Europe was short on leather, creating a huge market for alternative rubber soles and heels. Goodyear and U.S. Rubber became major competitors for this growth market. The war boom changed Akron forever as workers poured in to man the rubber factories. The war boom continued into 1919 as pent up domestic demand for tires followed. Such growth strained not only Akron’s factories but also the city’s infrastructure. Thousands of West Virginians poured into fill the new factories of Firestone, Goodyear, B.F. Goodrich, and General Tire. The postwar boom of 1919 required more expansion for the rubber companies across the country and throughout the world. Seiberling had expanded Goodyear into Canada, but it American operations were focused in Akron. Seiberling looked to expanded more in Akron, but now water, the resource that had brought rubber to Akron, was in short supply. Seiberling now looked to the West Coast for expansion. Los Angeles had just built a major aqueduct for water. The new port of Los Angeles was perfect for the shipment of Asian plantation rubber directly to the plant. In addition, with the opening of the Panama Canal, rubber could be shipped direct to Los Angeles. Seiberling made the plant a separate company under California law. He also built it to be self-sufficient with a fabric mill. The plant capacity would be 5,000 tires a day. Both Seiberling and Litchfield involved a young manager, Eddie Thomas, in this new operation. Twenty years later Thomas would become president of Goodyear. Goodrich and Firestone would later build plants in

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Los Angeles, giving it the name West Akron. Even U.S. Rubber would come to Los Angeles through the purchase of Samson Tire & Rubber in 1930, making it the rubber capital of the west. The decade also represented the expansion of the rubber companies into aircraft products, which may seem today to be an unrelated market. But the relationship between aircraft and rubber goes back the earliest days of both industries. Gutta-percha was used to make French hot air balloons in the late 1700s. By the early 1800s, rubberized fabric was used in balloons. Goodyear Rubber would take leadership in the aircraft market on this side of the Atlantic. Goodyear had supplied the first rubber airplane tire in 1909, but it was 1910 that opened up a new product at Goodyear. That was when the Wright Brothers accepted and purchased Goodyear’s rubberized fabric with which to build wings. This success led to Goodyear’s rubberized fabric being standard in military planes. B.F. Goodrich also moved into rubberized fabric for airplanes. The same year, P.W. Litchfield went to Europe to observe an air shows in England and France. Litchfield would study airplane tires and ballooning fabric on this trip. He was impressed with the advanced technology of the Europeans and made a Yankee deal to trade straight wall tire technology for a dissolved rubber spreading machine. Litchfield returned and hired two engineers to focus on balloon and airplane fabric development. Litchfield would also use this new product development to expand Goodyear into hose and belting, which were also rubberized fabric. All of this would eventually lead to the rise of the Goodyear blimp.

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Plantation Owners — Golden Years of the Barons The 1920s would be the best and worst of times. The year 1920 saw one of the sharpest recessions in the rubber industry. The war had created overcapacity, and the improved tire life had further reduced needed tire manufacturing capacity. These industry issues converged at the start of an economic downturn. The recession of 1920 was short, but it remains one of the nation’s steepest periods of depreciation. Crude rubber dropped from 55 cents a pound to 16 cents a pound. Cotton prices dropped from $2.50 a pound to $1.00 a pound and then to 60 cents a pound and finally to 20 cents a pound. Firestone and Goodyear had over a million pounds of cotton in inventory. Goodyear was also an American cotton farmer with a cost of 60 cents per pound that had given it an advantage, but only Egyptian cotton with its cheap labor could grow 20 percent pound cotton. With the war over, Egyptian cotton poured into America. Daily spot prices of cotton even got as low as 12 cents a pound! The result was enormous inventory write-offs for the tire companies, which affected their ability to acquire cash for operations. The 1920 to 1921 recession was more than raw materials depreciation; there was also a major downturn in auto sales. Tire and auto sales dropped just as rapidly as the war created first a boom, then oversupply. The tire companies had huge and expensive inventories of tires and no sales. All the rubber companies had high debt, and now their income could hardly cover the interest. Akron’s growth had also forced the companies to look for capital beyond Akron’s banks, which couldn’t support the capital needs. Goodyear was in the worst shape of the big four. The Seiberling brothers would end up losing Goodyear and starting a new rubber company. Firestone got some banking loans from its strong ties with Chicago banks, and U.S. Rubber was able to float a bond offering before the others because of its New York home base. B.F. Goodrich’s New York banking ties also paid off. The recession also caused some labor problems as cost cutting became extreme in an effort to raise cash and pay bills. Short strikes and walkouts hit 128

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the Akron plants. The worst was at B.F. Goodrich in 1923 as Goodrich cut wages in December 1922. The strike at B.F. Goodrich lasted several weeks; the workers returned, having won nothing and being forced to accept lower wages. With a victory for management, Goodrich looked to more efficiency in its operations. As a result, B.F. Goodrich took scientific management a step further, applying the efficiency and motion studies of Frank Gilbreth. Goodrich hired its own efficiency consultant, Charles Bedaux, to measure every step and motion of the workers. The system created a pay scale based on speed per step in the operation. It was hated by the workers and would become a major problem in the next decade as unionization swept Akron. U.S. Rubber was to apply a similar system, but its geographically diverse plants diffused worker resistance. The decade would be one of tire price wars. The 1920-21 recession was particularly deep for the auto industry, which in turn created a price war between the tire companies. Price wars and rubber price fluctuation and availability concerns destroyed the industry profitability growth. Net sales actually rose to a billion dollars by 1929 with 70 percent of the sales being in tires. Tire prices dropped as much as 60 percent, while crude rubber price rose under the British Stevenson Plan. After the recession, the British raw rubber prices started to increase again. Tire prices dropped throughout the decade. A replacement tire (including inner tube) for a Ford went from $35 in 1920 to $12.30 in 1925 to $7.35 in 1929 to $5.20 in 1930. Just as dramatic, the number of tire manufacturers dropped from 166 at the beginning of the 1920s to 35 by the early 1930s. How and where tires were sold changed as well during this decade. There was a major shift in how replacement tires were sold during the decade. Starting in 1920, almost all the replacement tires were sold by independent dealers; by the end of the decade 70 percent were independents with 13 percent (and growing) from mail order (Sears and Ward), 10 percent from tire company stores and a small but rapidly growing 2 percent from oil company stations. Of the manufacturers, Firestone and Goodyear had their own retail outlets, while U.S. Rubber focused on independent retailers, mail order houses, and gas stations. Goodyear controlled the Sears business, which would become the sign of the leading tire company in the United States. Technology would make great advances in the decade also. The cord balloon tire would become the standard. By 1926, tire life mileage reached 12,000 miles, and by the end of the decade it had reached 16,000 miles. Tires were mounted on steel rims making tire changing easier. Firestone led the technology advance in tires and rims, but Goodyear would overtake U.S. Rubber in overall rubber production. Goodyear achieved this by moving aggressively into aircraft, industrial products, and footwear. Tire building increased from one tire per day per man to eight tires per day per man. Productivity improvements helped to fuel price wars for market share. Akron’s

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rubber barons would tumble in the decade, but the rubber workers would become the best paid workers in the country. The biggest new product of the decade would be aircraft rubber, its growth driven by World War I. Goodyear took leadership in this new area, having built its first airplane tire in 1909. It was Paul Litchfield who carried the flag for Goodyear and F.A. Seiberling. The Goodyear aircraft tire was a solid rubber and cord fabric design that would dominate the market for twenty years. Litchfield went to Europe to promote his aircraft tires and started an Aeronautics Division. He also partnered with North British Rubber in 1913 to produce rubberized balloon cloth. When Goodyear built Plant 2 in 1916, much of the space was for aeronautic products and various industrial products other than tires. Goodyear also added a balloon test site at Wingfoot Lake outside of Akron. The plant would employ over 2,000 employees and produce 1,000 balloons by the end of the war. This was part of Goodyear’s strategy to take over the rubber industry’s number one spot from U.S. Rubber. During the war, Goodyear was asked to develop a blimp for the army. The Germans had frightened allied forces with their rigid aluminum framed lighter than air ship known as the zeppelin. The zeppelins were more feared than effective. They did fly at 35,000 feet, well above gunfire and enemy fighters. Goodyear received an order for nine hydrogen blimps at the start of World War I. Goodyear expanded its Wingfoot Lake operation to produce hydrogen and have large hangers. Immediately following the war, Goodyear produced 60 more blimps. While none of these blimps saw action in Europe, they played an important role in patrolling our coasts. Goodyear looked to be in a strong position until the 1921 auto recession hit. After America’s war production, the nation entered into a deep recession in the early twenties. Companies such as Goodyear, which had expanded, were overextended. Frank Seiberling of Goodyear was personally overextended as well. Sales dropped quickly by as much as 50 percent. Goodyear was caught with an extremely high inventory of high priced rubber. Also, Goodyear had been expanding its rubber inventory, hedging that rubber prices would continue to climb. Goodyear had to buy rubber and cotton on long term contracts while its customers could drop their orders on the spot. Goodyear tire production dropped from 30,000 a day to 5,000. By the end of 1920, Goodyear had an inventory loss of 30 million dollars. The price of rubber had plunged from 55 cents a pound to 16 cents a pound. F.A. Seiberling had, like most of the great industrialists of the period, avoided banks, preferring to use earnings to fund operations. These panics of old often left such companies in position of needing loans to carry them. Without an established line of credit, the banks were in position to take ownership. The banks generally got their hands on many great corporations in these deep recessions. W.C. Durant would lose General Motors in this recession.

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Seiberling was short of cash and was forced to negotiate with the New York bankers, but all of Akron was behind him. Even Firestone employees, who would not mention Goodyear by name, using “the plant on the east side,” came to Seiberling’s support. When it came to a bank takeover of an Akron rubber company, the rubber lords would unite. Harvey Firestone was in a heated court battle with Goodyear over tire machine patents, but they were friends and Akronites. They were committee members on the development of community projects such as the hospital committee. Harvey Firestone would go to New York to ask banks to save Goodyear for the good of the rubber industry. Unfortunately, Seiberling was in too much personal debt to be saved. Seiberling was able to arrange a $25 million loan with Goldman Sachs of New York, but it turned out to be a pact with the devil. Within a few months, the New York bank forced Goodyear into receivership. Seiberling and his brother Charles were forced out, and Seiberling’s right hand man, Paul Litchfield, was in personal debt around $300,000 as the stock was wiped out, hurting many other Akron investors, too. Goodyear had in many ways been the heart of the Akron community, and its loss to New York bankers was a hard hit. It would augur the position of the late 1970s in Akron. Paul Litchfield described the personal impact: In those seven months my hair turned from a chestnut brown to almost as white as it is today…. It seemed strange at first not to see Frank Seiberling bustling in in the morning with new plans he had thought up overnight, or Charlie [Frank’s brother] with a youngster he wanted a job for. Charlie had been hit harder than most of us. People were used to taking their troubles to him, and he loaned out a lot of money he would not get back…. But the friendly Seiberling atmosphere was gone now. There were strange faces everywhere, auditors, accountants, lawyers, all over the place, men asking questions, checking things, calling for records, skeptical of everything that was done in the last twenty years…. The new management cleaned house in the Financial, Accounting, and Legal departments, brought in a new treasurer, secretary, comptroller, and legal counsel, with assistants, as well as a new president — and we understand this was just the beginning.1

Goodyear had over 30,000 worried employees in the area. Cost cutting of departments was brutal and worry and fear sat at many Akron dinner tables. Over 700 salaried workers were dismissed, and the sales force was cut in half. Every level from the top to the sweeper on the factory room felt the ax man. F.A. Seiberling had made Goodyear the city’s hometown company with a reputation as the best place to work. Seiberling was an operating lion with a passionate heart for those who worked in his factories. Now the company was run by cold hearted accountants and bankers. George Stadelman from Goodyear’s sales department was promoted to president. While he would help sales, he proved unsuited to manage the operating assets. The city, however,

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would miss its great patron, F.A. Seiberling. Paul Litchfield stayed on and to a large degree helped Goodyear enter a new era. Stadelman would die at the age of 53 in 1926. Litchfield became president, and Goodyear once again gained the support of the locals. For Frank and Charles Seiberling, the story was different. Frank and Charlie Seiberling were hit hard. Frank was in his sixties but proved as resilient as the rubber he manufactured and the city he loved. He struck out on a second career, forming Seiberling Rubber with his brother. Sixty-four Goodyear executives joined Seiberling in this new venture in nearby Barberton. The local press and the whole area were rooting for Seiberling. Many managers and workers left Goodyear to follow Seiberling to the new company. Seiberling’s hatred of big banks increased, so he used family assets and local banks to build the new company. Frank Seiberling took over his son’s ( John Fredrick) failing small rubber company to bring into Seiberling Rubber. Two other sons, James Penfield and Willard Penfield, joined their father at Seiberling Rubber.2 The company struggled throughout the 1920s, but it did get an original equipment contract with Willys-Overland and sold to smaller retailers. While Seiberling Rubber had 1.7 percent of the market in 1929, it did make the list of the nation’s top ten rubber companies. Seiberling Rubber grew on retailing business and in the 1930s established a relationship with Sears. For Frank Seiberling and the family, it was a struggle to remain among the rich barons of the industry. They held on to Stan Hywet until the 1960s. Frank Seiberling also purchased two smaller rubber companies. One was Portage Rubber in Barberton, Ohio, which Penfield took over after graduating from Princeton. He also purchased a small rubber company in New Castle, Pennsylvania. Eventually, all were combined making Seiberling Rubber the seventh largest in the nation. The success of Seiberling Rubber and the personal turnaround of Frank Seiberling illustrate an important characteristic of many industrialist barons of the period — the importance of the challenge. At the very bottom, Seiberling, now in his sixties, predicted his own success: “Stripped of money and power, burdened with debt, my outlook may seem disheartening, but not so. The greatest pleasure I had in my life was starting at the scratch line with Goodyear without a dollar, and all the difficulties that were encountered that had to be surmounted. The pleasure of the battle I am going to have all over again in the effort to construct something from nothing.”3 Frank Seiberling did what great industrialists like Andrew Carnegie always said they could do (recreate their fortunes). Seiberling’s legacy, however, would always be Goodyear Tire and Rubber. Goodyear struggled with internal battles throughout the 1920s as bankers reorganized the company. J.P. Morgan hired the investment firm of Dillon, Read, and Company to manage the reorganization of Goodyear. Management

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and the workforce were cut to the bone by the financial overlords of the New York bankers. Many key managers at all levels would eventually leave to join Seiberling’s new rubber company. The sales and production plumage from 30,000 tires a day to 5,000 tires a day had dried up operating cash. P.W. Litchfield managed to hold the company together from his operations position, but morale was low because of the deep job cuts. Still, cost cutting and aggressive sales pushed Goodyear forward. Goodyear had achieved a comeback by 1926, a year that it was the most profitable in the industry. Litchfield became president bringing his production knowledge, engineering skills, and leadership skills to the table. Firestone weathered the 1920 to 1921 recession and strengthened its future. Still it was a narrow escape. Firestone’s inventory was also hit hard, and the company owed over $40 million as well. Personally, Firestone had all his money in Firestone stock, which had been cut in half, and he still owed several million to local banks. Firestone had a better personal relationship with his banker and that helped. Akron was abuzz as Henry Ford and his son Edsel came to Firestone’s Harbel Manor for a long stay. Ford hated bankers and did not want to see his friend and major supplier be taken over by New York bankers. Rumors of a Ford friendly takeover were in the air. By the end of the stay, Firestone got 65 percent of the Ford business and a short-term order of 190,000 tires for $2 million in a single month.4 The other move of Firestone was a nationwide 25 percent discount sale to generate cash from the replacement market. This fire sale raised $18 million in sales and used up rubber inventory at the plants. Firestone would later note, “Although I date the foundation of the company historically from 1900, I regard the first twenty years only as a period of preparation for the real test of 1920. A business is not a business until it has been hardened by fire and water.”5 Firestone cleaned up his debt in the next few years and his emerged the strongest of the tire companies. B.F. Goodrich struggled as well during the 1921 to 1922 recession. The tire production went from 28,000 a day to 4,000 a day similar to Goodyear, but Goodrich was losing its General Motors share for the long run. Interestingly, of the Big Four, only Goodrich did not make a profit during the recession. Goodrich had less debt and a strong relationship with the New York banks, which allowed it to survive. Goodrich pulled back on plant investment and research, which would hurt them in the future. Goodrich also faced labor problems over a cut in wages, but outlasted a one month strike to maintain the wage cut. Goodrich’s credit line with the larger banks put it in position to buy out struggling companies. A smaller Akron tire company went under as a result of the recession and was merged into Goodrich in 1929. This was Miller Rubber, which had started business in 1898 making druggist supplies and toys. In 1912, it started

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to make tires for the replacement market and tire production expanded during World War I. Miller Rubber was a large rubber company with over 300 products and 30 buildings in Akron, but the crash of 1929 left Miller needing cash. Similarly, another small rubber company, Hood Rubber of Watertown, Massachusetts, went down from the recession. Hood had been founded in 1896 by Fredrick Hood. Fredrick was the son of another great New England rubber baron, George Hood, who had founded Boston Rubber, which became the nucleus of U.S. Rubber. Hood made some tires but footwear was its forte. The Hood Watertown plant was the world’s largest footwear plant, producing 65,000 pairs a day in the 1920s. When B.F. Goodrich took it over in 1929 and it made Goodrich number two in rubber footwear after U.S. Rubber. Hood Rubber’s defense contracts for submarine battery cases would help B.F. Goodrich pull out of the Great Depression. The 1920s, which challenged Firestone, Goodrich, Goodyear, and Frank Seiberling personally, were good times for General Tire and Bill O’Neil. The auto recession of 1921 was primarily a downturn in auto and original equipment manufacturers. The O’Neil replacement business model prospered in the recession. The company’s General Jumbo was the most popular tire of the early twenties. By 1923, the company earned its first million, dubbing Bill O’Neil a new rubber baron and making General part of Akron’s big four. O’Neil built his mansion in the old rich district of Akron. While smaller, his Exchange Street Tudor mansion while smaller had the look of the Seiberling Mansion minus the land. The inside of the home was renowned for its hand carved oak. The O’Neil family had a 240 acre farm in nearby Bath Township. O’Neil was more of a rogue baron than an industry type. He would move into the broadcasting and aerospace industries as well. Because of his father, O’Neil was part of Akron’s older aristocracy which had wide acceptance in the community. Like barons Firestone and Seiberling, Bill O’Neil was very involved in the community and was a lot like Frank Seiberling. Bill O’Neil loved company picnics and would bring the men together for beer keg philanthropy. Bill and his family supported many hospitals and Catholic charities in the Akron area. Bill O’Neil, like Harvey Firestone, had many idiosyncrasies. Bill had a routine of returning home for dinner followed by a nap. When he awoke from the nap, he would pack the five boys and his wife in the car to drive to the 9:30 p.m. show at the movie theater. Bill’s best friend was his college buddy Jim Campbell, who ran his Pittsburgh dealership. The families often visited each other, so much so that O’Neil’s wife, Grace, became a huge Pittsburgh Pirates fan and would travel often to the games. During the 1925 World Series in Pittsburgh, Grace drove to every game. Grace loved to drive and often took the kids on cross country trips. The recession of 1921 and 1922 hit United States Rubber as hard as the

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Akron companies. Like the Akron companies, U.S. Rubber suffered a huge writedown in rubber inventory, but it bounced back quickly. U.S. Rubber fought back with productivity and innovation. The company invented and pioneered the flat-band method of tire making, which almost tripled the output of tire builders. The productivity improvements saved U.S. Rubber but it lost share in both original equipment and replacement tire market during the 1920s. United States Rubber continued to diversify into footwear and mechanical rubber goods. Its Naugatuck research center expanded to 250 scientists and made major advances in the chemistry of rubber. It also made advances in perfectly centered golf balls and brightly colored rubber products. The worldwide nature of the 1921 to 1922 recession created a new threat to America’s rubber supply. The price of rubber dropped dramatically to sixteen cents a pound due to excess inventory in the United States. This put the British Asian rubber plantations in a position where the costs excessed the price of rubber. The British Rubber Growers Association and the then–secretary of states for the colonies, Winston Churchill, took action to stop the decline in prices. Churchill became frustrated, believing Americans were not paying their share for this world resource. He noted that the United States consumed 71 percent of the world’s rubber and England grew 75 percent of the supply of raw rubber.6 Churchill and his ministers put together the Stevenson Plan that tied the price of rubber to exports. Based on a complex equation, the plan stabilized prices between 24 cents and 36 cents a pound. While some believed the stability might be a good thing, Harvey Firestone and his friend, Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover, saw it as government interference in the free market and a threat to America which critically needed its rubber supply. Firestone reminded the American government of the British embargos of World War I. Goodyear, U.S. Rubber, and Goodrich, however, were less concerned. As president of the Rubber Association, Harvey Firestone took the leadership for the industry, framing it as patriotic. The Stevenson Plan would be a call to action for Harvey Firestone who involved fellow Vagabonds Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Luther Burbank, Secretary Herbert Hoover, and President Warren Harding. Edison, Ford, and Firestone started their efforts even earlier using Edison’s New Jersey lab in 1917 to explore the possibilities of milkweed and guayule. Edison even tried unsuccessfully to hire George Washington Carver for his rubber research. In addition, Herbert Hoover pushed for U.S. government support for Firestone and others to secure their own rubber plantations. The Vagabonds’ 1919 camping trips had been the source of most of the campfire talks. They dreamed of rubber plantations in the American South controlled by American companies. For rubber barons like Firestone, vertical integration into raw rubber was a natural. The industry had suffered for decades from rising prices and shortages

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as well as threatened cutoffs. Goodyear had started in 1916 to vertically integrate into rubber plantations. The barons were also in a decade long tire price war. For many, rubber was a strategic material on which the United States was totally dependent. Ford had more worries about rubber than just tires; hard rubber for his batteries was a key component to the Model T. Henry Ford put his chemists on this project, and Harvey Firestone marshaled the resources of the Rubber Club. Firestone assigned his recent Princeton graduate son, Harvey Jr., to the project. Ford and Firestone also funded an Edison rubber laboratory at his summer compound in Florida. Ford and Firestone also started test farms in Florida and Georgia for growing various rubber plants. Firestone was more panicked and began the search for foreign rubber plantations of his own. Firestone had tried to build in the Philippines, but the political roadblocks proved too difficult. Firestone started to explore possibilities in Liberia, and Goodyear was already in Sumatra. Michelin started a plantation in French Indochina, and Dunlop started one in Malaya. The Dunlop plantation would produce 7,000 pounds of rubber a day. These European plantations were self-contained but used a type of slave labor. Goodrich took a different track, increasing its rubber reclamation capacity. Henry Ford looked to resurrect the South American rubber industry. Firestone also fought back buying direct from rubber plantations to avoid the British government control. In addition, Firestone formed an agency with United States Rubber, Goodyear, Goodrich, Fisk Rubber and General Motors to create a rubber reserve. The agency was coordinated by U.S. Rubber because it had an extensive offices around the world to trade rubber, going back to the days of its founder, Charles Flint. These combinations and the plantation efforts of U.S. Rubber, Firestone, Goodyear, and Ford helped break the impact of the British trading monopoly. Firestone, Goodyear, and U.S. Rubber also invested heavily in their own plantations. Plantations took decades to bring into full tree growth and production. U.S. Rubber turned to Dutch planters to expand its Dutch Indies plantations where the British had no control. U.S. Rubber had purchased rubber plantations there in 1910, but didn’t have full production until the early 1920s. U.S. Rubber did do extensive research in developing higher yielding trees. The company used the best grafting techniques and even applied fertilizer for better yields. U.S. Rubber also pioneered improved living conditions of the natives by building houses and hospitals. The company also tried for years to ship raw latex back to America for processing. By the time of the Stevenson Plan in 1920s, U.S. Rubber was in the best position of the American companies with 20 percent of its requirements coming from its own plantations and another 25 percent coming from reclaimed rubber. U.S. Rubber established a research center to improve yields. Its experi-

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mentation paid off in 1927, getting 475 pounds per acre compared to Goodyear Plantations at 370 and Firestone at 320. Using genetic selection, grafting, and fertilizers, the research center developed a plantation producing 1,000 pounds per acre by 1927. Furthermore, U.S. Rubber plantations had twice the productivity of British plantations. In 1927, U.S. Rubber plantations were producing more rubber with 22,392 employees versus the 44,383 of the British plantations.7 U.S. Rubber’s plantations were highly profitable throughout the 1920s. They were also the world’s largest at the time. In terms of plantation rubber produced in 1929, U.S. Rubber produced 25 million pounds, Goodyear 5.3 million pounds, and Firestone 378,000 pounds. Firestone had come late to the plantation ownership.8 Reclaiming was the other method of increasing the rubber supply. Goodyear was getting over 37 percent of its rubber in 1928 from reclaiming, thanks to the purchase of Diamond and its technology. The search for an American controlled source of rubber became a quest for Firestone and Ford in the 1920s. Both men felt that like the nation itself, American industry should be free of foreign dependency. Harvey Firestone put together a meeting of Thomas Edison and rubber experts from around the world in March 1924 at their Fort Myers compound. The meeting resulted in Firestone and Henry Ford forming the Edison Botanic Research Corporation. Edison had already been spending most of his time in rubber research, but the new company augmented the financial needs. Firestone was interested in securing his own offshore supply of rubber as well. He went through complex and frustrating negotiations with the Liberian government in Africa. Edison argued with both Firestone and Ford that domestic plants were the answer, not foreign plantations. Firestone looked at Castilloa trees in Mexico, but they yielded 75 percent less per acre than the Hevea trees of Asia, South America, and Africa. Firestone also had interest in the natural rubber plants of Africa, which were lower yielding than South American plants. Places like the Philippines, Mexico, and Venezuela offered promise, but the political climate was problematic. Finally, in 1925 Firestone established his rubber plantation in Liberia. He got a contract to lease a million acres (half the size of Rhode Island) for 99 years.9 Firestone financed the planting of rubber trees and infrastructure such as roads and housing. He employed 12,000 natives at a shilling a day, or about twice the pay of Asian plantation workers. Firestone and his son approached the Liberia project with the best methods of scientific management. Liberia had been a country formed by freed American slaves in 1822, but most of the backwoods area was populated by primitive tribes. Firestone and his son Harvey Jr. were well aware of the initial criticism of imperialism. The Belgian natural rubber industry in the Congo was known for its brutal slavery of the natives. Realizing they would be dealing

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with semi-primitive tribal natives, they commissioned Harvard University to do an anthropological study so they could better merge native culture and the work environment. Firestone built a 125 miles of road and established medical service as a foundation for bringing civilization to Liberia. Firestone, a farmer at heart, started raising cows and chickens from America. Initially, the Firestone operation was like the early South American system of tapping wild rubber trees. Firestone’s plantation did not become operational until 1933. Firestone invested heavily in Liberia with farms and planting of citrus trees. He opened trade schools to upgrade the skills of the natives. Stores were opened with American products. Firestone brought rice into the country at cost. He built power plants for electric lighting and refrigeration, including a hydroelectric plant. He built a radio station for direct communications with Akron. There was a class distinction with the American managers living in brick homes with refrigeration. Both Goodyear and Firestone built golf courses, movie theaters, and tennis courts at their plantation. The Americans also had many servants at home working for them. The assistant plantation manager for Goodyear had five servants and many amenities that approached the days of cotton plantations in the pre–Civil War days of America. While Firestone believed he had improved the standard of living, critics in America, including unions, saw him as a neocolonist and little better than a dictator. The same charges were made of Goodyear’s Wingfoot plantation in Sumatra. Interestingly, U.S. Rubber took a less paternal approach by using locals to manage the plantation, focusing on the agricultural factors for company involvement. The repeal of the Stevenson Plan in 1928 brought a crash in the rubber market. The price of rubber dropped to 17 cents a pound. Goodyear mothballed its Asian plantation. The 1929 stock crash took the price to 9 cents a pound. Firestone put the operation on hold, but it would rise in the 1940s and become a major supply of rubber. During World War II, the Firestone plantation was the second biggest source of rubber for the allies. U.S. Rubber, with its high yielding and productive plantations, continued to operate successfully. The United States government did not put U.S. Rubber’s work on hold, realizing rubber was a strategic resource in time of war. A young Major Dwight Eisenhower was sent to Mexico to study the possible building of a guayule reserve. Eisenhower recommended building a guayule reserve but was overruled by the Roosevelt administration in 1930. Henry Ford believed he could use manufacturing methodology to make South American rubber profitable again. In 1927, Ford purchased a rubber plantation in Brazil to experiment with more efficient plantation growing and management. Ford named his Brazilian plantation Fordlandia. Brazil was willing to offer Ford many enticements such as tax breaks, since they wanted the once great rubber business back that had been taken by Asian rubber plan-

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Ford Rubber Plantation in Brazil, 1928.

tations. The American government also wanted to break the British cartel and offered some help as well. For Ford it was another opportunity to apply his system of organization. This was a different experiment in agriculture and industry for Ford. He believed the success of his system in the Akron rubber factories meant it would work anywhere. Ford sent botanists to the Amazon to further explore the possibilities of rubber growing. Ford would underestimate the problems of the tropical climate, South American politics, and its culture. In 1927, Ford was given 2.5 million acres of land on the Tapajos River to establish a rubber plantation. Ford was planning to make tires or have Firestone make them. The plan was to produce enough rubber for two million cars a year by selling rubber to his suppliers such as Firestone. Ford also hoped to manufacture his hard rubber battery cases. Ford would pay the Brazilian government 7 percent of the profits and the local government 2 percent of the profits. Of course, Ford’s vision was of a city on the hill in the heart of South America. Ford saw the potential for a worker city that had never evolved in his North American manufacturing operations. He envisioned the self-sufficient working utopian republic. In this case, Ford would have to bring the workers to a new area and build a community from the ground up. He wanted to maintain the high wage system he had pioneered in the United States, but this workforce would be much different. It was more than pay. Ford would have to supply housing, food, family services, community services, and med-

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ical care. The plantation system was a necessity, but Ford did not want the slavery of the plantation system. He had personally studied the old cotton plantation systems of the American South. Ford had noted that the forgotten task system of border states’ plantations had proven highly productive compared to the raw slavery of the Deep South. The task system focused on task completion, after which a slave was free to plant his own crops, build housing, hunt, and recreate. Ford had even reconstructed a task plantation in his Detroit outdoor museum — Greenfield Village. Ford hoped to build a utopian plantation built on as much freedom as possible. In the end, Fordlandia would become the Amazon’s largest town with fifty miles of supporting roads. Ford’s workers received 36 cents a day, which was twice the region’s average. In addition, the workers received free housing, free schools, and free health and dental care. He built dance and movie theaters. Prices of food were controlled to prevent inflation. The problem was the factory environment of working an eight-hour day. Ford’s idea of an industrial plantation based on his manufacturing system in Brazil was a doomed project. The workers had little use for excess money and no understanding of time. They were subsistence hunters and gatherers at heart. They hated the McGuffey style education and Ford’s country music dance parties. Midwestern cuisine served at the cafeteria was particularly foreign to their tastes. Ford engineers and managers had no means to manage or motivate them. Ford gave them much in terms of hospitals, schools, and houses, but in the end they saw themselves more as slaves than workers. Ford’s regimentation and enforced routine worked in Detroit but felt like slavery in Brazil. Fordlandia in its first two years saw riots, fights, and strikes. Ford was not implementing a new manufacturing system but was trying to change thousands of years of culture. By 1930, Ford managers realized this rubber plantation was a bridge too far for the Ford system, but Ford was far from ready to give in. He added recreation and tried to create commerce for the workers’ money. Still, Ford and his managers missed the bigger point in always feeling Brazilians were just Americans waiting to be converted to the American way. Houses, recreation, even medical care was based on the American way and designed in Dearborn. The other major problem was rubber tree plantations were not the same as an assembly line. Ford’s vision of “Rubber Rouge” was not possible. This, to a large degree, was God’s territory and not that of machines and human routine. Fordlandia had varied too far from Ford’s vision of harmony with agriculture and industry. Rubber plantations in South America were not industrialized farms. The failure of Fordlandia, however, was not so much, as critics suggest, a failure of Fordism or the Ford process methodology as it was a cultural problem. Ford’s industrial efficiency depended on saving time. The

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Brazilians had no concept of time, yet they waited in line to punch a time card. They worked eight hours, of which they had no concept. They were regimented and followed routine, which they had never been subjected to. They were given food, but it was the food of a strange culture. Their hot new Cape Cod style houses seemed like prisons compared to the airy huts where they grew up. Their supervisors and bosses were of a different race and spoke a strange language. The medical aid was painful and disturbing. It was no wonder the Brazilians felt like slaves or even dogs. However, the paternal capitalists were truly saints in comparison to the imperialistic aristocrats of some European rubber plantations. It is not surprising that this imperialistic European aristocracy was the root of American slavery. Still, greed corrupts all man-made systems. Belgium’s King Leopold would prove to be the last of the European imperialists. King Leopold (1835– 1909) of Belgium was a king in search of a kingdom in the 1880s. Africa of the time offered a new land for imperialistic colonization. King Leopold had failed to establish colonies in the Philippines and New Guinea. With the approval of the European powers in 1885, King Leopold established a benevolent protectorate of the Free State of the Congo. Leopold knew the rubber industry well, but initially he hoped to prosper through African ivory. He had toured Asia and was aware of the British efforts to establish rubber plantations, and the price was continually rising in the last part of the 1800s. Leopold reasoned he could fill the treasury with profits from African rubber and ivory. The huge land of the Congo was filled with rubber latex bearing plants. The Congo was larger than Europe and consisted of the 1,000 mile basin of the Congo River. These African plants were Landolphia, Kikxia, Funtumia elastic, and Clitandra. The rise of rubber prices from 10 cents a pound in the 1860s to 60 cents a pound in the 1870s created interest in the wild rubbers of Africa. Because of poor practices, these African rubbers were considered of lower quality to that of the Amazon types of South America. The African latex plants were more vines than trees and yielded far less latex for an equal amount of expended labor. The extraction system was similar to that of South America in organization. There were tappers of the wild rubber with European overseers. The tappers came under a slave-like system of quotas and bonuses. It was a forced labor system that really economically imprisoned the tappers. Tappers and their tribes were forced to pay rubber taxes to gain the a few remnants of civilization. It was a system enforced by a strong police force. It was a system of slavery. Unlike Firestone and Ford who looked to increase productivity in harvesting latex, Leopold was interested in reducing labor cost as a means to more profit. Imperialists such as Leopold saw slavery as a traditional means of reducing costs. The labor system of the Congo was slavery disguised as

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philanthropy and cultural progress. Workers were forced into service to pay taxes, gain tribal favors, or gain a few services offered, while Leopold touted his civic improvements as philanthropy. Harvey Firestone Jr. called it “a reign of terror” of enforced labor that included “murders, whippings and the severing of hands of those deemed slow.”10 The treatment of these workers was poorer than most American slaveholders of prior decades. The overseers were recruited to impress workers into service and keep them in service. The bonuses went to the overseers, which fostered whippings. They claimed it was a task system of slavery. The economic side of this slavery was described as, “The rubber tappers had to work between twenty and twenty-five days each month to pay their rubber taxes and this left them with little time to clear land, build shacks, and grow food.”11 The recruitment practices were oppressive, brutal, and rivaling (if not surpassing ) the slave systems of earlier Britain and America. One tactic included soldiers arriving at a village to rape and pillage. Women and children were imprisoned to motivate the men to work as tappers. If the men refused, the village was wiped out. Imprisoned women and children were given a starvation diet. The brutal enforcement included punishment by death for poor work. There was no money used. It was a matter of debits and credits to pay taxes and allow one to work and die. Leopold did get wealthy, but he was one of the few to do so. Some capitalists in Britain and the rest of the world turned their eyes, but not Firestone and Ford who spoke out against Leopold. Leopold found, like the British tobacco plantations, American cotton plantations, the Nazis, Japanese forced labor camps, and the communists, that slave labor results in low productivity and low quality. The Congo was barely able to ship 5,000 tons a year. The quality was extremely poor and directly related to the slave system. Rubber users in the United States noted that African rubber had 30 percent to 50 percent of waste material in it. African laborers often purposely added bark and so forth to meet the weight quotas of the overseers. They also added salt to increased coagulated weight. American manufacturers had to spend time and money to clean African rubber. Unfortunately, many in the industry blamed the laziness of African natives instead of the slave system. The slave system also plundered the rubber plant resources as vines were destroyed to maximize daily quotas. The overall system stands in stark contrast to those of American capitalists who believed in maintaining resources for the long run and high productivity. Firestone’s Liberia, with all its shortcomings, was a paradise on earth compared to Leopold’s Congo. The end of Leopold’s empire came after his death in 1909 as the improved yields and better quality of Asian plantation rubber came on to the market. The American plantations in the 1920s were at least civil and paternalistic efforts. The end of the Stevenson Act in 1927 ended and slowed the rubber plantation systems.

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Problems with American plantations again surfaced during the 1930s. With the collapse of rubber prices, the rubber growing countries formed a cartel known as the International Rubber Regulation Agreement (IRRA). This agreement covered French, Dutch, and British colonies and controlled the amount of rubber exported to tire manufacturers. American rubber companies again searched for alternatives. Goodyear opened experimental plantations in Panama and Costa Rica to break the cartel in the mid–1930s. The search for new plants for rubber was again renewed. Firestone invested once again in its African plantations.

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Rubber Profits and the Roaring Twenties The Roaring Twenties had started with the postwar recession of 1920 and 1921 but would soon become highly profitable years for rubber. The 1920s continued years of technological battles to take market share. Goodyear, which had become the hometown favorite, lost some of its local prestige in the recession. Many feared that it would go the way of Goodrich, moving its headquarters to New York as bankers took control. Paul Litchfield took over later in the 1920s and brought Goodyear back. Litchfield, Seiberling’s former right hand man, soon took on the title of a rubber baron in his own right. For all the companies, the Twenties were boom years. Technology and market changes created a new type of industry. The barons, Firestone, Seiberling, and Litchfield, carved their names into the community on a number of fronts. The old New England barons were now gone and replaced by corporations. On the East Coast, U.S. Rubber became a Wall Street entity with fewer paternal ties to any one community. The Akron barons also branched out from their Akron bases. Harvey Firestone started a tradition of family road trip vacations in 1921 similar to their Vagabond trips. Firestone and Ford brought their families and started with a picnic at Firestone Farms in Columbiana, Ohio. This would be one of the last and biggest of the road trips. The caravan consisted of eight cars and many supply trucks. Firestone brought along six horses as the families headed for Maryland. Firestone had a deep love of horses, riding, and polo. In Maryland, they met President Warren Harding, and Firestone presented him two of his best horses. With more cars of reporters joining in, Firestone called it a traveling circus. Eventually, the Vagabonds all built vacation homes in Fort Myers, Florida, to replace these trips. These vacation mansions were fueled by the profit boom of the late 1920s. The decade brought several improvements in tires that drove those profits. Pneumatic tires had long before replaced solid tires in cars, but trucks were slow to convert. In trucks, pneumatic tires started to replace solid rubber 144

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in the early ’20s, and then cord pneumatic tires took over cloth woven tires. The big innovation of the 1920s was the balloon pneumatic tire, which allowed for a softer air ride. Firestone pioneered the balloon tire for cars and trucks; it had a larger footprint and ran at lower pressure. Until the balloon tires, tire pressure was around 52 psi. As throughout the history of the rubber industry, it would be innovation that drove success. The balloon tire used four plies of fabric versus eight plies, which reduced stiffness and allowed the tire to ride on air. Thomas Edison’s Lincoln was one of the first cars to prove out the balloon tires. Firestone balloon tires were cords and gum dipped as well, which further enhanced the ride. Ford, as a fellow Vagabond, switched his original equipment tires to Firestone balloons in 1924. Firestone was making over 25,000 balloon tires a week, and Goodyear soon followed. Goodrich hesitated and even mounted an advertising campaign against them. As a result, Goodrich continued to lose market share. Firestone advertised in The Saturday Evening Post to push balloon tires in the larger replacement market. In 1925, the market boomed as Peter DePaolo won the Indianapolis 500 using a set of Firestone balloons. The next year all the racers had balloon tires, and the public joined in the changeover. By 1929, about 80 percent of the market was in balloon tires. Firestone poured profits into plant expansion in Akron. Firestone expanded Plant Number 2 and converted Plant Number 1 to cord balloon tires. General Tire was also quick to produce balloon tires and took them to the truck market. Goodrich’s lack of balloon tires severely reduced profits. The company expanded its footwear production to counter losses in the tire market. Goodyear was slower than Firestone but converted to balloon tires when General Motors started to demand them as original equipment. Goodyear countered Firestone’s product success with the balloon tire, and overtook U.S. Rubber in rubber tire production in 1926 with a new business model. U.S. Rubber and the other companies sold tires through independent retailers. Goodyear signed a deal with mail order giant Sears, Roebuck & Company in 1926. Goodyear would produce its best All Weather tire under a special brand name, All-State. Sears started to open stores and undersell Goodyear’s own dealers by 25 percent. U.S. Rubber reached an agreement with Sears’s competitor, Montgomery Ward. Montgomery Ward actually sold three times the tires of Sears initially, but Sears was moving more rapidly into stores. Firestone re-strengthened its own store outlets as the industry entered a retail price war for several years. On original equipment tires, Goodyear strengthened its position with General Motors, which was challenging Ford’s sales. Goodyear also continued to produce old high pressure clincher tires to supply a large replacement market. Still, the rubber companies found newer ways to make money. Firestone and his son Harvey Jr. started a novel marketing plan to counter the Goodyear-Sears alliance. This was Firestone’s One-Stop Service Station.

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It was a business model ahead of its time, and one suited for Harvey Firestone, who started selling tires in a branch store. The idea was to sell gasoline, batteries, brake linings, other repair service, and tires at a corner store. Firestone’s approach was summarized: “A complete service to the motorist would reduce the cost of transportation. Besides, he figured that the 25,000,000 cars couldn’t go a mile without wearing out some of the services the Firestone organization could render, and the average annual expenditure per car was $400.”1 Firestone also saw oil company filling stations rapidly expanding into the tire business. By 1940, Firestone had 450 of these one-stop stores opening. It was a model that the oil companies would follow in the next decade. At the same time, Firestone launched into the new media of radio with the sponsoring of music shows. The real mark of the 1920s was Akron becoming the Rubber City and the focus of the world’s rubber industry. The rubber barons had arrived and Akron was Camelot, albeit a bit smelly and dirty. The city boomed with the rubber industry. Akron had its own royalty in the Firestones, O’Neils, and Seiberlings. The Akron Chamber of Commerce would rival the executive meetings of U.S. Rubber and B.F. Goodrich at New York’s Waldorf-Astoria. Akron had its own millionaire’s row on Market Street and up West Hill. Presidents made as many visits to Akron as New York. They were happy to join the rubber barons on vacations as well. President Taft came several times to play a round of golf over the years. Reporters loved to spy on the comings and goings of these Akron barons and perhaps get an interview with Thomas Edison or Henry Ford. The rubber barons had a following resembling that of movie stars today. Harvey Firestone’s personal wealth grew during the 1920s, making him one of America’s wealthiest industrialists and one of its most popular. His neighbor and friend, F.A. Seiberling, was wealthy but not to the extent of Firestone. The Seiberlings and Firestones often had dinner together. The wives and daughters took the train together to shop in Cleveland. Both families were key members of the Akron hospital committee. They always put their corporate battles behind them (like lawyers of today) to socialize and lead in the community. Both families enjoyed horse riding and polo. Firestone’s four boys and daughter loved horses so much that Harvey had a domed indoor riding ring built. The families shared miles of bridle paths for horse riding. They socialized together at the Portage Country Club. Summers were different for these barons because the heat would build up in their mansions. Harvey Firestone started renting a cottage in Michigan on Lake Huron’s thumb. Idabelle and the kids spent the summer there with Harvey joining them on weekends. He would drive or take the train to Detroit, then take a train to the cottage. Later he built cottage number 7 at 9259 Linwood Avenue. The cottage had seven bedrooms and four bathrooms

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with a total of three fireplaces. It was here that he often entertained Thomas Edison and Henry Ford. Not surprisingly, the Ford and Firestone families would intermarry. For most of the barons and their lieutenants, the Portage Country Club was the center of social relationships; and informally, the world’s rubber industry’s path was often decided. Firestone had built Firestone Country Club for his employees while Frank Seiberling built Fairlawn Country Club, but Portage Country Club was home to Harvey Firestone and Frank Seiberling. Portage was the gathering place for Firestones, Seiberlings, O’Neils, and the Goodriches. Eddie Thomas, president of Goodyear and Firestone right hand man, John W. Thomas, were often golfing partners and friends. In fact, Portage Country Club was well represented by the managers of Firestone, Goodyear, Goodrich, and General. This love of golf became a hallmark of the whole Akron-Canton corridor, which remains to this day. Summer cottages were necessary, but wealth brought winter vacations in Florida for many of the barons. Firestone fell in love with the Miami Beach area. In 1922, he had rented there to overcome an attack of pneumonia. In 1923, he built Harbel Villa. The winter estate had riding paths and a polo field. Over the years, Harvey spent more and more time there, expanding the office space. The Firestones often traveled to Fort Myers to join Edison and Ford at their summer homes. Harbel Villa had its own distinguished guests over the years. Charles Schwab, president of United States Steel and Bethlehem Steel, was a guest and business associate. Industrialists like Schwab soon followed Firestone in investing in the Miami Beach area. In fact, the winter season became a major season of wealthy parties in the area. In addition, Firestone would often call his Akron managers to Harbel Villa for conferences. Unfortunately, it also created an ever greater remoteness of the managers in Akron. As Firestone spend more and more time in Florida and northern Michigan, John W. Thomas became the key operating man at Firestone. Firestone wisely developed his managers in his own likeness. Thomas was a hometown boy with a chemistry degree from local Buchtel College. He had been handpicked by Firestone and had started in 1908, inspecting the quality of incoming rubber. Firestone developed his managers by rotating them through all functions in the process. Firestone even had Thomas spend time building tires by hand. By 1910, Thomas had become general superintendent of Firestone’s new Plant Number 2. Through the 1920s, Thomas functioned as vice president in charge of operations. Thomas played an important role as a hometown boy in keeping Firestone a local company as Harvey spent more time in Florida. Thomas was an avid golfer who was behind the founding of Firestone Country Club in 1930. The Firestone Country Club was open to all levels of management. Frank Seiberling’s Stan Hywet was always the social center of Akron.

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This eclectic Tudor mansion reflected its motto of Non Nobis Solum— Not For Us Alone. The Seiberlings were happy to have members of the community tour their home. Parties and picnics were common events at Stan Hywet. Stan Hywet was more than an architectural mansion; it was the vision of Frank and Gertrude Seiberling. Gertrude was well prepared for the task, having a degree from Akron’s Buchtel College in landscape architecture and interior decorating. Frank and Gertrude toured mansions in Europe with their architects, stretching architectural designs. They also brought home pieces and antiques to decorate their home. The mansion and grounds required over 30 employees including a full time superintendent of grounds, chauffer, chef, butler, gardeners, cooks and maids. Gertrude assured a beautiful harmony of the mansion and grounds. The house was built for lawn parties and indoor dancing and musicals. The centerpiece of the Music Room was a 1773 harpsichord. The main source of music, however, was a 2,650 pipe Aeolian organ. Gertrude was a wonderful singer and would often be part of the entertainment. She had a major hand in the landscape that included an English garden, Japanese garden, and a Great Meadow. The estate grounds covered 70 acres. The Seiberlings spend most of the year in Akron when the other barons had summer homes and winter cottages in the South. The house had an integrated relationship with the landscape with porticos and beautiful vistas that even today make it popular for weddings. The Seiberlings contacted the U.S. Naval Observatory to arrange the house to get the sun needed maximize the sunlight in the breakfast room.2 There was also a five-hole golf course, tennis courts, and pools. There was a lagoon and teahouses. Like the Firestones, the Seiberling had extensive stables for horses. There were areas for other outdoor activities including an archery field, bridle paths, a bowling green, and a croquet lawn. The mansion was designed to be a summer home in an era lacking air conditioning with porches off the main bedroom suites for sleeping. The high ceilings, porches, and many windows allowed for a continuous flow of air in the summer. Still the family did have a summer cottage in northern Michigan on the Les Cheneaux Island near Hassel, Michigan, but Frank stayed most of the summer at Stan Hywet because of work. Of course, Stan Hywet had its share of important visitors over the years, but the parties are best remembered in the community for their unique themes. The opening party of Stan Hywet was a costume ball. Two managers were hired to handle all the details of the party. Over two hundred guests came as characters of a Shakespeare play. The Music Room would seat 380. Guests included the other barons such as Harvey Firestone, Sam Miller (Mohawk Rubber), and O.C. Barber (founder of Diamond Rubber). The party would go to 6 o’clock in the morning when all sat down for breakfast. There would be many July 4 parties and weddings. Christmas grew over the

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years with the family to be a major event with over 80 family members alone. Mrs. Seiberling would plan the traditional Christmas plays, readings, and dinner. The grounds were light with many lights and decorations. Lighted Christmas sayings were another part of Gertrude’s design. She would start at 5 o’clock in the morning dropping gifts and favors at guests’ rooms. The fire in the great hall was prepared for the day. Santa “Fred” would side down into the balcony after a traditional German Yule log ceremony. Christmas bonuses were handed out to the staff as part of the celebration. Frank also held parties for his foremen and tours for their families. One year, the Seiberlings threw a party for anyone having lived in Akron for fifty years, and turnout was near four thousand. This was why the Seiberlings were integral to the community. They shared a love of Akron with its citizens. The Seiberlings struggled through the 1920s as Frank started all over again at 62 with Seiberling Rubber, but maintained giving back to the community. The family would live at Stan Hywet until 1955 when it was given to the community. Paul Litchfield, who had replaced Frank Seiberling at Goodyear, had become a true rubber baron with his Akron mansion but also tended to spend more and more time away from the city. Unlike Firestone, who built his vacation-retirement home in Florida, Litchfield choose Arizona. Litchfield and Goodyear had ties with Arizona going back to 1916. Goodyear had purchased land to grow long staple cotton domestically. The Litchfield family took a trip to the area in 1919 and fell in love with it. Litchfield and Goodyear used irrigation to transform this desert area into a land of plants, trees, and flowers. Litchfield called this ranch La Loma, meaning hill. The estate would function as a meeting place for winter weary Akron executives. Akron was in a Great Lakes snow belt that made winters tough and long. Even Harvey Firestone would come to La Loma in the 1920s to discuss the raging price war between Goodyear and Firestone in a relaxed environment. The 1920s was a decade of more than just tires for the rubber companies, although this would always be the main focus of Firestone and Goodyear. America was becoming a society of consumers. New areas of endeavor became part of rubber’s story during the 1920s. For the two rubber giants B.F. Goodrich and U.S. Rubber, there was a movement away from the declining profit margins in tires into shoes, golf balls, rubberized clothing, and mechanical applications of rubber. Of course, both Goodrich and U.S. Rubber had built their companies on diversification. The company strengthened its footwear by heavy advertising of its Keds. U.S. Rubber erected an electric sign on New York’s Broadway. The sign alternatively flashed “Keds” and “Royal Cord Tires.” U.S. Rubber strengthened its golf ball sales with heavy advertising in magazines like Saturday Evening Post. Even Goodyear increased its rubber heel production, becoming the largest manufacturer of heels.

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U.S. Rubber’s Naugatuck Chemical Company, which had roots going back to Charles Goodyear, helped support this growing consumerism with the development of colored rubber. Bright colors became to be used in footwear, bathing caps, and toys. Goodrich had introduced red and white rubbers in 1913. Color soon became market driven. The development of colored rubber was one of the industry’s most difficult quests. B.F. Goodrich also developed colored rubber and expanded its footwear operations. Footwear was big business for both U.S. Rubber and Goodrich, reaching nearly 8 percent of their income. Goodrich’s footwear division was turning out 34,000 pairs of shoes per day by the end of the decade. Colored rubber was just one of the many research advances of Goodrich and U.S. Rubber. U.S. Rubber’s Mishawaka, Indiana, plant soon took leadership in colored footwear. This research supported the diversification of both companies while Firestone and Goodyear focused on tires. Firestone did make a brief entrance into rubber shoes by buying Apsley Rubber of Massachusetts, but Firestone never really developed its shoe business to segment it to a division level. Firestone never varied much from tires, but Goodyear did have some old roots in the aircraft industry, which had started with airplane tires. In the previous decade, Goodyear had supplied aviation greats such as Wright, Curtiss, and Martin. The end of the decade brought a renewed interest in aeronautics at Goodyear. In 1926, Paul Litchfield became Goodyear’s president, returning it into the hands of Akron once again. Litchfield was passionate about all types of aviation. Litchfield had led Goodyear’s aircraft development during the First World War and in the mid–1920s, Goodyear strengthened and expanded its aeronautics division. From his earliest days, Litchfield had a fascination with lighter-than-air craft. He had watched balloon races in Europe over the years. Lighter-than-air craft were divided into three categories. First were non-rigid balloons that were popular in European races and often called blimps. The second category was the semi-rigids that had some structure and motorized controls. Finally, there was the rigid or Zeppelin type known as dirigibles. Goodyear had produced motorized blimps in World War I for submarine detection. Goodyear’s Wingfoot Lake aeronautics division employed 2,000 during the war. In 1924, Goodyear won a government contract to continue the work of the Germans in the development of Zeppelins. Litchfield had remained one of the world’s dreamers about the future of these great airships and often jumped at the chance to make flights. Litchfield put together the GoodyearZeppelin Company by hiring Karl Arnstein, who had been Zeppelin’s chief engineer. Arnstein brought a group of other German engineers to Akron. Litchfield supported the use of inert non-explosive helium, while the German aircraft used hydrogen. The group produced America’s first rigid helium airship the Shenandoah, which had been ordered at the end of the war in 1919.

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Hopes ran high till the crash of the Shenandoah in Ohio in 1925 in a thunderstorm. More important was the little known transfer of German Zeppelin technology and patents after the war which was completed in 1924. Based on this technology, Goodyear built the Los Angeles airship for the United States Navy. The Los Angeles traveled the world gaining experience for Goodyear pilots. Still, the crash of the Shenandoah remained a negative for growth of the great airships. Litchfield remained passionate about the division. His research work at Akron’s Wingfoot Lake would become legendary as he brought in the best German engineers. The group advanced rubberized fabric as well as the metals needed for frames. In particular, they made many metallurgical advances in lightweight aluminum alloys. The crashes of the Goodyear airships made headlines and hurt the progress. Litchfield didn’t give in but went on to build the world’s biggest dirigible aircraft, the Akron. The airdock to support it was 22 stories high, being the largest without interior supports. The new airship was christened by Mrs. Herbert Hoover as more than a quarter million watched. Unfortunately, the Akron would crash in 1933 in New Jersey. A year later Goodyear’s airship Macon crashed. Still, Litchfield still believed in these large zeppelins. In 1937 Litchfield flew on the famous Hindenburg, but its famous crash later that year ended the hope of passenger-carrying zeppelins. Litchfield never fully gave up. A year later the German zeppelin innovator, Graf Zeppelin, visited Akron with the leaders of the German airship industry. Litchfield hosted a grand dinner at his mansion, the Anchorage, to celebrate. The government pulled the money for further development. Litchfield would argue years later that had his zeppelins been in the air, Pearl Harbor could have been saved. The Goodyear blimp today remains an iconic symbol of Akron and the rubber industry. B.F. Goodrich went a different direction by getting out of the blimp business after World War I. He focused on aircraft tires instead of the aircraft. Like Firestone with auto racing, Goodrich made his mark with the aircraft tires on Charles Lindbergh’s The Spirit of St. Louis in 1927. Goodrich’s aircraft business grew throughout the 1930s with their tires becoming standard equipment on Douglas Aircraft. Goodrich would expand into other aircraft products such as brakes. Goodrich expanded its research into aircraft systems and invented the first successful de-icing systems. Goodrich also produced shock absorbers, fuel hoses, and even engine mounts. Firestone and General Tire were the only ones of the Big Six that remained focused entirely on auto tire production. The decade of the 1920s ended with a more stable and available supply of rubber. The Stevenson Act was repealed in 1927 and Goodrich’s reclaiming of scarp rubber had taken about 10 percent of the required needs of the world.

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Diversification in rubber offered little advantage as the real growth was in auto tires. The rubber tire market, however, was a complex entity. The retail tire market had become one of heated competition in price and tire life. The price of a tire in 1926 was $29.00 and by the end of the decade it was $14.00. The retail market was a mess with Sears and Ward underselling the Goodrich’s brand stores. The rubber crisis and the plantation movement were noticed by the du Pont family in 1927 because of their interests in the auto industry. In the 1920s the du Ponts had taken control of General Motors, the largest user of rubber. Irene du Pont had been purchasing stock in U.S. Rubber since 1911, which was part of the relationship between U.S. Rubber and General Motors. The U.S. Rubber’s Detroit tire plant was one of the world’s biggest makers of tires. The family had also been investing in chemical rubber reclaiming processes as early as 1910. The cost of tires was a major part of the auto price structure. The du Pont family was reorganizing General Motors at the time and looking to cut costs and vertically integrate to compete with Ford. Du Pont looked to align U.S. Rubber more with General Motors, but that would attract the interest of the Justice Department in the 1930s. Henry Ford had even once looked at vertically integrating into tires. Du Pont firmly believed they had a management system that would improve any industry. Furthermore, du Pont believed it could capitalize on the international movement in rubber tires. The domestic price wars forced the rubber tire companies to look internationally to increase profits. The 1920s represented a major shift to the development of multinational rubber companies. Michelin of France had been the first truly international rubber company. Michelin entered the American, British, and Canadian markets by 1906. The American companies quickly countered. B.F. Goodrich established a manufacturing plant in France in 1910 followed in the early 1920s with plants in England and Canada. B.F. Goodrich also established partnership agreements with Continental of Germany (1920) and Yokohama Rubber of Japan (1917). U.S. Rubber moved into Canada in 1907 followed by Goodyear in 1910 and Firestone in 1919. The American companies expanded branch offices and manufacturing throughout the world in the 1920s. The tire wars were becoming an international issue. The late 1920s saw a rush of tire companies from around the world to build in England, Australia, and Canada. The British were very dependent on their huge rubber industry. Britain had been the world’s voice of free trade for decades, but the rubber industry was too important to go unprotected. The British manufacturers obtained a 33 percent ad valorem duty rate for rubber tires. The effect was to have foreign companies such as Goodyear, Michelin, Pirelli, Firestone, and others build on British soil to hold (and actually increase) their British sales and go head on with Dunlop.

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The start of the 1930s was a continued battle for market share in the tire industry. U.S. Rubber had a huge edge through the du Pont family, which owned substantial stock in U.S. Rubber and General Motors. General Motors was even considering getting into the tire business. U.S. Rubber, on the other hand, had lost much of the General Motors business to Goodyear. Goodyear had also taken over all the Chrysler business from U.S. Rubber in the 1920s. With Firestone’s personal relationship with Ford, U.S. Rubber had fallen behind in original equipment sales and dropped to fourth place behind B.F. Goodrich with its Sears account in the total tire market. In addition, the replacement market had even more competition such as General Tire. U.S. Rubber had started to lose money going into the Great Depression. The auto market continued some expansion in the Depression as cars were becoming a necessity. It offered the only way to profitability for U.S. Rubber. Tires were still king in the rubber industry.

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Social and Community Reforms The 1920s and 1930s was the age of the barons in leaving their mark on their communities, sometimes in very unexpected ways. Names like Firestone, Goodyear, Seiberling, and Goodrich are part of our American lexicon, but they are also part of a worldwide lexicon of an anonymous group of millions. The barons loved their communities and donated much to the infrastructures of those communities. However, for the Firestone and Seiberling families their biggest legacy is the least known. It is a legacy that brings tens of thousands from all over the world to Akron every year. It is a legacy that has outlived their companies. It is a legacy that brings far more visitors to the Seiberling estate each year than any tourist group or history buffs. The Seiberling name has been lost to many Americans today, but in an international group of millions it is well known for something other than the rubber industry. The Akron rubber barons played both direct and indirect roles in the formation and spread of the century’s greatest social movements. In particular, the Oxford movement and Alcoholics Anonymous were a result of the families of barons. These events made the barons part of the community at a different level than most industrialists. Alcoholics Anonymous would have deep roots in both the Firestone and Seiberling families, and Akron is now the birthplace of Alcoholic Anonymous. Akron every year is flooded with tens of thousands of AA members, who visit the very founding location at the Seiberling estate. For most of the world, Seiberling’s name and connection with the founding of Goodyear Tire & Rubber is long forgotten; but not so for the many millions of AA members throughout the world. Harvey Firestone, Frank Seiberling, and Bill O’Neil built more than physical factories; they built community. Their roles in Alcoholics Anonymous followed their roles in community service and are a lasting legacy for all the families. The Firestone and Seiberling families were a major part of the Akron community in the 1930s during the Depression. Both families were on city 154

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planning boards and the hospital commission. Both contributed to the building of St. Thomas Hospital (as did the O’Neil family) and Children’s Hospital. Seiberling help found Peoples Hospital. Firestone gave $350,000 to the Akron City Hospital to build Idabelle Firestone Nurses’ Home. Akron City Hospital had originally been built by O.C. Barber, founder of Diamond Rubber. It wasn’t just hospitals, schools, and buildings; it was personal, too. There were many personal stories of the barons helping in the community. When a nearby Canton, Ohio, tire dealer who had been with Firestone since the early days was faced with bankruptcy, Harvey Firestone gave him a check for $25,000 to stay in business. Firestone was known on the streets of Akron and much beloved. A daughter of one of Firestone’s managers described her 1950s experience growing up in Akron this way: We banked at the Firestone Bank, bought life insurance and auto insurance from Firestone Insurance Agency, shopped at the Firestone Employees Store or the stores on Aster Avenue — the street Harvey set aside for the business district when he built his town. We were members of the Firestone Clubhouse (where I learned to bowl and swim), and tossed baseballs with my friends at the Firestone Park Stadium, where Harvey’s workers played against teams from other plants in the city. On Sunday mornings, most people and people in the Park attended Firestone Presbyterian Church or Firestone Park Methodist Church, both located just a few yards west of the actual park at the center of our community, a park with swings and tennis courts, a baseball diamond and a shelter house…. All the kids in Firestone Park went to Firestone Park Elementary School.1

The Seiberlings, more than the other rubber families, were part of the fabric of Akron. While the Firestones were often in Florida, the Seiberlings tended to entertain at their Akron estate — Stan Hywet. Of course, the twenties and thirties were tough times for the Seiberling family, but Frank recovered from his loss of Goodyear and new startup of Seiberling Rubber. Frank was able to sell his Goodyear stock for $5 million in 1928 before the stock market crash. Still, Seiberling Rubber was near bankruptcy by the mid–1930s. During all the problems, the Seiberling family remained involved in the community and remain part of Akron to this day. They saw Akron’s founding, its evolution as the Rubber City, and its decline. Their own financial affairs followed that of the rubber industry. In the end Frank Seiberling’s estate and family had little to give to the community except their land. The huge estate of hundreds of acres was given to the city park system as was Stan Hywet. The family remained active in the development of the area and community. It would be grandson John F. Seiberling, who, as a U.S. congressman, expanded the beauty of the area through fulfilling Frank Seiberling’s dream. John F. Seiberling forced legislation for the creation of a thirty-three-thousand-acre Cuyahoga Valley National Recre-

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ation Area in 1974. This national park was the fulfillment of a plan by F.A. Seiberling in 1925 while he served on the regional park board. Seiberling saw his company and community as one. He also pioneered a community oriented company with social and housing programs for his workers. Similarly, Harvey Firestone built an employee oriented company. Firestone’s friendship with Ford led to an array of social programs for his workers, which Ford often pioneered at his factories. Firestone made progress in the hiring of substandard or disabled men to fill standard jobs. Firestone really modeled this program after one by Henry Ford. These men were paid full wages and trained to do even the high paying tire building jobs. Deaf workers, for example, were capable of performing most jobs in manufacturing. They were particularly wanted, and Goodyear Company followed Firestone’s lead. The Rubber City earned the title of “Crossroads of the Deaf.” These programs of Firestone and Goodyear paid off handsomely in the labor shortages of World War II. Firestone also expanded his health care programs for workers. He became interested in the development of true company workers. Crosstraining programs, job rotation, and college cooperative programs were developed to this end. However, Firestone’s and the rubber barons’ biggest impact on the community is one of the least published except in a select subset of the nation. The gum mills of Akron were known for their alcohol problems. The 1930s saw an explosion in alcoholism that honored no class boundaries or social status. Tire makers who met their quota often ended the shift at the local gin mill. Alcohol helped cut the pressure of quotas and toxic working conditions. These were tough times for all, and the Firestone family was touched by one of the growing problems of the times. Firestone’s second oldest son, Bud, was addicted to alcohol, spending long nights at the Portage Country Club bar. Bud had been in and out of institutions without success. He was a company director and department head, but he would disappear for days because of his drinking. It was breaking Harvey Firestone’s heart, and he believed it to be a hopeless case. Harvey tried everything to sober up Bud without success. It would be one of Harvey’s executives and close friend James Newton who made the difference in Bud Firestone’s life. James Newton was a young real estate developer in Florida and had come to know his neighbors, the Edisons and Fords, in the 1920s. He became part of the Vagabonds and their friends in Florida. He soon came to know their friend, Harvey Firestone, and went to work for Firestone in 1928 as his personal assistant. Firestone had been impressed by the active Christianity of Newton’s life. Newton worked through several positions at Firestone Tire & Rubber as he became a close friend to the family. Newton had been earlier working in the East where he got involved with several related Christian movements — the Oxford Group

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and the Moral Rearmament Movement. Both of these popular spiritual movements had grown out of Frank Buchman’s First Century Christian Fellowship of two decades earlier. All of these movements had become popular with businessmen looking to have a spiritual re-awakening in their lives. When Firestone brought Newton to Akron, Newton brought his activism to Firestone’s church, St. Paul Episcopal Church. Newton would work with St. Paul’s Reverend Dr. Walter Tunks to establish the Oxford Group locally. The Oxford Group specializing in changing the lives of well-known community men as a means of bringing more back to Christ. The Oxford Group would experience rapid growth in the Cleveland-Akron area. Many of the early founders of Alcoholics Anonymous were some of the members of these first Oxford meetings. The Oxford meetings were known as house parties and were often held at the homes of rubber executives such as Frank Seiberling. The meetings were Bible based but active in addressing hopeless cases of alcoholism. In the early 1930s, Newton became very close to the Firestone family, in particular, Firestone’s second son Russell “Bud.” Bud was well known at the Portage Country Club bar and was a social outing problem and embarrassment for the whole family. His behavior was also well known around the town. Bud was drinking a fifth of whiskey or more every day and was the perfect candidate for the life changing process of the Oxford Group. It would be James Newton who would invite Bud to go with him to an Oxford Group Conference in Denver. Newton had to carry liquor on the train so that Bud would not suffer from withdrawal. This conference would be the start of getting Bud sober using the methodology of the Oxford Group. The Oxford Group had a simple approach of surrendering the problem to God. The conference would lead to an amazing change. Bud was able to change his life and became active in the Cleveland Oxford Group. Harvey Firestone was so impressed in the change in his son that he sponsored a tenday Oxford Group Conference in Akron. Firestone held a dinner to bring together 400 community and church leaders with the Oxford approach. The Seiberling family became active at that conference as well. Another major meeting between church, community, and national Oxford Group members was held at the Seiberling mansion of Stan Hywet. The Stan Hywet meeting included a tell-all by Bud Firestone. This would be the foundation of the future founding of Alcoholics Anonymous in Akron. Firestone’s ten-day mission created a number of local Oxford Group meetings in 1933. Harvey Firestone was quoted as saying, “It has brought religion in a very vivid way. It is through the Groups that I have been brought a very great happiness. It has brought my family closer to God.”2 Weekly Oxford meetings became commonplace in the Akron area. Bud would be a speaker at these meetings, talking freely of his prior life and his transformation.

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The Oxford Group was not just for alcoholics; it focused on applying Christianity to modern living. The meetings used the Bible and the book Sermon on the Mount to transform lives. The Firestone and Seiberling families helped supply meeting places and some limited financial help. It was the groups’ own rules that prevented large donations, fearing control. One of these was the West Hill meeting that included Henrietta Seiberling, daughter-in-law of F.A. Seiberling. Henrietta was not herself an alcoholic but wanted to work in the movement. She often arranged meeting places such as the Seiberling mansion gatehouse. Henrietta had three teenage children who were also members of the Oxford Group. One of these, John F. Seiberling, would become a United States congressman. One of the early members of Henrietta’s West Hill meeting was an Akron doctor, Bob Smith, who was struggling with alcoholism. Doctor Smith was gaining a reputation as a drunk. Bob Smith had managed to slow down his drinking, but he was far from sober. Henrietta Seiberling had been personally working and praying to help Bob Smith but with only moderate success. That would all change on May 11, 1935. It was that day in May that a New England businessman was on a business trip to Akron. Thanks to the Firestones and the work of Henrietta Seiberling, the Oxford Group of the Akron-Cleveland area was gaining a reputation for its work with alcoholics. Bill Wilson was on a business trip to Akron and staying at the Mayflower Hotel. Wilson had some experience with the Oxford Group in New York and was trying to stay sober. Feeling a bit shaky he called the Oxford Group connection, Dr. Tunks, at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church. Tunks in turn got him in touch with Henrietta Seiberling. Henrietta arranged to have Bill Wilson meet Doctor Bob Smith at the Seiberling Gatehouse where she lived. This meeting is now hailed as the beginning of Alcoholics Anonymous. Henrietta arranged for Wilson to stay in Akron at the Portage Country Club after the meeting to help Doctor Smith remain sober. Doctor Smith’s last drink would be June 10, 1935, which is now considered the birthdate of Alcoholics Anonymous. Doctor Bob Smith and Bill Wilson would go on to form a different approach based on the Oxford Group. While Henrietta Seiberling and Bud Firestone remained active in the Oxford Group, Smith and Wilson took the movement to alcoholics, breaking away to some degree from a purely Christian movement. However, the remnants of Henrietta’s West Hill Group would become a seed organization for the new AA movement. Many AA groups to this day can trace their roots to the West Hill meetings of Henrietta Seiberling. This new approach would then grow out of Akron and New York into a national movement by 1940. However, new city leaders were often brought to Akron for a type of training. Doctor Smith’s Akron home for many years functioned as corporate headquarters. The rapid spread of the AA message

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around the nation was attributed to Bud Firestone and Jim Newton.3 AA never asked for or wanted financial aid from Firestone, but Bud’s personal involvement and local churches built the organization’s foundation. Many attribute much of the nature of the AA meetings to Henrietta Seiberling. Henrietta was a Bible reader, and early AA meetings focused on the reading of the Book of James. The earliest meetings were known as the alcoholic squad of the Oxford Group, but Henrietta as much as anyone injected Christian readings. Many of Henrietta’s suggested readings would later be incorporated in AA’s own publication. As AA moved further away from the Oxford Group, Henrietta’s role decreased, although she did help organize the very first Doctor Bob Smith Day, which has today evolved into the organization’s annual international celebration of Founder’s Day in Akron. The connection of the barons to the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous didn’t stop with Firestone and Seiberling. The community gift and support of Akron’s St. Thomas Hospital by the O’Neil family would have its own unique part of the story. Doctor Bob Smith was on staff at St. Thomas Hospital earlier, but it was another staffer, Sister Ignatia, who would play a major role in the treatment of alcoholics. Sister Ignatia had been working with alcoholics at the hospital for several years but had no official mission. Alcoholism was not considered a medical issue in those days. Doctor Smith had tried unsuccessfully to get hospitals to help him with drunks in his AA groups. Hospitals did not want these immoral characters around the truly sick. Doctor Smith got the interest of Sister Ignatia at St. Thomas. Sister Ignatia had been working on her own with alcoholics and had been interested in the Oxford Group. The Oxford Group was a protestant movement and not open to practicing Catholics. However, AA was open to men of all faiths. Sister Ignatia first wanted to check out AA, so she had a priest friend attend the first AA group meetings at Akron’s King School. Father Vincent Haas was completely impressed, finding common bond between A A and Catholicism. Doctor Smith and Sister Ignatia teamed up to start a type of informal alcoholic ward at St. Thomas. They were able to treat the physical needs and team up with AA meetings to achieve some amazing success. It was at St. Thomas that the new organization of AA found a partnership. St. Thomas would soon become a model for the nation in the treatment of alcoholics. The Rubber City by the 1950s was known throughout the world as the birthplace of AA. Jim Newton in 1936 asked Harvey Firestone for a leave of absence to spread the message of the Oxford Group around the world. Newton had a vision that Oxford principles could change the fighting between labor and capital. It was an idea wholly supported by Harvey Firestone and his friends Henry Ford and Thomas Edison.

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Newton started a worldwide tour to discuss Oxford principles with the heads of business. After many talks with Firestone and Ford, Newton hoped to bring peace and Christian principles to the growing radicalism of the union movement. Unfortunately, it would be Akron that would become the battlefield for capital and labor.

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The Taming of the Lions —1930s The 1930s would challenge the great industrial barons of America. Age and economic depression would take a heavy toll. First came the death of Thomas Edison in 1931, a symbolic end of an era. In 1932, Harvey Firestone passed the active control of Firestone Tire & Rubber to his right hand man, John W. Thomas. Then labor and the government would challenge the control of the factory floor. The New Deal was pushing for unionization, and the Committee for Industrial Organization was ready to challenge America’s biggest industries. This unionization truly was not about money because the rubber workers were the highest paid in America. The barons who had actually doubled the wages in the rubber industry and gave so much to the community felt betrayed, but this movement was not personal. The workers didn’t want more money or even more hospitals; they wanted the control and freedom that the barons had in their lives. The more radical workers saw the community gifts of the barons as part of their feudal system of control. The 1930s brought America’s greatest economic downturn to a fractured rubber industry. Two of the top ten rubber companies, Fisk and KellySpringfield, went bankrupt along with many smaller ones such as Swinehart, Marathon, Star, and Portage in the Akron area. Michelin’s only American factory closed. Goodyear-Sears and U.S. Rubber–Ward had a two tier price system that was creating manufacturing losses through extended price wars. Firestone, independent retailers, and the gasoline companies would take their case to the Federal Trade Commission, and the Justice Department filed suit. Rubber company losses put pressure to cut jobs and speed up work. Akron’s unemployment reached an amazing 60 percent. Akron rubber workers joined the union movement sweeping the country. It was the waning years of the great rubber families of the Firestones, O’Neils, Goodriches, and Seiberlings. With the exception of Firestone, New York banks increased their control over Akron’s rubber companies. The growth rubber company of the 1930s would have to be Bill O’Neil’s 161

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General Tire and Rubber while, like the other rubber companies, few profits were reported. General Tire had been successful in the replacement passenger tire market but couldn’t gain much market share with Firestone, Goodyear, Goodrich, and U.S. Rubber holding their own. General turned to the balloon tire market for trucks. It honed its sales and manufacturing to win a share in the truck market. General’s research focused on the development of cheaper truck tire manufacturing, and they proved successful by cutting costs 50 percent with the drum method. The automation, however, would not be popular with labor in the Great Depression. General’s lower truck tire prices brought success and General Tire signed on as an original equipment supplier with International Harvester followed by other manufacturers. General Tire’s truck emphasis created a process for recapping (retreading) tires, which fit the older business model of consumer markets. General also started the production of rubber mudflaps. Another part of Bill O’Neil’s truck tire business included a focus on the small truck companies and family owned operations. O’Neil offered loans to help them in these difficult years. Credit became a key part of O’Neil’s 1930s business model, which proved highly successful. O’Neil expanded into big city bus lines offering leased tires on a mileage basis. He offered the same leasing deals to taxi cab companies. Leasing was possible because of the consistent high quality of General’s manufactured ties. General Tire actually strengthened its sales base throughout the Great Depression. By 1940, General was the largest manufacturer of highway truck tires. While the big rubber companies survived the Great Depression with the exception of Kelly-Springfield (number 6), the industry was changed; and of the smaller 141 companies, only 25 would survive. Total rubber sales went from $838,406,000 in 1928 to $351,770,000 in 1933. Rubber industry employment during the same period dropped from 83,263 to 44,710. In Akron, there were 58,316 rubber workers in 1928, and in 1933 there were only 33,285 rubber workers in the city. Mid-size Akron tire companies such as American Tire founded in 1912 failed. Goodyear was making 75,000 tires a day in 1929, but in 1933 it was down to 25,000 tires a day. Akron’s Swinehart Tire and Rubber, founded in 1904, also failed in the 1929. In 1911 Swinehart had ranked sixth among Akron’s rubber companies but was always a truly local company. The Depression of the 1930s created manufacturing losses, a price war, government controls, and a wave of unionization in the rubber industry. The industry price war was driven by Goodyear’s arrangement with Sears. Sears was underselling everyone, including Goodyear dealers. U.S. Rubber started a major price cutting response. The Federal Trade Commission and finally Congress stepped in the end the arrangement in 1935. Prices once again rose. In the early 1930s, the government became convinced that competition was the problem with the economy instead of a symptom.

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The 1930s were devastating to all segments of the rubber industry. U.S. Rubber was the major manufacturer of rubber footwear. The footwear segment was hit by a mild winter in 1931, which crushed the footwear market. Goodyear’s footwear division was working at 40 percent capacity in 1931. In addition, cheap labor in Japan and Czechoslovakia created a flood of rubber footwear into the United States. U.S. Rubber was manufacturing footwear at 20 percent capacity with obsolete factories. Like tires, the 1930s sparked a price war. U.S. Rubber was forced to close eleven plants. Production was concentrated at its oldest plants of Goodyear Metallic Shoe and Goodyear India Rubber at Naugatuck. U.S. Rubber proved the best of the big rubber companies at controlling footwear inventory; still, during the Depression it struggled for survival. The problem was with style and overshoes that changed season to season creating obsolete inventory. U.S. Rubber’s Mishawaka, Indiana, plant developed a marketing and operating plan to adjust to changes in styles. The plant continued making its Red Ball brand. U.S. Rubber worked through its old IBM ties (via Charles Flint) to greatly reduce production costs. At U.S. Rubber’s New York headquarters, huge flashing electrical signs were used to advertise Keds. By the end of the thirties, U.S. Rubber turned things around with cost cutting and aggressive marketing of Keds. The rubber market was a mess by 1932. The government passed the National Recovery Act (NRA) in 1933 to control rubber prices and allocate sales. The act gave the government unusual powers to control the market. Two of the old lions, Frank Seiberling and Harvey Firestone, would challenge full government market control. The early 1930s were destroying the rubber industry. Rubber prices were unstable, price cutting was out of control, and big retailers such as Sears, Montgomery Ward, Standard Oil, Western Auto Supply, and PEP Boys were getting special contracts. Firestone was the only company of the Big Four that would not participate in these special contracts. The market was also destroying smaller companies such as Seiberling Rubber, Mohawk Rubber, and Fisk Rubber. Frank Seiberling was made the spokesman for the smaller manufacturers. The NRA would bring together Seiberling and Firestone, who, after being friends for years, were not talking to one another. The government had a plan to allocate business and hold up prices. This favored the Big Three of U.S. Rubber, Goodrich, and Goodyear. Firestone was number 4 but wanted more as did the smaller companies such as Seiberling Rubber. Frank Seiberling’s strategy was able to frustrate the move to government control.1 Seiberling, however, made enemies with the big retailers, Big Three, and the Roosevelt administration. Firestone also opposed the government to the point of major lawsuits. Seiberling would be punished years later by the same administration that blocked Seiberling Rubber from participating in the government’s synthetic rubber program.

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While U.S. Rubber and Goodrich continued their support of the Roosevelt administration, Goodyear and Paul Litchfield soon turned against the expansion of government involvement in the industry. The bank involvement in U.S. Rubber and Goodrich wanted the stability of government price controls and market allocation for the Big Three. Litchfield, a crusader against socialism, differed with the Goodyear board which stood to gain from government control with its Sears contract. Paul Litchfield reminisced, “The National Recovery Act was the first step in government control of business, and perhaps the most socialistic of the New Deal policies. Here government stepped in to eliminate competition between business houses, permit everybody, efficient or inefficient, to make a profit. This was nothing but the cartel system of Europe, the thing that had dampened initiative and competition there, in direct contrast to our American system. NRA failed because it lost sight of the consumer, the center around whom the whole system evolves.”2 With most of the steel, glass, and oil barons gone, the rubber barons became spokesmen for free enterprise in a time when capitalism was under attack. The Depression of the 1930s was often pointed to as a failure of American free enterprise. Paul Litchfield summarized the concept of capitalism: “Strictly speaking, it is not a system at all. It is merely the right of an individual to earn his living in any way he chooses (except force or fraud), using the gifts God gave him — and to keep what he makes. Freedom is the essence of it, and the incentives it offers. Men of accomplishment is the thing that gives it life and vitality.”3 This was the strong belief that made them oppose unionization. It also created an unnatural fear of unionization. They incorrectly equated it with a loss of freedom versus a necessary protection. The National Recovery Act of 1933 (NRA) opened the door to unionization of the rubber, steel, and auto industries. Bill O’Neil and General Tire would be the first to feel the wave of unionization. The Akron rubber workers had been loosely united in the American Federation of Labor (AFL) with 25,000 members in the area. The American Federation of Labor tended to support the crafts system that had the highest paid and skilled workers. The AFL lacked the solidarity to effectively challenge the rubber companies. The NRA became the rallying cry for unionists. It would be a very tough struggle — Firestone, Goodyear, Goodrich, and General had company unions known as yellow unions. These company unions had been developed during World War I to avoid the Wilson administration’s imposing a union representation. Goodyear had maintained this structure of an Industrial Assembly. This approach used a democratic representation plan to work out employee problems. In addition, the companies generally treated their employees well. Harvey Firestone was still living and was much admired by his workers. With its paternal capitalism, Firestone offered medical and dental coverage, recreational

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facilities, savings banks, housing, and a country club. Firestone also offered an employee stock program. Like Goodyear, Firestone offered a unwritten agreement of a job for life. This of course required a type of company loyalty in return. Managers in the industry that were loyal were often called gumdipped. A daughter of a Firestone manager in the 1950s described it: “There was an understanding at Firestone — at least my dad used to say it this way — that if were loyal to the company and its values (gum-dipped in other words), you would have a job for life.”4 Loyalists were also offered career advancement from sweeper to company officer. The rubber employees hardly represented the oppressed masses. In fact, the poor immigrants of West Virginia barely spend a generation at the lowest rung on the ladder. College educated sons of rubber workers were the biggest percent of the rubber industry’s white collar workers. Goodyear, with its dynamic leader, Paul Litchfield, had the strongest anti-union forces with its Industrial Assembly from World War I and its Flying Squadron of loyalists. Litchfield opposed any form of pay by service, wanting a merit based system. Litchfield had developed Goodyear’s Technical University to offer advancement for employees. Goodrich was the least paternal, but it had given citizenship to many. B.F. Goodrich took leadership in the 1910s in citizenship courses for immigrant workers. In 1917, Goodrich was the largest employer of immigrant workers with about half of its 7,250 workers being noncitizens. Besides paternal capitalism, which the union called welfare capitalism, the workers were divided by the crafts system, which favored the higher wage earners such as the tire builders. In fairness, paternal capitalism offered more than the union could give to the craftsmen. The problem with paternal capitalism was that it demanded a type of loyalty and favored the skilled or younger physically fit workers. It was intolerant of the radical worker or the perceived troublemaker. The fact was that both unionism and paternal capitalism had shortcomings and restrictions for the worker. In the first half of the 1930s, the rubber companies, particularly in Akron, increased their paternal capitalism. The companies supplied coal and food to needy families and sponsored community gardens to help workers grow food. The AFL had been unable to win employees over from the paternal capitalism because of this. One problem for the companies would be their work sharing programs. The programs moved the companies to put in six-hour shifts, saving thousands of jobs. Still, management believed the shorter shifts actually increased overall productivity, and the union would quickly oppose the plan. The union had little success until the second half of the decade. While the rubber workers were well paid and had many benefits, the workplace was changing. Automation, like that of truck tire production at General Tire, was eliminating jobs. Fear of job loss ruled the factories of the

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1930s. The old lions, such as Harvey Firestone, were more removed from the factory floor. Many families were divided with blue collar fathers and white collar sons. The unions did have major backing from the Roosevelt administration. Still, the union faced a tough fight in the proud Rubber City. The union’s first successes actually came outside Akron. Mansfield Tire in Ohio (40 miles from Akron) was the first tire plant to unionize. One of the nation’s oldest plants, U.S. Rubber’s Mishawaka plant in Indiana, was unionized in 1931 after 2,400 workers went on strike for three weeks. The dry winters of the 1930 and 1931 had destroyed footwear sales. The plant was in a weakened condition and required the Roosevelt administration to save it with protective tariffs. Mishawaka mainly made footwear, which was hit first and hardest by the Great Depression. Also, Japanese and Czechoslovakian imports flooded the footwear market. Imports required the anti-tariff Democratic New Dealers to step in with protective tariffs to save this segment of the rubber market. U.S. Rubber owed the government too much to keep on fighting. The victory would also bring U.S. Rubber to believe unionization to be inevitable and it started to look to conversion of its plants. The union gained footholds in many of these smaller plants. These were individual victories. The union needed the heart of the industry in Akron. The rubber industry and the steel industry, which represented a fort of paternal capitalism, dominated in northeast Ohio, eastern Ohio, southwest Pennsylvania, and northern West Virginia. Unionists, Labor Party activists, socialists, New Dealers, and labor leaders saw this fort as the key to unionizing heavy industry in America. New Deal legislation rallied a diverse group under the slogan, “President Roosevelt wants you to organize.” By the end of 1933, the unions had an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 members in the rubber mills. The rubber barons were anti–New Deal and Bill O’Neil, in particular, was outspoken on any type of government involvement. Litchfield and Firestone weren’t far behind. Akron soon became the battleground of the nation as union organizers flooded the city of Akron. Hotels rooms were at a premium once again. Now there was talk of a stronger union effort in the Committee for Industrial Organization (CIO) that could take on the rubber barons and the companies. The CIO was in its embryonic stages of bringing together eight international unions under the guidance of John Lewis. It was clear that unions would have to move from a crafts model to an industrial model. In addition, solidarity was needed, which required opening membership to all workers, even African Americans. The addition of African Americans was not a plus in the Akron area, but there were few blacks to make it much of a local issue. The unions also united their political arm behind the Roosevelt administration. John Lewis would come to Akron to preach this new approach. A group of creative unionists at General Tire would strike first in 1934.

Automated inner tube production, 1939.

General’s plant was struggling to stay open and had cut wages (like most of the rubber companies). General Tire with its new automation was a likely place to hit. These AFL unionists of the CIO had seen their efforts defeated in all the major industries, so they planned every move. In the past, the men would go on strike, and they would be replaced by scab workers. This strike would be different; they would be a sit-down strike of the workers by the

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machines stopping production and preventing scab replacements. Buckets and ropes were used to get food to the workers. They might have picked the toughest baron in General’s Bill O’Neil. Bill was a big Irishman with a temper, and this was his company and his town. O’Neil’s view of the union was shared by Paul Litchfield at Goodyear, the Firestones, and Frank Seiberling. In fact, their view was common with all industrialists such as Henry Ford, Andrew Carnegie, Charles Schwab, H.J. Heinz, George Westinghouse, and John Rockefeller. With these great titans, it was often more about control of the company versus wages. In fact, while conditions were terrible and hours long, workers in rubber, auto, and steel were some of the highest paid in the nation. The workers, however, didn’t like the freedom at which wages were reduced in bad times. Also automation had been a source of job loss the workers had no say in, and the workers wanted more say in wages and conditions. The barons had been generous to the community, but paternal capitalism was part strategy, too. In the end, it was a matter of control more than anything else. Both sides wanted decision making authority on the factory floor. The sit down strike at General had started over wage reduction. At first slow business seemed to allow for patience with the strike on the company’s side. O’Neil had had it in a few weeks, however. He took the strikers to his living room to talk it out with coffee and sandwiches. He was tough but full of Irish charm, too. He ordered in sandwiches from the plush Portage Country Club. After twelve hours, the men got a raise and more union say with the company. Bill ended it with a company beer party.5 This would be the same approach for Frank Seiberling at Seiberling Rubber. While the General settlement was a true compromise, the outside activists framed it as a victory. Goodyear and Firestone might offer a big break through after General. Unlike General, Firestone and Goodyear had plants outside of Akron where production could be shifted. While Paul Litchfield at Goodyear was cut from the same cloth, Goodyear was no longer considered a hometown company like General Tire and Seiberling Rubber. Harvey Firestone was similar, but success had taken him to the beaches of Florida more often, and workers saw him as more and more removed. Firestone and Goodyear strengthened their resistance to the union after the General Tire victory. Ex–Ohio Guardsmen were hired, and barbed wire was put around the factories. Goodyear’s Flying Squadron was drilling with rifles at Goodyear Hall. Company spies were everywhere. Goodyear paid as much as $200 a month for spies. Searchlights and machine guns were put in place. Temporary housing was prepared for potential strikebreakers. Massive amounts of food were brought in. The sheriff hired 1,000 deputies to assure pickets would block the gates. The companies refused informal demands by the government to have a union vote. The company used injunctions to block

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government moves to force an election via legal action. When a strike vote was taken at Firestone, the union lost it by a few votes. The National Labor Relations Act of 1935 (Wagner Act) changed the playing field. It would end decades of struggle for heavy industries to unionize employees. This act changed the very landscape of labor in the United States in hopes of avoiding widespread social unrest during the Great Depression. The Wagner Act would usher in a wave of unionization in the steel, automotive, rubber, mining, and electrical industries. At the start of the 1930s, less than 10 percent of America’s labor force was unionized; after the 1935 passage of the Wagner Act, the decade ended at 35 percent of the labor force unionized. The act established a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to implement and oversee the Wagner Act. The rubber and steel industries were targeted by the national unions through the Committee of Industrial Organization. Union leaders in Akron were prepared and called for a meeting of the rubber workers at the Portage Hotel. This union meeting would become an internal struggle for which organization would represent the workers. The Rubber Workers Union was part of the AFL. The AFL, like previous unions, had a record of failed strikes. The AFL tried to hold on, but the meeting resulted in the formation of the United Rubber Workers under the guidance of the CIO. The United Rubber Workers grew quickly in the Rubber City, pushing the AFL out. Still, the companies remained united against any acceptance of the union. Paul Litchfield and Goodyear, in particular, believed in their company union known as the Industrial Assembly, which had been formed in 1919 to counter the government’s effort to force unions on defense suppliers. The company union of Goodyear was a direct challenge to the newly formed United Rubber Workers and would lead to the new union’s first strike for recognition. In addition, Litchfield’s highly motivated, loyalist Flying Squadron presented a major affront to unionization. If production was too slow, the Squadron might be brought in to speed things up. On the other hand, the union threatened the favorable status of the Squadron. Still, Goodyear had been a paternal organization to work for under Seiberling and Litchfield. Some of that goodwill had disappeared when Frank Seiberling lost the company in 1921. The year 1936 would be a good one for the companies with Goodyear’s price war ending and a spike in car sales. Rubber plants were running at 90 percent capacity, making it the right time for the newly formed union to strike for recognition. The first test came at Firestone’s Plant Number 1 when a group of tire builders held a three day strike for union recognition. Again the United Rubber Workers used the sit-down strike. Firestone settled it quickly without recognition, but the union had a cause in search of an event. Goodyear would supply the event in mid–February. During 1936, B.F. Goodrich suffered from small sit-down strikes as well. Things gained momentum

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when John Lewis, president of the United Mine Workers and head of the Committee of Industrial Organizations, came to Akron in January of 1936. Lewis had huge support among Akron’s West Virginia immigrants. Goodyear and the rest of the Akron companies had instituted a six-hour day in the worst of the Depression to save jobs. Now Goodyear, with more orders, wanted to move back to the eight-hour day. Management also realized it needed to pick up production. It created two problems. First, fewer workers would be called back, but more important was its effect on the princes of the rubber factory, the tire builders, who estimated that under the new system they would work more hours for the same money. The tire builders were in a position to shut down a whole plant and started a small sit-down strike. There were a small number of activists and communists in the union as well. Now the tire builders and crafts workers were together with the unskilled laborers under the leadership of the CIO. By the end of January 1936, small sit-down strikes hit Firestone, Goodrich, and Goodyear. Small victories were won on departmental bases. By February, the union was ready for a more traditional strike at the heart of the anti-union movement — Goodyear. If Goodyear fell, so would the whole industry. The strike this time blew up at Goodyear Plant Number 2 with management employees blocked inside trying to work and the gates blocked by hundreds of picketers preventing help from entering. Goodyear was particularly problematic with its loyalist Flying Squadron men as well as the Industrial Assembly of the workers. Goodyear had clearly become the target for union organizers. In particular, Plant Number 2 and Local 2 were at the heart of the struggle. These strikes were now about union recognition versus money or hours, which had ignited the clashes. There were street fights between union and non-union workers. Unemployed workers joined in as a means to take out their anger. The Flying Squadron tried to maintain production as fighting broke out. There was as much frustration caused by the double dip depression as about unionization. The police often lost control and pulled out fighting fire with fire. The city experienced its own reign of terror as these feuds took to the neighborhoods. Families on both sides were threatened. Citizen and neighborhood groups formed for protection. Akron’s labor unrest attracted communists to the area to join in. At Goodyear, Litchfield barricaded himself in the plant with members of the Flying Squadron and maintained some production. Squadron members climbed fences with supplies, while union members patrolled with bats and pool cues. The police used tear gas and minimum force in preventing an explosion of violence. The union hall supplied strikers with coffee and food 24 hours a day. The strike dragged on for five weeks with Akron police trying to avoid

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Violence in Akron, 1936.

violence, but they could do little else in the face of thousands of workers. Shanties were set up and called Fort Roosevelt. Fistfights were common as men tried to cross picket lines. The new union lacked structure and discipline, and there was a divide among the workers. Many new union leaders lacked any experience in the union movement. Food was brought in by U.S. Postal trucks, since only government vehicles were allowed through the picket lines. The local police were overwhelmed by the daily fights breaking out. Both sides seemed to use force when they felt it necessary. Eventually, government negotiators broke the standoff, and the union claimed its victory without real recognition. The five-week struggle ended with mixed results. The union did hold the six-hour day, which was cause for much celebration in the streets of Akron. The strike had destroyed the support for the Industrial Assembly company union that made Litchfield proud. Still, Goodyear resisted the formal acceptance of the union. The Goodyear union victory of 1936 boosted the membership in the United Rubber Workers throughout Akron. In the summer of 1936, the United Rubber Workers strengthened their resources by joining the CIO. The CIO had been formed to build large vertical unions in major industries. Fire-

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stone had escaped most of the difficulties of 1936; but early in 1937, Firestone experienced several brief sit-down strikes over union recognition. Harvey Firestone, like Paul Litchfield, felt betrayed by the men he given so much to already. Estimates suggested that about 30 percent of the workers belonged to the union, so Firestone argued he was protecting the rights of the majority. Firestone would correctly lament that the world was changing with this union strike. The Wagner Act had opened up the door to unionization, and the Supreme Court upheld it in 1937. The CIO won representation rights in the auto and steel industries but continued to fail in Akron. On Akron’s borders in Youngstown and Canton, Ohio, the United Steelworkers of the CIO were also striking. The Firestone strike after eight weeks did result in union recognition, making Firestone the first of the Big Four to accept the union. The first big blow to Goodyear came in 1938 when a government forced union vote ended the company’s Industrial Assembly, but still the union was not formally recognized by Goodyear. In 1939, Goodrich was unionized but Goodyear held out until 1941. Bill O’Neil and General Tire continued to fight on with the union in the late 1930s. The final blow came in 1940 after a three month strike. This time O’Neil could not talk himself out of a strike. General had been relatively quiet in the latter half of the 1930s as the other companies struggled with unionization. The union by 1940 dominated the Akron area, and General had no outside plants to shift production to. O’Neil, for his part, had followed his father’s philosophy to keep people working and that had developed a loyalty. From the broader view, the union could not let General Tire remain outside. The 1940 strike started over pay for a new process. The strike, while nonviolent, was extremely bitter. The union won little except the wrath of O’Neil’s Irish temper, who changed and moved to a contractual approach to dealing with employees. For many, O’Neil’s change marked the end of paternal capitalism in Akron.

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The World Turned Upside Down The union struggles of the mid–1930s would change things forever. The move of rubber out of Akron would start as companies looked to the South to avoid labor troubles. Southern cities would become the future of rubber manufacture. Harvey Firestone would die in 1937 depressed by the wave of unionization. With the death of Harvey, the Firestone family became more removed from the Akron community. Paternal capitalism would never be the same. For Litchfield at Goodyear and O’Neil at General, labor relations changed; like Firestone, they felt betrayed. Goodyear’s Flying squadron and Industrial Assembly would be brought to an end by the union movement and New Deal legislation. The union movement of the later 1930s would also move south. The union faced another issue with corporate decentralization. Goodyear and Goodrich, in particular, had moved to smaller towns outside the Rubber City. These plants were insulated from the Akron street union movement. Goodyear was determined to keep the union out of these plants. Paul Litchfield of Goodyear was the most anti-union of the barons, believing he needed to geographically break away from Akron. The union paper stated a similar stand, “We must organize 100 percent. Otherwise the rubber barons will take work from the Akron gum miners and force it upon unorganized workers whom they exploit ruthlessly.”1 The Gadsden, Alabama, plant became the focus of this battle in 1936 with plenty of street violence. Gadsden had been the first southern tire plant built by any rubber company. It was producing 7,000 tires a day and had been used to shift production to when problems arose in Akron. The union needed to bring Gadsden into the union fold, and management needed it to counter Akron strikes. Gadsden was highly symbolic representing “Goodyear’s South Akron,” having textile mills and an airship dock for the iconic Goodyear blimp. Gadsden soon became the center of the labor struggles. The struggle turned violent as overenthusiastic members of the Flying 173

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Squadron took the opposition to the factory floor and streets. This was a war with over-the-top responses on both sides. At one point the union men were in a fistfight with “company coons.” The union paper reported that Goodyear’s corporate head of the Flying Squadron had allegedly said anyone trying to organize “would get their head knocked off,” which true or not heightened the tensions. This was often guerrilla warfare that took place away from the factory floor. Clearly, the Flying Squadron had taken on a different role from its beginning in 1913. The struggle at Gadsden went on for years until the union was recognized in 1943 and a New Deal court ordered the Flying Squadron members to be restrained. Harvey Firestone probably realized the real problem as the sheer bigness of the industry, but like Litchfield, he was unsure of how to address it. Not surprisingly, it remains a topic today in educating American business managers. It’s not just management either; workers struggle with what is needed in big industry workplaces. The workers were divided more so in Goodyear in 1930s because of the Flying Squadron. The Flying Squadron, however, averaged only 5 percent of the workforce.2 The Squadron had its pluses and minuses. Initially, the Squadron offered additional training and a path to management for the ambitious worker. It had been for years a unique system of training and developing company leaders and managers. The Squadron’s members were sent throughout the company to various plants and even plantations, offering a fast track to middle and upper management. The Squadron was on call to start up new plants around the world. The Squadron had the special attention of Paul Litchfield. Foremen loved having Squadron members because they functioned as utility men able to fill at any job on short notice. While the Squadron was a training force for new plants, it had been used at times to pick up production at plants. For the Squadron members, unionization threatened to close a path for moving into management from the factory floor. Litchfield described another reason for the Squadron: “The third reason went further back. A man should enjoy his work to be fully successful at it; it should be something in which he can use his head, and his heart, as well as his hands. The mass production-production system did not usually make full use of all three. The Squadron might be an outlet for men who would otherwise become restless.”3 Unfortunately, the nature of the union-management dichotomy leaves no room for management supported worker organizations. This is a function performed today in employee teams, Six Sigma problem solving, and lean manufacturing. Getting the worker involved in management remains an important function in mass production. Still, even today such employee teams in unionized industries are looked at with concern by the union. Having a say and some control is important to a worker, but it is hard to achieve as an industry grows bigger. What was seen in the labor struggles

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of the rubber industry was the impact of bigness on the workplace. Bigness in mass production has a tendency to reduce the worker to a pair of hands. Bigness takes away control of the worker over his or her destiny. Bigness counters the family approach of paternalism and frustrates both managers and workers. Bigness removes the owner from his business. It is a force to divide worker and management, and it leaves no room for infrastructure such as the Flying Squadron. Bigness takes away the personal in running a business for both the manager and worker. In fairness, with all the violence and problems, the American union-management structure was a proven, viable approach to the problem of bigness and mass production. Of course, more recently, globalization created new challenges to both unions and management in the workplace and community. Paternal capitalism had done much for the workers and community, but the industry and the workers had matured. They wanted more freedom and independence. The presence of the barons had offered a type of appeal for grievances that disappeared as the companies grew and the barons retreated to their winter mansions. The new managers were less paternal. These workers had felt the destruction of the Great Depression and job reductions. However, in 1937 strikes were more about freedom and representation than money. Yes, Firestone and Litchfield had been fair, but workers wanted the security of a contract versus dependence on benevolence of the old bosses. The Rubber Barons struggled with understanding this need from their perspective. For the barons, the issue was not one of money either; it was control. They had thrown money in pay increases at the unrest for years. They feared they might lose control of operating the way they wanted to, and it was this struggle for operating control that would be resolved in Akron by both sides. Where Europe would solve the problem with socialism, America would form a unique format of union-management negotiations. Much of this unique industrial model would be forged in the 1930s in Akron. Paul Litchfield of Goodyear would become the spokesman for the industry’s view of the union movement. He argued that the union reduced productivity by resisting new technology and limited mobility using seniority as the basis for job advancement. Litchfield hated the framing of unionism as a battle between labor and capital. Litchfield was a major opponent of the New Deal government approach to forcing union acceptance. The problem was and is a matter of perspective, and both sides had their points. Paternal capitalism had been good, but it offered little protection against factory abuses. There needed to be a system of checks and balances on the absolute power of the barons. Unfortunately, both sides ended up creating an infrastructure that would become an Achilles heel decades later. Litchfield’s views helped make Goodyear a target of national union leaders and the government.

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The Goodyear strike of 1936 was only a beginning in the fall of the rubber management’s absolute control of the factory floor. The first crack in the old industrial labor model was made with the 1937 Firestone strike. After 53 days of striking, Firestone and the union settled. Firestone agreed to negotiate with the United Rubber Workers and not interfere with any membership drives. The union, for its part, would not tolerate sit-down strikes. The union ratified the industry’s first union agreement; and Firestone, to his credit, continued free insurance and vacations. Akron did lose some jobs as one strategy of the companies was to move work out of Akron to non-union plants elsewhere. Also, many of the philanthropic projects of the rubber companies were also curtailed. In 1938, the union struck Goodyear again and won recognition. This Goodyear strike came over layoffs during the 1935 to 1938 downturn. Layoffs progressed through the downturn based on management’s selection of who to keep. It was an approach that could easily lend itself to abuse. In the days of the barons, the companies were smaller and often workers were held to do maintenance and cleaning, but economy of scale brought an inability to hold thousands of workers in bad times. When many junior employees were favored over senior workers, workers took to the streets in riot fashion. Street violence became a serious problem with so many Akron workers out of work. The National Labor Relations Board stepped in. Goodyear accepted union representation, but seniority rules and other issues were not resolved until 1941 when a union contract was signed. By the end of the 1930s, the United Rubber Workers had over 100,000 members. The steel and auto industries would follow the unionization of the rubber industry. In general, the rubber barons accepted the rise of unions, albeit reluctantly. Firestone and Seiberling lamented the loss of personal control more than the wage increases. For Paul Litchfield, the view was a bit different. Litchfield had worked his way up through the ranks and understood the factory floor best. Litchfield delineated several areas of concern. He adamantly rejected the “substitution of seniority for merit as a basis for a man holding a job.”4 Litchfield’s concern here was the impact on productivity and motivation of such a workforce. Litchfield feared the resistance of a union towards automation and higher production levels. He probably attributed too much of the labor movement to the communists, which in hindsight was a small factor. Litchfield, more than the others, blamed the progressive socialism of the New Deal for many of the problems. Unionization brought about the beginning of the end of paternal capitalism and the shift of rubber plants outside of Akron, which had become notorious as a union town. In 1939, when Akron city leaders asked Goodrich to contribute $30,000 to build a stadium, Goodrich declined. Philanthropic donations from the barons declined, and the city had to pay more of its share

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towards parks, schools, and hosing improvement. More significant was the strategic policies of the companies to move away from Akron and its labor problems. In 1936 Goodyear chose to build a major tire plant in Jackson, Michigan, with a capacity of 5,000 tires a day. Goodyear also moved some shoe production to New England. Most of the other rubber companies looked to move outside of Akron. The union experience of the East Coast rubber industry was much smoother. The early New England plants of United States Rubber had been organized by the Knights of Labor in the 1880s, but their organization slowly disappeared. While the original founders of U.S. Rubber, Charles Flint and Joe Banigan, had been anti-union in the late 1800s, U.S. Rubber had become a multi-plant stock corporation with little of the personal resistance that was found in the Akron barons. U.S. Rubber had become a true corporate entity. The Midwestern plants of U.S. Rubber did experience labor strikes in the 1930s, such as at Mishawaka, Indiana, where the union was recognized on a limited basis in 1931 after a three week strike. U.S. Rubber experienced few labor troubles during the 1936 to 1938 period. It became the first company in the rubber industry to sign a multiple plant contract in 1941. While the rubber barons of Akron had a strong dislike for unions and saw them as an affront to their authority, the corporate structure of U.S. Rubber was not threatened as much. For U.S. Rubber, the union movement was less threatening to corporate managers. They were used less concentration of authority and were less threatened in giving up personal authority. Managers tended not to come up from the ranks but had been hired out of college or came from management infrastructure. U.S. Rubber management took early a neutral position to the union. While there were strikes, the unionization was comparably more peaceful at U.S. Rubber. The reason was a geographical spread and decentralization in U.S. Rubber versus the Akron based rubber companies. Also, after the passage of the Wagner Act, U.S. Rubber management concluded that unionization was inevitable and planned to embrace it. One of the unintended consequences of unionization was the seeds of decline for Akron as the world center of rubber. The synergy that had made it a hub for the rubber industry now made it a fortress for the unions. Unionization started a program of decentralization for the rubber companies away from Akron. Companies preferred to build in smaller towns, which lacked union roots. Rubber companies, over the next few decades, would build new plants in smaller towns versus investing in Akron plants. It had few immediate effects, but by the 1970s it would be the beginning of the end for the Rubber City. Smaller tire companies also no longer looked to build in Akron because of the union wage structure. The 1930s brought other changes, too. The 1930s would be the end of

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the rubber and most other industrial barons of America. The start of this end would be on October 21, 1931, when Harvey Firestone and Henry Ford watched the lights go out from Firestone’s apartment at the New York RitzCarlton in honor of Edison’s death. It had been over fifty years since New Yorkers had seen the full beauty of the stars. The loss of Edison deeply moved the remaining Vagabonds such as Harvey Firestone and Henry Ford. The 1930s would bring more unwelcome changes for these two friends. While Ford charged on in the 1930s, Firestone was willing to let his sons run things as he retired to his Florida mansion. Ford would visit Florida less because it reminded him too much of his lost friend Edison. Unionization had been, to a large degree, the taming of the lions, but age had taken an even greater part. Harvey Firestone’s death in 1938 would mark the end of an era. Firestone died in his sleep at his Florida home, but his body was returned to Akron. Members of the Ford and Edison families came to Akron to honor him. Henry Ford was hit particularly hard, as he remained the last of the Vagabonds. The funeral was typical of the great barons: “The casket was borne to Akron and carried through the aisles of the factory, then to the original factory site at Miller and Sweitzer Avenues, past Firestone’s first home on Fir Hill, and past his church [St. Paul Episcopal] to Harbel Manor. All afternoon long, people stepped by the bier. There were services held. The cortege reached the homestead in Columbiana. This was the land he loved.”5 At Firestone’s death, the company had 45,000 employees at 13 U.S. plants and five international plants. The Liberian rubber plantation was the largest in the world, employing 30,000 laborers. In Firestone’s final days, he struggled over the union fights going on in Akron. One of his personal friends reported, “When the unions came in, it inevitably got to be less personal. Some of these men began to talk to Firestone through a negotiator, rather than directly, as before. This was hard for him. He had watched the company grow from a handful of people with personal ties to each other, and I don’t think ever understood unions. He was terribly disappointed to see the organization change the way it had to change. But when the tide is running, it is very difficult for an ordinary workman to stand against it; some of the men turned against Mr. Firestone and that hurt him very much. When he died, though, I saw many of these men pay their respects with tears in their eyes.”6 Firestone’s sons were active in management, but they were of a new breed. No one could go back. B.F. Goodrich had two sons who remained active into the 1930s with the company. Charles Cross Goodrich had remained in Akron, directing the research laboratory from 1895 to his death in 1932. The younger son, David Goodrich, first had a military career. David rode with Teddy Roosevelt’s famous Rough Riders and served on General John Pershing’s staff in World War I. He was never active in direct management but had been on the board

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of directors from 1913. In 1927, he became chairman of the board until 1950. In 1937, James Tew, a member of the founding family at Goodrich, turned the presidency over to a corporate man in Samuel Robertson, while David Goodrich, son of the founder, remained chairman of the board. Robertson was a New Englander, but he had spent most of his career managing in the Akron operations. Robertson didn’t last long in the middle of the Great Depression. David Goodrich went to England to recruit John Collyer, the head of Dunlop. Collyer would bring a new style of generalized managers to the organization. Akron’s production executives were no longer a favored group. Collyer was a clear break with the paternalism of the barons. At Goodyear, Paul Litchfield remained chairman of the board, but turned operating duties over to his right hand man Eddie J. Thomas. Thomas had headed up the Flying Squadron. Thomas would be typical of the lords of rubber who replaced the founding barons. Thomas was an Akron native who had worked his way up from clerk to president. He followed Litchfield in maintaining Goodyear as Akron’s hometown favorite. Princeton educated Harvey Firestone Jr. who was leading Firestone Tire and Rubber. Seiberling sons (3 out of 5) were running Seiberling Rubber, and the oldest son, James Penfield Seiberling, would run Seiberling Rubber in 1950. O’Neil and his sons remained in control of Akron based General Tire. These men, representing the second generation (lords), were in a new era for rubber that would be far different then the days of the founding barons. However, these second generation lords had been honed by the founders and their company cultures. Also, the rubber companies of Akron had the legendary methods of their cost cutting barons instituted in their company fiber. Another legacy of the barons was that they fused the community to the company. For a short time, these lords represented a return to operating managers and community executives versus the bankers. The Firestone boys, however, had lived much of their lives in Florida and New York where Harvey maintained an apartment. They were educated at Princeton, and their philanthropy tended more toward Princeton than Akron. U.S. Rubber, born out of a banking trust, had a decade before had become the company of corporate men. It had merged many small companies into a centralized corporation without the leadership of a baron or strong company culture. Its founder, Charles Flint, had been a corporate baron far different than a Seiberling or Litchfield. It did, however, have the iconic du Pont family in control of its shares after 1911. Founder baron Charles Flint modified the organization in 1929 through his position as a director on the IBM board with the help of the du Pont family, which had been behind the success reorganization of General Motors. The corporate model of U.S. Rubber had been a poor substitute for the baron driven rubber companies of Akron. In the 1920s, U.S. Rubber fell from first to last in sales among the big

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tire manufacturers. It had nine straight years of inventory write-offs, reflecting the overall poor performance of its management. The company had suffered from lack of a strong leader to coordinate the loosely held divisions, which had been formerly separate companies. Similarly, the corporate structure had eroded the leadership position of the individual companies. There seemed to be no one that saw the company as his own. The company lacked a corporate culture. Executives didn’t know the operating statistics like those at Firestone and Goodyear. In many ways it resembled a government bureaucracy with centralized disorder. U.S. Rubber faced receivership by 1928. The company would elect its own type of corporate rubber lord to take a leadership position of the failed company. F. B. Davis took over the helm of U.S. Rubber in 1929. Davis would be a corporate lord as founder Charles Flint had been a corporate baron. F. B. Davis was a strong leader and kicked off his new approach at an employee meeting. On April 29, 1929, he issued a letter to all employees spelling out a new organization and operating structure. It would be modeled after America’s greatest corporations of IBM, General Motors, United States Steel, and Standard Oil. Davis laid out a structure of decentralized control.7 Davis divided the company into 12 operating divisions, each having a general manager with authority over sales and production, and an executive committee for them. Davis assured coordination between all. The new structure strengthened its tire, footwear, mechanical goods, and chemical divisions. Charles Flint and IBM also set up a new automated production control system for the company. U.S. Rubber started its climb back with new leadership. The IBM production system and the du Pont management methodology became critical to footwear manufacture at the U.S. Rubber Mishawaka plant in Indiana. Mishawaka’s famous footwear brand, Ball-Band, was being sold by over 50,000 retailers in the 1920s. Mishawaka was the major American supplier in 1920 but suffered from the annual rubber rush that occurred with the year’s first snowfall. It was panic with urgent telegrams from thousands of major retailers every year. Orders flooded the sales office and incoming mail station. Competitors were looking to take business as Mishawaka was clogged with seasonal orders. Even Mishawaka’s central geographic location was not a strong enough advantage. IBM methods were applied. Mishawaka developed the first just-in-time production system. It set of goal of shipping 85 percent of its rush orders the same calendar day. It required an hourly tracking system in a pre-computer era. Staggered starting times were implemented in various departments. Production control was centralized with one person responsible for the department and plant goal. A tabulating department was instituted to track delivery and costs. Cost was as critical as speed since many of the items on the product line sold for 50 cents a pair, close to the cost of processing and shipping. Scientific methods were applied

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to the office where most time was lost in the processing of an order. Methods engineers were hired to streamline every part of the paperwork and manufacturing system. The system made Mishawaka dominant in the rubber footwear industry and an example of efficiency within U.S. Rubber, which would began to take the methodology to tire making. The du Pont family was a major player, possibly behind the scenes, throughout U.S. Rubber. U.S. Rubber had fallen to a low point in 1929, losing most of its General Motors business due to quality problems. The company had also dropped to fourth place with a 6 percent share of the overall tire market. Davis’s reorganization of U.S. Rubber offered a chance to turn things around. General Motors had overtaken Ford as America’s largest car maker and wanted longer and better contracts on tires. Davis and his general manager, L. D. Thompkins, set GM as its goal. Of course, the du Pont family was a major stockholder in both companies. General Motors looked first in 1930 at the option of making its own tires and did an extensive analysis of such a move. GM then turned to the idea of a long term contract with 50 percent of the business to reduced prices. U.S. Rubber’s was now in a position to new major business back. In 1931, U.S. Rubber won the 50 percent contract with General Motors and would still compete for the other 50 percent with the other tires companies. By 1933, U.S. Rubber had taken 100 percent of the business at Cadillac and LaSalle. U.S. Rubber expanded its flagship plant at Detroit. The General Motors contract put U.S. Rubber back to number one in the tire industry, with 32 percent of the market from a mere 6 percent in 1929. The tire division sales boomed as they took 20 percent of the Ford business as well. By 1934, U.S. Rubber was supplying almost all auto manufacturers and expanding in truck sales. U.S. Rubber prospered as the Akron tire makers were struck in endless strikes and labor shutdowns. During the depressed years of the 1930s, U.S. Rubber’s tire division increased its percentage of the stable tire replacement market from under 6 percent to 25 percent. In the 1930s, the replacement market became highly competitive with price wars. The replacement market was changing, too. By 1933 there were 1,350 company tire stores, 900 stores selling tires at Sears and Wards, and 374 tire outlets of Western Auto. In addition, the nation had over 40,000 gas stations, and most had some tires. There were also 84,000 auto dealers with tires. The competition created price wars throughout the decade. U.S. Rubber made the most progress by gaining the Montgomery Ward account. Lawsuits by the Justice Department were filed against Goodyear and U.S. Rubber over price discounts to big retailers. Of course, the huge and impressive sales gains of U.S. Rubber did bring speculation that the du Pont family had played their hand at General Motors and the retailers. The Justice Department brought a civil suit against the du

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Pont family for “conspiracy to obtain control of GM and U.S. Rubber with the intention to increase trade between the companies.” Du Pont won the suit, with GM executives claiming they offered the long-term contract to Goodyear first. GM claimed further that Goodyear turned it down because of commitments to Sears and Chrysler. GM further testified that Goodrich’s bid on the contract was not low enough. The facts were, while U.S. Rubber dramatically increased its sales, it did not become profitable until 1936, and then only marginally so during the 1930s. Still, U.S. Rubber took market share from Firestone and Goodyear. The corporate division structure with a strong leader and a neutral view of unionization had allowed the company to compete with the lords of Akron. Another conspiracy theory that became popular was the idea that agreements were being made by Akron’s Big Four (Goodyear, Goodrich, Firestone, and General) at the Portage Country Club. The Portage Country was a natural meeting place for rubber executives. Ideas were exchanged, secrets slipped, and rumors were purposely inserted into conversations. Akron manufacturing did supply the 60 percent of the market, but their profits hardly supported a conspiracy. In general, the 1930s was a poor decade for all. Ford summed up the changes that Firestone had seen in the industry: “Bigness and the unions have broken up the closeness there was between boss and worker. Maybe Firestone coped better than I have, though I know he was hurt by them, too. Even without unions it’s hard to have personal contact with the men any more. Plants have grown so big.”8 Ford, like the rubber barons, lamented the size and growth of industry. Bigness had become a problem; it separated the barons from the workers. The change was difficult for all. The days where Bill O’Neil could gather his managers for lunch or Paul Litchfield and Frank Seiberling could have them for a rooftop celebratory dinner were gone. The Firestone Farm wasn’t big enough for a companywide picnic. With bigness came separation and a colder management for the worker. Even the barons would not fully manage their supervisors. The organization became an entity of its own with its bigness. The basic fairness and guiding Christian principles of the founding barons could not be assured throughout the organization. Bigness required a union for the worker to assure fairness and protection. Eventually, unions themselves would suffer from bigness. Bigness even overwhelms the community and limited the success of paternal capitalism. Bigness represented the biggest challenge to managers, workers, and community. It was U.S. Rubber, with its tradition of corporate structure, that fared better with bigness and growth, but that was because it was further removed from family type management. By the late 1930s, the change in the rubber was becoming visible. With the main bulk of unionization done, the industry turned to new technological frontiers as the second World War approached. New chemicals, synthetic rub-

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ber, new synthetic fibers, and tire design become the major focus of the industry. Concern over rubber supplies once again became the daily topic in the rubber company boardrooms. The search for the holy grail of domestic rubber was again discussed. Concerns of the New Deal and government involvement gave way to the unity of a nation facing war.

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War and Synthetic Rubber World War II illustrated the strategic nature of rubber. Each of the nation’s 50,000 Sherman tanks needed a half ton of rubber, and each of the nation’s 30,000 bombers required a ton of rubber each. Each ship produced needed 80 tons of rubber. The army needed over three million tires a year, and the Army Air Corps needed 1.5 million tires for its airplanes each year. These battle ready tires took six times more rubber and five times more fabric. Soldiers required 45 million pairs of boots and 77 million pairs of shoes with rubber soles. Domestic requirements were also at a peak.1 The demand created research into new sources of rubber and new ways to recycle it. The war would make synthetic rubber more available than natural rubber. It would also revive the chemurgic movement of Ford, Firestone, and Edison to grow rubber domestically. The Russians and the Germans were far ahead of the Americans in the science of chemistry at the beginning of the 20th century. Both the Russians and Germans produced a synthetic known as methyl rubber or methyl isoprene. In 1912 the giant German chemical company, I.G. Farben Industries, had produced methyl rubber tires for the Kaiser’s motor car.2 This synthetic rubber never was a good replacement, but the chemistry behind it would lead the Germans to several new types of synthetic rubbers. Synthetic rubber research had been started in America in the 1920s by Harvey Firestone’s chemists, but Firestone ended the work in 1928, concluding the technology was too far in the future.3 Firestone put his investment in his Liberian rubber plantation; however, the other barons would increase their interest in synthetic rubber. In 1926, B.F. Goodrich developed a rubber-like material, polyvinyl chloride (PVC), made from limestone, coke, and salt, at its research center. Known as Koroseal, it found markets in shower curtains, sheeting, waterproof textiles, golf balls, and tank linings. PVC had the unusual property of adhering to metal, making it great for handles and coated tanks. PVC had become a very profitable product in the 1930s. The product was invented by Goodrich’s famous chemists, Waldo Semon and Harlan Trumball. Akron would now become the birthplace of polymer science, but Goodrich 184

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would not fully commercialize PVC until the 1930s. Many believe that Akron’s future can be found in its polymeric legacy of the 1930s. Probably the earliest approach to a molecular copy of rubber came from Russia with the bringing of Russian chemists to U.S. Rubber’s research center in New York. U.S. Rubber developed a type of butadiene and styrene rubber in the 1920s. This was done by replacing the methyl group with butadiene and styrene, producing a better product. At the time, the cost prohibited commercialization. The Germans continued their research calling it Buna-S (the Bu from the butadiene, na from the Latin for sodium, and the S from the styrene used). Butadiene was a chemical that could be made from petroleum, natural gas, grain alcohol, or acetylene. Chemically, butadiene is close to the isoprene of natural rubber. Butadiene is built around five carbon atoms while natural rubber’s isoprene has four. Styrene can be made from ethylene, a product of petroleum, or benzene, which is a product of coal. While Firestone had stopped its own research, it became interested in a new rubber-like material known as neoprene or Duprene. Firestone looked to purchase this technology from du Pont. He had experimented with Duprene in 1932; Duprene was the original trademark, but du Pont later changed the name to neoprene. These early rubber-like materials were different synthetic rubbers, being a chlorine-containing derivative of isoprene. Neoprene was the work of Father Nieuwland at Notre Dame in the 1920s. Du Pont Chemical developed these early synthetic rubbers in 1930, and Firestone chemists started to experiment with it in 1932. Firestone made airplane tires of neoprene with rayon piles, but they also performed poorly. Neoprene did prove to have outstanding resistance to corrosive gasoline. It was a rubber-like material that could be hardened through vulcanization. Neoprene was much better than natural rubber for aircraft hoses. Goodyear was also experimenting with neoprene. Neoprene made for a great balloon material for the military and large Thanksgiving parade-type balloons. Still it cost three times more than natural rubber. The real breakthrough was the coal based synthetic rubber of the Germans. This synthetic was known as Buna-N rubber. Buna-N rubber was a combination of the products butadiene and acrylonitrile. Firestone had obtained samples through its Swiss operation and found Buna-N to be an excellent rubber for tire making. Standard Oil had also developed Buna-N rubber from petroleum and its newer product, butyl rubber, made from refinery gases of isobutylene and isoprene. Butyl rubber, as a refinery by-product, offered some economic advantages and tested better as a substitute for natural rubber. Buna-N was less useful in tires but offered better corrosion resistance for hoses, gaskets, and fittings. Firestone started to make Buna-N tires, but Standard Oil sued to stop production. Goodyear and Goodrich were also making Buna-N but were also being sued by Standard Oil. So by the end of

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the 1930s, there was an array of synthetics — Buna-S, Buna-N, butyl rubber, neoprene, and polyvinyl. In addition all of these could be mixed with each other as well as natural rubber to achieve various properties and economies. Actually, the German company, I.G. Farben, and Standard Oil were investors in each other and formed a cartel blocking the rubber companies from moving faster into synthetic rubber. Goodrich was leading the research effort. The company was experimenting with all forms of synthetic rubber at its Akron lab. The lab was headed up by one of the industry’s most brilliant chemists in Waldo Semon. In 1937, Semon went to Germany to study their methodology in synthetic rubber, but the Gestapo watched his every move. Semon failed to see the German manufacturing operation but took enough away to believe he could produce it at Akron’s Plant Number 3. The company invested in a pilot plant and within a year was able to produce several types of rubber. B.F. Goodrich’s Akron lab under Semon was making progress under the code name Guaylex. Guayule was the Mexican rubber plant that many believed to be a natural solution. The name was intended as a variation of

Goodyear air ship hangar for the famous blimp, 1939.

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Buna-S. Goodrich was ahead of the game, but costs prevented commercialization. Sermon missed lead competitors who might overhear conversations at Portage, Fairlawn, and Firestone country clubs. At an experimental Akron plant, Goodrich produced the first major batch of synthetic rubber in 1938. Semon’s experiments with a new material of butadiene rubber, however, had built a new product mixing in polyvinyl chloride. In 1938, Firestone made Buna-S tires, but they performed poorly in tests. Still, Goodrich forged ahead with the development of butadiene rubber mix called Ameripol. Actually it was a blend of natural and synthetic rubber. Semon had substituted methyl methacrylate for styrene in his synthetic type of Buna-S. The Goodrich formula was a mix of methyl and Buna-S with very improved properties. Waldo Semon introduced his Ameripol at a large assembly of scientists and reporters in New York. Goodrich’s tests showed this rubber could actually increase tire life and behaved like natural rubber. In 1939, Goodrich produced the first synthetic tires for market. They were known as Liberty Tires. They sold at a 30 percent premium, but Goodrich tests suggested an equal improvement in mileage. Goodrich wasn’t looking for immediate sales; in fact, it could produce only 80 tires a day. Goodrich did launch a major advertising and marketing campaign to highlight its technical superiority. As World War II approached, Goodrich’s formula using methyl methacrylate was restricted because of chemical shortages of methacrylate.4 Buna-S rubber using styrene was favored on cost, but the Germans and Standard Oil held the patent rights. The Germans were already making tires of 30 percent Buna-S and 70 percent natural rubber, but performance was barely equivalent to all natural. The bombing of Pearl Harbor changed things quickly, negating German patent rights over Buna-S, which was the best economic synthetic to replace natural rubber. The United States was in crisis mode after Pearl Harbor. Standard Oil preferred butyl rubber, but everything depended on base chemical availability. The United States was dependent on foreign rubber, with 75 percent of its rubber going into tires and inner tubes. The government formed several committees to address strategic materials. The government set up the Rubber Reserve Company to maintain the strategic reserve of rubber. It reduced the speed limit to 35 miles per hour and rationed gasoline during the war, which reduced rubber demand. Since coming out of the Great Depression, the rubber companies lacked the funds to build synthetic plants and would require government help. The government offered loans for the big four of Goodrich, Goodyear, Firestone, and U.S. Rubber to build synthetic rubber plants, the first of which was built in Naugatuck by U.S. Rubber. Nothing really came fast enough for the country. Synthetic rubber production in 1941 was a mere 8,000 tons. By 1943, the nation’s stockpile and

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imports reached bottom, requiring a scrap rubber drive across the nation. Civilian tire sales were halted by the government. Companies moved into the business of recapping tires to save rubber. The annual rate of 300,000 tons of scrap rubber saved the nation in the early going of the war. Synthetic rubber was slow to come on stream. Firestone’s African plantations went to double tapping of the trees. The synthetic mix of rubbers consisted of Buna-S, Buna-N, PVC, du Pont’s neoprene, Standard Oil’s new butyl rubber, Goodrich’s Ameripol, and U.S. Rubber’s Thiokol. These rubbers required a mix of strategic raw materials from petroleum, grain alcohol, coal, and other chemicals. The companies each had a political and economic stake in the mix. The oil companies were lobbying hard for petroleum based Buna-S and butyl rubber. Petroleum based synthetics were cheaper. The farm lobby and the chemurgical movement of Henry Ford wanted more alcohol used in the production of synthetic rubber. The federal government appointed a special committee under Bernard Baruch to decide the mix. Baruch had broad expertise in rubber, having run Intercontinental Rubber for the first decade of the 1900s. The Baruch Committee included Dr. James Conant, president of Harvard, and Dr. Karl Compton, president of MIT. The committee set a target of 800,000 tons of synthetic rubber per year. The mix to achieve that goal would be mainly Buna-S at 700,000 tons. There would also be 60,000 tons of Standard Oil’s butyl rubber and 40,000 tons of du Pont’s neoprene. To satisfy the farm lobby, 15 percent of the Buna-S (700,000 tons) would be made from alcohol. This mix of alcohol-based rubber required a government order to force whiskey distillers to switch to industrial alcohol. The committee was to design a standard synthetic plant that could be built by the rubber companies. Airplane, bus, and truck tires required a 40 percent mix of natural rubber. There was hope that neoprene might do more in helping the rubber shortage. Du Pont was able to produce enough neoprene in 1941 to make tires for Willys-Overland’s famous Jeep. U.S. Rubber held an early advantage in synthetic rubber because of its relationship with members of the du Pont family and E.I. du Pont de Nemours. Neoprene tires, however, lacked the elasticity of natural rubber and made for a rough ride. Neoprene did, however, become important in aircraft fuel lines and self-sealing fuel tanks because it resisted the corrosive attacks of aircraft fuel. The war evened things in synthetic research by a forced sharing of technology. Initially, many like Henry Ford believed grain alcohol to be the nation’s most promising chemical to use in rubber making. The chemurgic movement got a bill passed to support a massive investment in alcohol-based rubber, but President Roosevelt vetoed it. In the end, it was America’s chemurgic movement that produced butadiene from grain alcohol, which saved the day. The Baruch Committee’s mix of synthetic rubber production goals was far

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behind but for alcohol-based butadiene rubber. This work with alcohol-based butadiene rubber was headed by Reichhold Chemicals. In 1943, alcohol-based rubber accounted for 77 percent of the nation’s total; without it, the nation would have been seriously short of rubber. The problem was in the design and building of petroleum based rubber plants, which were complex chemical plants. Still, by the end of the war the petroleum produced a far cheaper rubber. Civilian tire sales were resumed in 1944, but they were restricted to 2 percent natural rubber. These first tires preformed poorly, until the manufacturers learned to mix the rubber properly. Eventually, Buna-S was found to be the best alternative to natural rubber. But even when the government allowed for more civilian production, the rubber companies lacked the extra labor needed. Germany was even worse off in its production of Buna-S, lacking labor. I.G. Farben would team up with the Nazis to use the slave labor of camps such as Auschwitz for rubber production. The Baruch Committee also set up a research sharing committee and a committee to develop the ideal mix of synthetic rubbers (GR-S rubber). The companies had a history of secrecy and deception, which resulted in problems. Bill O’Neil’s General Tire refused to join the research committee. Paul Litchfield and Harvey Firestone Jr. supplied corporate leadership here and abroad. The committee on research struggled initially as Waldo Semon of B.F. Goodrich was elected head. A Goodrich man at the lead concerned the other members. Finally, they decided on a neutral chairman in Edward Weidlein of Pittsburgh’s Mellon Institute. It was a tough job to get the rubber companies to share formulas, and it also required a suspension of the government’s anti-trust laws. The overall success of these industrialists and engineers to develop an ideal economic formula became a model for applying the same principles to the steel industry to save natural resources. During the government war program, the superior Goodrich formula and processing evolved. As costs were reduced, Goodrich’s formula evolved, now known as GR-S for Government Rubber Styrene, and became the superior alternative for natural rubber in 1946. Styrene replaced Goodrich’s original methyl acrylate because of cost. GR-S was to be the perfect formula of America’s best industrial minds. It was at 14 cents a pound versus 23 cents a pound for natural rubber. Still, GR-S had low heat resistance and had to be mixed with 30 natural rubbers for tires. For other products such as inner tubes, it could be used direct. By the end of the war, America reached an annual output of 900,000 tons of synthetic rubber, which was more than the production of the world’s rubber plantations.5 As a company, Goodrich benefited the most from the war effort and became a major chemical company because of its PVC and synthetic rubber projects. Interestingly, it was Bill O’Neil’s General Tire in 1950 that made a significant improvement in GR-S that widened its commercial use by reducing the cost.

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Synthetic rubber production during the war was more than tires. Military balloons were made neoprene and fabric. Buna-N was also used to seal the seams. Over 18,000 of these balloons went into service, most of them from Firestone, followed by Goodyear. Firestone also pioneered combinations of Buna-N and rayon in making fuel tanks. Sponge neoprene was used as aircraft wing filler. Firestone produced a modified version of PVC known as velon (vinylidene chloride monofilament). It was used in tents, garden hose, shower curtains, and interior car items. Velon was also used in clear plastic applications such as gas masks. Goodyear invented an all-synthetic rubber mix for boots and shoes to save natural rubber to tire mixes. Tank tracks made of molded hard synthetic rubber became a major product for Goodyear. The war brought on a renewed interest in chemurgic rubber from domestic plants. The research of the Vagabonds during World War I was renewed by Henry Ford and his friend, George Washington Carver. Plants like sweet potatoes, goldenrod, and milkweed were being studied at the new lab of Ford and Carver in Detroit. With Carver’s aid, Ford set up an experimental plantation to follow up on Thomas Edison’s studies of rubber in the 1920s. The Roosevelt administration refused to look at chemurgic research into domestic sources, hoping to expand bilateral trade. Still, the rubber barons looked to all possible alternative sources. Bill O’Neil of General Tire believed the solution was in Mexican guayule. O’Neil had been arguing for American owned rubber sources since the 1920s. He proved to be a prophet in his warning of potential rubber shortages should war come. Paul Litchfield, who had once been a big supporter of guayule, now believed that America should start rubber plantations in Latin America. B.F. Goodrich Company and U.S. Rubber believed in cryptostegia as the domestic plant with the best hope and started experimenting with it. U.S. Rubber, which had the best relations with the Roosevelt administration, started a joint project with the government growing cryptostegia in Latin America. Firestone Tire & Rubber alone saw no possible solution in domestic plants, feeling the only hope to be synthetics. After Harvey Firestone’s death, they pulled out of the Botanic Research Company of Henry Ford. Firestone, however, did increase its production from its Liberian rubber plantations. It was Bill O’Neil who carried the chemurgic torch and promoted the use of guayule, which had a long history as a potential rubber source. It came with unique harvesting problems. About a third of the latex is in roots and it required uprooting the plant. The harvesting cycle would require replanting and another four years to achieve maturity. Even with these inherent drawbacks, increasing wartime rubber prices made it profitable. At the start of the war, the British controlled 50 percent of raw rubber sources and the Dutch had 40 percent. America controlled less than 5 percent with Firestone’s Liberia plantations and the Sumatra plantations of Goodyear.

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However, America was consuming over 770,000 tons of raw rubber. In the critical war year of 1942, Firestone’s Liberia plantation supplied 10,000 tons of rubber. By the end of the war, Liberia would be supplying 20,000 tons a year. The Firestone plantation was the only supply of natural rubber for the United States. Russia and Britain did get some Asian rubber during the war. The efforts to bring South America back into production failed. In the end, synthetic rubber development and production was one of industry’s greatest contributions to victory. Synthetic rubber production was only one part of rubber’s contribution to the war effort. The war brought other changes to the industry and the Rubber City. The rubber companies not only were critical to rubber production but were needed for aircraft and all types of war materiel. The war lifted the companies and the towns dependent on them out of the Depression. Akron, where most of the rubber companies were located, found itself in a labor-short market. The workers needed in Akron alone went from 33,285 pre-war to 72,890 employees in 1944. Women and blacks were needed in the very factories that had for decades been reluctant to hire them. Blacks poured into Akron from the South, doubling the black population to 24,000. Women and blacks, however, filled the jobs below that of tire builders. The clash on the factory floor created much tension. There were a number of hate strikes against black and women workers. The United Rubber Workers took control of the entire industry under favorable rulings by the National War Board. The United Rubber Workers supplied at least neutrality to the hiring of blacks. The War Board favored unionization, but the Roosevelt administration wanted low cost high production. Interestingly, the government became much more difficult taskmaster than the barons. Elimination of weekend premium pay, small raises, and replacement of workers created an atmosphere for wildcat strikes even as union membership boomed. The concentration of rubber workers in Akron made it problematic for the administration. The union had agreed to a no-strike clause, but in 1943, a wildcat strike had crippled a laborshort Akron. President Roosevelt threatened to draft strikers to end it.6 Still, the inroads made by the United Rubber Workers secured their control in the postwar rubber industry. Another labor issue was the rise of blacks and women into the higher paying jobs. B.F. Goodrich had the most problems, since it had only started to hire blacks during the war. The old Klan roots started to surface again. Similarly, the influx of women in the industry raised tensions. Women had made up less than 10 percent of the rubber workers prior to the war but increased to near 40 percent by 1945. The newly founded union was not ready to tackle civil rights issues. The union and management struggled to maintain the tire builders as white males. The labor shortage was so acute in the Akron area that all types of barriers were broken out of necessity. The small town

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plants of the rubber companies did not have these problems nor did they get the advances in civil rights. The labor problem in Akron created new social problems as well. The concentration of rubber plants in Akron created a local boom. The rubber plants in Akron were employing an amazing 64,000 employees! In total, the city was employing 117,000. At one point in 1942, the Akron newspaper reported local companies were hiring 2,000 a week because of high turnover in the rubber plants.7 Companies were again sending agents to West Virginia for workers. Ohio law was modified on working hours for women and boys. The city’s housing was completely inadequate for the influx of workers. Food prices soared as local shortages were created. Stores reported panic buying and restaurants often ran out of food.8 The companies had more problems as plants were converted to a full array of government contracts from munitions, coffins, gas masks, and aircraft. Goodyear, with its aircraft division, and U.S. Rubber with its diversification were in the best position for expanding war production, but all rubber companies participated in various government projects. Firestone created its own aircraft division to make airplane tires, wheels, and brakes. Its aircraft group would employ almost 8,000 women. B.F. Goodrich focused most of its effort in synthetic rubber development but did produce aircraft tires and self-sealing fuel tanks. Firestone moved into production of a number of steel products, such as helmets, during the war. Firestone’s early steel rim production in 1907 had taken the company into a variety of steel products. In the 1930s, Firestone had become the nation’s biggest producer of stainless steel beer barrels. Firestone’s expertise in stainless steel welding made it a major steel products manufacturer for the government. U.S. Rubber developed some of the war’s most unique products. The company had old corporate ties with chemical giant du Pont going back to the days of Charles Flint, giving an edge in chemical products. One of these was the self-sealing fuel tank for combat aircraft. The Germans had developed self-sealing tanks using leather, which America was trying to duplicate. U.S. Rubber had gotten a British contract to make self-sealing tanks in 1940. These revolutionary tanks would be made at the heart of U.S. Rubber’s research operation in historic Naugatuck and its manufacturing plant at Mishawaka, Indiana. Mishawaka had made the famous Ball-Band boots in the 1890s. The iconic rubber plant of Mishawaka would swell to 10,000 employees with fuel tank production. The self-sealing tank was a neoprene sandwich of cloth. The sandwich was put in tension, so the bullet hole would be sealed quickly. These tanks were used with great success on the B-26, B-17, and B-29 bombers and played a key role in the famous Doolittle raid on Tokyo. U.S. Rubber’s tank production gave them the lead for synthetic rubber plant construction.

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The war greatly expanded the rubber city of the east (Naugatuck) as the first synthetic rubber was built there. Another amazing development of U.S. Rubber was the rayon cord tires. U.S. Rubber and Goodyear had been working with du Pont on rayon cord to replace cotton cord since the early 1930s. Rayon was a synthetic fiber that had better wear resistance and strength than cotton cord. In 1938, U.S. Rubber

Firestone war production in Akron rubber plants, 1943.

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was producing a stronger tire known as the Royal Master rayon tire. Goodyear also introduced a rayon tire in 1938 but had secretly been selling rayon truck tires since 1936. The tire had thinner walls, which became critical during the war as a means to reduce rubber usage. Rayon saved rubber and reduced weight, which made it a natural for airplane tires. The rayon cord tire became a standard in military truck tires as well. U.S. Rubber went further, expanding its testing of nylon cords to strengthen tires. Nylon cords would be experimented with through the 1940s and would be sold widespread in the early 1950s. Goodyear advanced the science of nylon tires by applying them to the B-17 Flying Fortress during the war. The company took over the major aircraft projects such airplane tires, barrage balloons, and observation blimps. More importantly, Goodyear was able to move into aircraft production because of its long history in the field. It produced the aircraft carrier fighter plane known as the Corsair. By the end of the war, Goodyear had produced over 4,000 of these planes. Goodyear actually became the tenth largest airplane producer in the world, and its work on military blimps would become the heart and symbol of the company. Goodyear’s Aircraft Division would build 64 rigid airships and over a hundred blimps during the war. The aircraft division became Akron’s largest employer during the war. Maybe the most unusual war production of Goodyear was the phantom army, a fleet of fake rubber tanks, planes, artillery, trucks, and other vehicles. These phantom vehicles were shipped to England to confuse the Nazis about the landing site for D-Day. Goodyear had become famous for its great Thanksgiving Day Parade balloons, making it the ideal selection to produce these balloon phantoms. These phantom war vehicles were built in total secrecy at an old Woonsocket, Rhode Island, fabric plant dating back to the Irish rubber baron Joseph Banigan.

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The Passing of the Old Guard — The Postwar Rubber Industry The great rubber oligopoly had become part of American industrial infrastructure by the 1950s. From 1919 to 1970, the big five with Firestone, Goodyear, Goodrich, Uniroyal (U.S. Rubber), and General tire controlled from 64 percent to 80 percent of the U.S. market. Roughly two out of every three tires were manufactured in Akron and four of the five companies were headquartered in Akron. The rubber industry was one of America’s most stable during the 1950s and 1960s. The union won large increases and benefits throughout the period, but profits were solid, too. Akron was the All-American community, and the executives enjoyed a peaceful business setting and weekend parties at the Portage Country Club. Even the workers now made enough money to vacation in Florida and made plans to retire there. Yet the seeds of destruction may well have been sowed in the international expansion of the rubber companies after the war. By its own success, Akron had become an unlikely location to expand in. In addition, rubber companies hesitated to expand in the labor intensive environment of Akron. Still, Akron of the 1950s and 1960s was the rubber capital of the world, albeit in slow decline. And it wasn’t just Akron; the American rubber industry was facing the rebuilt factories of Europe and Japan. The industry was about to face its greatest challenge. Most of the old barons and their lieutenants were gone. Many of the various baron families were still in Akron, and there were other feudal rubber towns across America, but other changes were afoot. The tectonic plates of globalization were starting to move, changing the economic maps of the world. U.S. Rubber and B.F. Goodrich had long ago been transformed into corporate entities. All the companies were diversifying and building outside of Akron. Still, most of the company executives were natives of Akron. There was also a civic pride in the birthplace of the rubber industry. These native executives would only be able 195

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to delay the enviable, though. Most of the rubber barons had family still in control, but the community and industry ownership were gone as global competition dominated. The Firestone family had a long line of boys — all Princeton graduates. Harvey Jr., a graduate of 1920, Russell (1924), Leonard (1931), Raymond (1933), and Roger (1935) would all enter the active management of Firestone Tire and Rubber. The college age boys spent their time in Harvey’s New York apartment and Florida properties. Harvey Jr. would eventually replace Firestone’s right hand man, John W. Thomas, as CEO in 1948. Harvey Jr. managed more remotely than his father with far less ties to Akron. All the boys served on the board of directors, but they were scattered geographically. Russell would serve as treasurer from 1943 to 1949. Raymond would become vice president of research in 1949. The Firestone boys, educated in the east and fond of their Florida home and Newport, Rhode Island, resort became ever more detached from Akron. They were often better known in Chicago and New York. The Firestone families were still major donators to the city, but they were more distant to community affairs. Princeton became the main emphasis of the family’s giving. Chicago, New York, and Florida were home to much of the family. Raymond stayed the closest to the city with an estate

Harvey Firestone (center) with four of his five sons at Firestone Country Club, 1934.

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in nearby Bath Township. Still, Firestones sat on the board until its sale in 1992 to Bridgestone. Raymond Firestone’s giving approached his father’s in the community. He donated the family’s polo field to St. Paul’s Episcopal Church on West Market Street, thus its nickname, “St. Harvey’s of the Polo Field.” He left one million dollars for University of Akron’s School of Polymer Engineering, another million for Akron City Hospital, and yet another million to the Cleveland Clinic. Ray also expanded the Firestone endowments to the University of Akron, while giving more to his alma mater, Princeton. Unfortunately, the Firestone mansion burned down in 1957. F.A. Seiberling died in 1955 at the age of 92. The Seiberling family remained in charge of Seiberling Rubber until the 1960s. They lost control of the rubber company in 1962. All the Seiberlings remained active in the community, but their financial resources were gone. There was not enough money left to maintain the mansion, but they believed it to be a community asset. The family donated Stan Hywet, but the struggling corporate and government community could not afford to take it over. A group of local volunteers banded together to form a foundation to save the last mansion of the great rubber barons. Frank Seiberling’s first grandson, John F. Seiberling, would become a U.S. congressman for the district and would create the Cuyahoga Valley National Recreation Area out of much of the old Seiberling property. The O’Neil family had five sons — Hugh, Jerry, William, John, and Thomas. Hugh died during World War II. Jerry O’Neil became president of the company, and Thomas was active in the founding of RKO General. The family remained active in giving to local charities including Our Lady of the Elms School and St. Thomas Hospital. The O’Neils’ 240 acre farm was given to the Summit County Parks system. Jerry O’Neil was in charge of the company until its sale in the 1980s. Goodrich, Akron’s oldest rubber company, had long ago become less involved in Akron and even the rubber industry itself. B.F. Goodrich still had David Goodrich (the son of the founder) on the board of directors after World War II, but just prior to the war, the company brought in the first of the rubber industry’s internationalist executives in John Collyer. Collyer was a Cornell University grad working for Britain’s Dunlop when hired. Collyer came to Akron as Goodrich’s president in 1939. He was a production man, so the transition was not difficult. The community of Akron had mixed feelings about Collyer. On one hand, he implemented a strategy of moving out of Akron to weaken the impact of the union; and on the other, he headquartered the Goodrich Chemical division in Cleveland and located its research center in nearby Brecksville. These research locations would be the roots of Akron’s future.

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Goodrich led the postwar effort to weaken labor unions. The union fought back with a clerical union effort. Clerical unions and new attitudes toward front line management changed the baronial structure. One change at all the rubber companies with the end of the barons was the alienation of the foremen and front line managers. Movement up the ranks based on loyalty and drive such as in the old Flying Squadron was no longer possible. This group had been the core of management for Paul Litchfield, Harvey Firestone, and Frank Seiberling. Now they were becoming a mere part of the process. At Goodrich, the problem was more acute, lacking the traditions of Goodyear and Firestone. Goodrich moved on to become an international chemical company, moving further from its Akron roots. Still, Goodrich was part of Akron. Retired B.F. Goodrich executive Edwin Shaw became an important philanthropist in Akron. Edwin Shaw had started for Goodrich in 1894 as an engineer. In the 1920s, he became vice president of Goodrich. On retirement, he dedicated himself to charitable works such as Summit County’s tuberculosis sanatorium. Shaw left his estate of a modest $300,000 to a community chest which grew significantly. Shaw was typical of many smaller level executives that gave to the Rubber City. There is no doubt that unionization and the New Deal ended the massive philanthropy by industrial barons as government replaced that community role. The war transformed the rubber companies into chemical companies. They diversified into other manufacturing areas and became specialty chemical and plastic companies. B.F. Goodrich, in particular, emerged as a chemical company. Goodrich had a long tradition of research going back to its earliest Akron labs. The company had emerged from the war as the nation’s major producer of the very profitable PVC. After the war, Goodrich systematically purchased government synthetic rubber plants to become the major producer of synthetic rubber. Goodyear tried to also use its war experience to broaden its aerospace operations. Goodyear, which had a long tradition in aviation, continued in aerospace projects. But the market after the 1940s was in decline. The firm had pioneered aluminum alloys going back to its early blimp days. Goodyear made an effort to move into mobile homes and appliances to utilize its aluminum working factories. Goodyear tried to create new interest in military blimps in the 1960s, but that, like its aluminum projects, also failed. In 1987, Goodyear sold the aerospace to Loral Corporation (now Lockheed Martin) and only maintained the blimps for advertising. The company did return to its core strength of tires and its Akron base. Under its aging baron, Bill O’Neil, General Tire diversified the most. During the war, General Tire had entered the defense industry by purchasing Aerojet Engineering Corporation of California. Aerojet was a major manu-

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facturer of solid and liquid rockets for the war effort. These rockets came into full use at the end of the war. At one point during the Battle of the Bulge, General made rockets in California which were delivered to Europe in 72 hours for use in the battle. General’s liquid rockets would be used in America’s Gemini space flights in the 1960s and a part of our nuclear warhead delivery system of the Cold War. General also moved into iron pipe, vinyl plastic, tennis balls, and PVC during the 1950s. Probably its most unusual diversification was its purchase of RKO Pictures from Howard Hughes. Maybe not so surprising, considering Bill’s long love of movies and his personal involvement in early radio commercials with comedian Jack Benny. RKO General would become a major independent producer in movies, television, and radio.1 The late 1940s to the early 1960s was a stable period for the rubber companies, and they adjusted to the loss of defense contracts. There was postwar growth with few imports from the other war-worn industrial nations. The big four took different paths. Goodrich and U.S. Rubber continued to diversify into chemicals. Goodyear diversified into other products as Firestone pursued a strategy to overtake Goodyear in tires. The tire technology breakthrough of the period came from the smaller tire maker, B.F. Goodrich. The innovation was the tubeless tire in the late 1940s. It had been under development by all the companies where bullet torn tires needed to keep running. The tire with its inner tube to hold the air pressure had been problematic at higher speeds for decades. Now improved roads and higher speed limits plagued the safety record of tires. The tire carcass and inner tube rubbed together and generated heat at high speeds. The heat resulted often in blowouts. The synthetic butyl rubber of the war was a more airtight material than natural rubber. Goodrich developed a process of lining the carcass in butyl rubber and produced an airtight bead to seal the tire to the rim. At the time Goodrich had the best engineers and innovators in the business. He introduced the product in 1947 but market forces prevented their making a large profit from it. The first problem was capacity. The processing of the tubeless tire required extended processing. The tubeless tire had to be cured in the mold with water versus conventional tires that were removed hot. This limited Goodrich’s initial ability to capitalize on its innovation. Goodrich tested the product slowly in the Cincinnati, Ohio, market. Goodrich aimed then at the replacement market, but even the replacement market hinged on getting the Big Three to start using them on new cars. Problems mounted in selling tubeless tires to General Motors and Ford and then spread back to the replacement market. The old days of Harvey Firestone and Henry Ford coming together to promote innovation were gone. The second problem was the auto companies that resisted changes unless all the tire companies could supply. Without original equipment sales, replace-

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ment market sales were difficult. Goodrich lacked good manufacturing capability as well. The company hoped to make money on the royalties, but Goodyear, U.S. Rubber and Firestone all started their own development of the tubeless tire. In 1953, Firestone introduced a tubeless nylon cord tire and the others followed. The Goodrich patent proved too weak to defend. While the tubeless tire did little for profits, it saved thousands of lives on the highway and slowly became standard. However, it would augur a conservative restraint by the American auto companies on innovation. Still, the tire companies prospered in the 1950s and proved more innovative than the American car manufacturers. In fact, the resistance to change by the Big Three automakers would be part of the fall of the American rubber companies in the upcoming decades. The 1950s saw the growth of Firestone’s tire business as well as that of General Tire (number five). Akron still accounted for about 60 percent of tires made, but Seiberling Rubber saw declining business to Mohawk (Akron), Cooper (Findlay), and Mansfield. Imports were basically non-existent until Michelin cut a deal with Sears in 1966 to sell revolutionary steel belted radial tires. In the 1950s and 1960s, the rubber prosperity continued even though there were signs of impending problems. The unions pushed for their share of the profits. The postwar labor conflicts started with tough battles in the 1950s at U.S. Rubber’s Detroit plant. The steelworkers and autoworkers had their issues in the 1950s as well. The 1959 Steel Strike was the last industrywide strike, but it allowed massive steel imports to come into the country, changing the auto supply chain forever. The strike had been a disaster for both sides; it allowed steel imports to flow into the country for the first time, and the steel industry never recovered. Rubber should have been paying attention. Rubber workers had taken major strikes in 1949, 1952, 1956, and 1959, but imports were not a problem as of yet. At the end of the 1950s, rubber workers were some of the highest paid workers in the world, averaging over $2.60 an hour with pension and healthcare benefits. The rubber industry went into the 1960s believing in endless prosperity. Without import pressures, labor costs seemed just a part of operating (at least in the north). One industry report noted an average of an amazing 95 strikes per year between 1965 and 1969. The stoppages were of a bigger concern and to avoid the union, rubber plants went south. Of the 31 new rubber plants built in the United States from 1960 to 1979, 24 were built in the South. All the rubber companies would have a strategy of de-centralizing from Akron. This would be one of the four horsemen on the horizon. America and the rubber industry participated in a vast move toward internationalism after World War II. It was a much different type of international expansion from the era of the barons. It was driven from a world view of the industry, banks, and the government. Companies became transnational

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in nature with ever decreasing national attachments. The global environment was much different than the domestic, and government policy failed to fully recognize it. The American government saw trade as a vehicle for world peace, thus becoming more open to imports. The government also maintained the strong anti-trust approach of the 1910s, forcing American companies to compete against foreign combinations that had economy of scale and resources. Unfortunately, the workers lacked the luxury of becoming transnational or international; they were a localized resource forced to compete in a world of much cheaper labor. The 1950s and 1960s allowed some time for Japan and Europe rebuilt their factories. The sixties would see the beginning of four problems for the industry — imports, rising labor costs, aging factories, and radial tire technology. The dusk of the four horsemen was on the horizon. Seiberling Rubber Company would be the first of the Akron rubber companies to fall, but the reasons didn’t seem to be part of the approaching Armageddon. For some, the failure of the Seiberling Rubber Company was the beginning of the end; but in reality, Seiberling Rubber failed when other minor tire makers such as Cooper, Mohawk, Dayton, and Mansfield succeeded. In 1938, Frank Seiberling’s son Penfeild took over as president of the company, but the initial strategy remained. Seiberling Rubber produced a top quality, high price tire, but it lacked volume. In addition, the Goodyear and Firestone price wars brought their premium tires to lower prices than Seiberling could sustain. Seiberling was also based in the high price labor market of Akron. The price wars would doom Seiberling Rubber. The price war was the result of overexpansion by the rubber companies in the late fifties. They had anticipated a boom from the growth of the interstate highway system. However, there were a lot of new entries into the tire market. In 1955 there were 50 private label tire brands; and by 1965, there were 165 private labels. Furthermore, these private labels had taken over 45 percent of the replacement market, forcing the big companies to drop their prices to hold market share. The price war squeezed the big companies and crushed the second tier such as Seiberling Rubber, which had high Akron labor costs. Seiberling Rubber was in deep trouble by 1960, even before imports and radials hit the market. With little diversification, Seiberling was fighting for profits in the tire business against the majors. What evolved was something that Akron and the rubber companies would see over and over in the upcoming decades. A corporate raider, Edward Lamb, started to buy stock in hopes of a takeover. Penfield Seiberling would fight on all fronts, but Lamb and his associates did gain seats on the board by the late 1950s. In 1962, Lamb took control in a bitter proxy fight that ended in the Seiberling family selling all stock in the company. It was a bitter setback for the family which sold at depressed stock prices.

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Lamb could not turn the company around, mainly because the company was torn between old Seiberling loyalists and the new management. Firestone had started to aggressively purchase the smaller tire makers such as Dayton and Mansfield. Seiberling’s tire division was sold to Firestone, and the chemical division was sold to General Tire; so at least temporarily, the jobs remained in Akron. What was going unnoticed as Seiberling Rubber was saved was the steadily increasing arrival of Japanese cars on the West Coast. Imports alone would not be the final nail but a unique combination of costs, new technology, aging equipment, and auto imports. The deadly mixture was the result of a much deeper government postwar policy. The problems were further heightened by competition in the auto supply chain and lack of cooperation between the auto companies and their suppliers.

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The Four Horsemen The 1960s and 1970s saw the appearance of the rubber industry’s four horsemen — imports, labor costs, old factories, and radial tire technology. The first white horse of the rubber industry, like its biblical analog, would not only be a warning of those plagues to follow but a point of confluence for the others. The white horse in this case was the radial belted tire. The radial tire caught the American industry with older plants, lack of new equipment, high dollar policy, a dysfunctional auto supply chain, and unhinged free trade. It was like a deer in the headlights, realizing it could do little to save itself. The story of the growth of the radial tire is the story of the deindustrialization of America itself. It reflects how America’s success in the war and its good intentions for world peace would be part of its own demise. It would reflect not so much a betrayal by labor or management, but a betrayal, albeit unintentional, of government. The 1960s saw the first wave of rubber imports after World War II. These were rubber shoes, belts, industrial hoses, and toys. By the 1920s, Trenton, New Jersey, had evolved into the East Coast’s rubber center with over 8,000 rubber workers. This was the highest concentration of rubber workers outside of Akron. Trenton originally had been home to a number of Goodyear licensees in 1870s. The early wave of general rubber imports crushed Trenton’s rubber industry by 1970. That wave would turn to rubber tires in the 1970s.1 While auto imports had started their attack in the 1970s, few realized the barbarians were at the gate. Goodyear had 33 percent of the domestic market and Firestone had 23 percent. Uniroyal (old U.S. Rubber) had 25 percent of the market. B.F. Goodrich and General Tire also had huge portions. Michelin Tire of France was making headway in the replacement market, but there seemed that there was nothing to fear. Michelin’s steel belted tire was being resisted by the Big Three auto companies in most of their production just as they had resisted Goodrich’s belted radial in the 1960s. At the time it seemed unlikely that imports would storm America. Few had noticed that the walls had been breached in the Steel City during the great Steel Strike of 1959 when imported steel flowed into the country for the first time. Few saw that 203

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the fall of American industry was like that of the feared domino effect of communism taking over the world. The steel belted radial tire offered the superior product of a patented European process of Michelin Tire. The Europeans, starting from bombed out factories, had adopted the new technology in building their new plants (with American money) in the 1950s. The big three auto companies resisted them because of needed auto design changes until the 1970s, which allowed the tire companies to underestimate the potential to their markets. The oil crisis and the government reaction to it would change everything. Now the American rubber industry lacked the massive capital needed to make the conversion fast enough. Michelin already had American distribution, and our free trade policy allowed both foreign cars and tires to pour in, and this was even accelerated by our government’s dollar policy creating cheap imports. There was nothing short of intervention that could save the rubber industry. Of course, this is hindsight. Enlightened politicians such as William McKinley and industrialists like Harvey Firestone or Paul Litchfield might have seen it coming, but the 1970s lacked such visionaries. The war had given the government and businesses an international focus based on unlimited trade, and no William McKinley came to the rubber industry’s defense with the force and intervention that was needed. It is in vogue to blame the decline of American rubber, and for that matter all of American industry, on union wages and management salaries and incompetence in both sides, but is that really the fact? Is the answer in the old Akron factories or in the great buildings of Washington and the ivy covered economic buildings of our greatest universities? Was rubber’s fall in that it lacked the old lions such as Firestone? Or was it that the Big Three auto companies, lacking visionaries such as Henry Ford, first rejected American radial technology only to demand that it happen overnight. Maybe America and the Western world’s desire to obtain world peace through trade made rubber a necessary sacrificial lamb. Consider the view of Professor Donald Sull of the London Business School concerning the downfall of Firestone Tire and Rubber: Closer analysis reveals that Firestone failed not despite, but because of its historical roots. In the years immediately following World War II, Firestone had honed a competitive formula that focused attention on its domestic rivals and large customers, refined processes to design and make tires, forged a dense set of relationships with customers and employees that secured their loyalty, and reinforced a strong set of corporate values. While the competitive formula enabled Firestone to succeed in the booming tire market of the 1960s, it constrained the company’s ability to respond to the changes brought about by the advent of the radial tire.2

This is a different twist on the theme of inflexible, maybe even incompetent, management. The very management hailed as some of America’s best

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in the 1960s now became the whipping boy. The radial tire challenge was a combination of technology, imports, dollar policy, initial auto company resistance, and lack of a national manufacturing policy. But let’s start with the radial tire itself. The radial tire represented a unique advancement in product quality that, if successful, promised to devastate sales and profits for the very American companies that adopted it. The change to radial production would require massive investment by both the rubber and auto industries. The auto companies would have to make design changes because of the steel belted radial’s rougher ride. In fact, the American auto companies had resisted Goodrich’s radial tires before buying Michelin. So what was the nature of such a technological worm capable of bringing down a mighty industry? Radials represented a major technological revolution. Radial tires, as opposed to bias ply, have their cord plies at 90 degrees to the direction of travel. This design avoids plies rubbing against each other and reduces friction. Radials, in turn, dramatically increased tire life (as much as 25,000 additional miles) and gas mileage, but transit road impact more, requiring suspension adjustments. The results of longer tire life and improved gas mileage were revolutionary, but the radial’s development, like most technology, was evolutionary beyond what the industry had seen before. Historians date the first radial design to 1915 patents in America and 1913 in Europe. The radial construction would require special equipment and, prior to 1945, there was almost no real motivation to convert. The automakers would have had to redesign their models as well to accept radial design. After the war, Michelin Tire designed its famous Michelin X radial, using steel belts, which gave huge increases in tire life, gas mileage, lighter car design, and better handling. The equipment needed to build radials was not only revolutionary but expensive. While the belted radial offered major advantages, Michelin’s product found its success based on serendipity as much as technology. The timing of the emergence of steel belted radial technology was perfect for Michelin. European car and tire manufacturers were in a state of massive retooling and building after World War II. It was the perfect time to apply a radical change in design and manufacturing. Bridgestone in Japan, Continental in Germany, and Pirelli of Italy faced the same opportunities as Michelin. The rapid success of radial tires in Europe was, to a degree, related to the destruction of their industry and consumer markets from the war. European auto manufacturers built their cars to take advantage of radials in new and improved assembly lines. American auto manufacturers resisted radials fearing it would require car and production line changes. In addition, American rubber companies would require new factories and high cost to switch quickly to radials. There was some consumer market resistance in higher product cost and the inability to mix with bias ply tires on the car. The market resistance in

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America would be that bias ply and radials could not be intermixed offered no problem in France were there was a lack of tires and autos after the war. America’s very success in the war and the major contribution in that success now became the American rubber industry’s Achilles’ heel. By the mid–1970s, France’s market was 70 percent radial, and Europe, in general, was over 50 percent, while America’s radial market was essentially zero. The American consumer and automakers were happy to continue with low-cost bias-ply tires. Why was America so slow to adopt the radial technology? It was clearly not ignorance; the American tire operations in Europe knew of the penetration of the radial in Europe. One issue was Michelin’s steel belted tire, where most of the advantages were, was protected by a strong patent position in the use of steel belts. The American auto manufacturers still dominated the world and showed little interest in the 1950s to making the car design changes needed. A superior product for the rubber companies to attack the replacement market would require the consumer to buy in sets of four, which amounted to a complex marketing barrier by the very nature of the technology. In the 1950s, America appeared as an impenetrable fort to any real competition. In hindsight, it would be hard to blame anyone in the 1950s and 1960s for not moving into the radial tire. The sixties saw market changes that created cracks in America’s fort. Japanese cars with radial Bridgestone tires started flowing into the American market. Still, most rubber executives were correct in that auto manufacturers and the public proved resistant to the change. It would be one of the smaller tire makers of big six, B.F. Goodrich, which hoped to use the new radial technology to take market share from the others not invested in the radial technology. Goodrich used nylon belts in their radial tires to avoid the Michelin patent which used steel belts. American companies had experience in nylon tires going back to the late 1940s. Nylon tires increased life not up to the 40,000 mile life of Michelin, but 30,000 miles was much improved over 15,000 miles for bias ply. The problem was America was not ready for steel belted radials. The Goodrich Silvertown radial was based on studying European successes; but American consumers rejected the price to convert their cars, and auto manufacturers balked, fearing costly design changes in the car. Furthermore, to be successful, Goodrich needed the original equipment manufacturers; but since no other major American tire maker joined in, automakers were reluctant to be in a one supplier relationship for assembly lines. In addition, the automakers had rejected the 1965 Goodrich movement into radials. General Motors, in particular, had stonewalled any movement to belted radicals because they were almost double the cost. Goodrich’s 1977 Tiempo and its 1980 Arriva were considered as good as Michelin, but it was too late. The

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failure of Goodrich’s radial took them out of the tire business. Goodyear had some success with its glass belted tires. Based on consumer resistance, auto manufacturers’ resistance, and the high cost of changeover, American rubber companies made the right decision to look at a transition product, although many, in hindsight, still suggest the rubber companies were standing still.3 Armstrong Tire was the first in 1965 to introduce a bias-belted tire in America. The promise of this approach was reduced capital costs needed for new tire building equipment. Goodyear followed in 1967 with a polyester belted bias tire. By the early 1970s, bias-belted tires had 87 percent of the market. Goodyear had even led an advertising campaign against the belted radials with their harsher ride. As the number one tire maker, Goodyear was heavily invested in new bias belted tire manufacture. Michelin, however, made some ground in the American market in its deal with Sears to sell steel belted tires. These radial tires guaranteed 46,000 miles, which no one could match. Michelin also won a Ford contract in 1969 to supply top of the line Ford Continentals. Ford had been pushing for a possible conversion to radials, far ahead of the other American automakers. Bridgestone was looking for a way to enter the American tire market, and used radials with a 40,000 mile guarantee to start the progress. As Japanese autos flooded in, so the sales of steel belted tires increased in the replacement market. Still consumers and American auto companies balked at a fast change to radials. Michelin seemed destined to take the American market as it increased its Nova Scotia production to 12,000 tires a day. B.F. Goodrich tried and failed to form a joint venture with Michelin. Also by 1970, imported cars with radials had reached the 10 percent mark. Goodyear was making radials in the European market but was not ready to convert their American operations. The conversion to radial tires required completely new and costly equipment. Consumer resistance started to break down as Consumer Reports in 1971 gave a very favorable report on the savings connected with converting to radials. Still, it was a hard sell since you had to fully convert to radials and could not mix them use bias ply tires. Michelin had a simple and basic marketing strategy to let quality sell itself. To build name recognition, Michelin used an American published Guide Michelin in 1968. It had been started by Michelin in 1900 for world visitors to the Paris World’s Fair and then known as the Red Book. Even in 1900, it had 400 pages of travel guide, giving critical information as to where the few gasoline stations and repair shops were. It supplied general travel information of attractions and hotels much like today. The 1968 American version would become the model for today’s travel guides. By 1970, its popularity was approaching that of Michelin tires. It would be an external factor that would be the tipping point for steel belted radials.

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It would be the oil crisis of 1973 that brought the radial tire to the forefront and crushed the American rubber industry through no fault of labor or management. The Arab oil embargo would be the true beginning of the energy crisis. The root cause was the rising power of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), controlled by Arab countries to use oil as a political force. The United States’ support of the Israeli military in the Yom Kippur War in October 1973 created a political backlash in the Arab nations. Arab oil producing countries imposed an oil embargo on the United States and increased prices to its European allies by 70 percent. Oil jumped from $3.00 a barrel to over $5.00 a barrel overnight. By the end of the embargo it had reached $11.00 a barrel. Gasoline went from 30 cents a gallon to one dollar a gallon. Now consumers were looking at ways to save gasoline. The United States relied on foreign countries for 36 percent of its oil in 1973. The embargo caused consumer panics, with stations running out of gas and mile-long lines. Rationing became necessary. The American auto industry was caught off guard with large gas-guzzlers in their showrooms. Imported gas efficient car sales surged, and even though the embargo lasted only six months, buying patterns were changed forever. At the end of the six-month embargo, oil would be $18.00 a barrel. Lawmakers jumped on the bandwagon demanding that more gas efficient cars be produced. The automakers and the government moved to make more gas efficient cars. The Big Three automakers now embraced radials as a means to not only reduce mileage but allow for an overall lighter car. Sears started to push the savings of Michelin steel belted tires. Customers also flooded to radials in a quest to save gas. The change caught the American tire makers without a radial plant in the United States to supply them. The transition of the industry from bias ply ties to steel belted radials and Michelin’s success should sound familiar. It is the same story with different technologies of Harvey Firestone and Frank Seiberling of Goodyear using the superior straight wall tire, taking on and defeating the clincher tire monopoly. Harvey Firestone had built his company on this new straight wall technology to specifically break into the business. This may be the ingredient of the barons that was missing from the American tire companies in the 1960s. In the 1920s Firestone used the balloon tire to revolutionize the market. Goodyear followed quickly with balloon technology to overtake U.S. Rubber. Harvey Firestone, Frank Seiberling, Paul Litchfield and the other barons were technology freaks, always applying the latest and newest. Firestone and Litchfield, in particular, followed the advances of European technology personally in car racing. Litchfield as well as Firestone never let a technological innovation go unchallenged. The tire executives of the 1960s used a defense strategy in conversion to radials. Now in the 1970s, these venerable tire companies were caught in a down-

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ward spiral with no one to help. They would have to convert to radials in a period of recession and stagflation. The cost and time to convert to radials put them out of the market. They lacked a native son president such as William McKinley, or the industry leadership of Harvey Firestone, or the nationalistic auto leaders such as Henry Ford, or a sympathetic Congress willing to buy them time to make the conversion by protective tariffs. Had the McKinley approach of the 1890s been applied, America’s rubber industry would have been saved. Instead poor management and high union wages took the blame. The rubber industry’s house was divided against itself. Only a few decades earlier, these rubber companies and their employees had converted their factories to bail out the government in the war. Now the rubber companies were pressured by auto companies that had resisted radials to supply radials. The auto companies were pressured by the government for more fuel savings. Reacting quickly to government pressure, the auto companies moved quickly to Michelin and Bridgestone to supply radials. In many ways the rubber companies made a heroic effort to bring on radials. Goodyear, which at the start of the 1970s had a third of the market, would spend over a billion in the 1970s to make the conversion. Firestone would also make the investments in tires, but Goodrich, General, and Uniroyal looked to reduce their exposure to the tire market. There were union and management issues also. The year 1967 was prior to the oil crisis but set the stage for disaster. The conversion to radials was a huge problem, but it would be framed in the 1967 to 1976 period which included out of control inflation and strikes to keep up. For the union, however, 1967 was a perfect time to negotiate a new contract. Profits had been good in the rubber industry, and no one was able to see the signs of the coming storm. The United Rubber Workers wanted a substantial wage increase, more vacation time and pay, and supplemental unemployment benefits. The union was at its peak with over 170,000 members, and no one realized that those more commonly seen Japanese cars would ever be a real problem. The strike started on April 20, 1967, against Goodrich, Uniroyal, General, and Firestone. Goodyear remained working, as the union used their Goodyear workers to help pay strike benefits. Goodrich was in the worst position with its struggling effort to enter the radial market with costly equipment investments. The 1967 strike would break Goodrich’s resolve to expand into radials. The strike went eighty days, draining in particular B.F. Goodrich’s reserves and the union’s strike fund. The strike neared violence by the time General and Goodrich settled. Neither management nor the union realized what was on the horizon. The union won an 80 percent supplemental pay for laid off workers as well as more benefits and wages. Pensions and hospitalization benefits were sufficiently improved. In retrospect, many might question the wisdom of such a contract, but for the

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times (not the future), the settlement made sense and had popular support. The failure of radials and the new union contract would start a shift in B.F. Goodrich’s management and thinking about making tires. During the 1970s, while the American tire companies rushed to convert to radials, the appearance of the final horsemen of imports and high costs rode in. The 1976 strike went 140 days and is often compared to the 1959 steel strike as an industry changing event. The strike allowed for additional flood of imports. The 1979 contract was considered by the union as one of the best wage and benefit packages in America. The wage increase was $1.22 per hour, but it reflected the economic plague of inflation that had hit during the Carter administration. The wage increases seemed justified for the time, but they would set the industry up for failure in the future. The seventies had started out well for the tire industry with sales peaking in 1973 with a domestic record. The slide would then begin, and imports would start the devastation of the rubber industry. By the end of the 1970s over 25 percent of the cars sold were foreign (with foreign tires). Also, replacement sales of tires were rapidly approaching the 15 percent mark. Sears was highly successful selling Michelin radial replacement tires. The radial tire revolution would be complete by 1980 with massive changes to the geography of American tire manufacturing. Bias ply tire factories became virtually obsolete with the radial revolution creating a wave of plant closings. The relatively rapid change to radials in the 1970s took out many of America’s largest tire plants. The transition was a technological and manufacturing nightmare that hit Firestone the hardest. The change to radial production made most tire making equipment obsolete overnight. The resurgence of radials put Goodrich back in the game after failing to get auto manufacturers on board in the 1960s. Firestone rolled out its steel belted radial in 1972, calling it the Firestone 500. The speed and pressure forced American tire companies like Firestone to use old bias ply equipment which would cause major quality and manufacturing problems. The Firestone radial had latent problems, and tire blowouts and tread separation started to surface in 1975. By 1978, it resulted in an 8.7 million tire recall at a cost of more than $150 million. It would be the largest recall in history and boost Michelin radial sales. Firestone wasn’t alone either as Goodrich struggled to meet Ford’s requirement of all radial tires, forcing the use of more Michelin by Ford. Goodrich would resolve it by 1979, but again it was too late. The timing allowed for major market penetration by Japanese Bridgestone radials and French Michelin radials. Firestone never recovered from the market overtake. The other companies had their problems, too, with the conversion. Worst for the Rubber City and old rubber towns, it made little sense to convert old factories for radial production. Eighteen bias ply rubber tire plants closed in the 1970s. Rubber companies looked south to build new

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plants in right-to-work non-union environments. Firestone built its new 1972 radial plant in Nashville, Tennessee. And Goodyear built its radial tire plant in 1978 in Lawton, Oklahoma. The four horsemen had come together to form a cavalry charge on American rubber. Car imports on the West Coast caused the closing of major Los Angeles tire plants by all four major tire companies. It was the end of rubber’s western empire. European rubber companies soon discovered they would have to come to America. Michelin was the company in the best position to exploit the American radial revolution; it had manufacturing plants in Canada and a huge warehouse in New York. In 1974, Michelin was supplying 2.5 million tires to the American market. They were overcoming a 20 percent tariff using technology and a 40,000 mile guarantee that no American company could match. During the deep 1973 recession, Michelin invested in building an American manufacturing plant in Anderson, North Carolina. The selection was based on avoiding the union and labor problems of the northern states. Michelin had struck to its founder’s antiunion stance. Michelin’s ability to overtake the American market saved the company from the union troubles and leftist government inference in its home country. Michelin would admit that the lack of competition of the American tire firms saved Michelin as a company.4 The Rubber City lost over 30,000 residents in the decade of the 1970s and over 5,000 rubber jobs. Firestone closed Plant Number 2 and Goodyear closed its Plant Number 2 as well in the city of Akron in 1978. In fact, 1978 would be remembered as the fall of the Rubber City. In addition, that year Mohawk Rubber closed its Akron plant. For the most part, tire production was wiped out in the city. It’s hard to fully appreciate the blow to the city’s morale as its icons were torn down. It was on the level with the loss of New York’s Twin Towers, and while the deaths of the Twin Towers stand out, New York rallied for a future rebuilding. Akron was hopeless; there was to be no rebuilding, and the nation passed it off beneath any national headlines. The 1980s and 1990s only saw Akron’s vanishing manufacturing tax base close schools, cut teachers’ jobs, and close government agencies as the spiral downward continued. Doctors, dentists, and eye doctors, who once thrived on rubber worker benefits, left for other towns. Retailing collapsed, emptying strip malls. No one rushed to help. Congress chose to see the fall of the Rubber City as a special case. Management and the union blamed each other. Economic experts talked of the new global economy of information versus manufacturing. There was devastation that went unreported. Families were destroyed under the economic pressures, and people loss their sense of importance in never-ending unemployment lines. Neighborhoods and families collapsed. Some parts of Akron looked little different than Germany after the war. The loss of jobs and profitability meant a loss of votes and political capital. Politi-

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cians moved on to more fertile grounds. The government did send retraining money for high tech jobs that never came to Akron or the other old rubber towns. Decades and waves of retraining programs have brought little to Akron even today. The industry, as a whole, fared little better than Akron. In 1981, B.F. Goodrich pulled out on the original equipment tire manufacture as well as rubber footwear. Most of the nation’s major tire plants of the 1950s were gone by 1983. American footwear producers were even more affected than the tire makers by imports. B.F. Goodrich moved footwear production to the South in an effort to match foreign labor costs in the 1960s. Goodrich’s South Carolina plant was built to use massive production and economy of scale to counter foreign labor costs. What should have been an advantage and a solution turned into a disadvantage as foreign producers used style changes to counter the more standardized production of Goodrich. Once again the lower foreign labor and benefit costs won. Simplistic free trade arguments won over the more complex analysis of trade and cost of freedom. This turn of events was demoralizing as even American technology could not defeat low labor and benefit costs. While management often took the heat for the plant closings, the facts suggest that management waited as long as possible in looking for a possible turnaround. More recent analysis of the fall in rubber shows the last line of baron related management at Firestone behaved in the mold of the Harvey Firestone: Executives and front-line employees were also considered family. Four of the six top executives in 1972 were born and raised in Akron and a third of the team was second generation. Former Firestone president Lee Brodeur recalled, “there was a tremendous amount of family loyalty in the Firestone culture … dedicated their lives to Firestone.” Firestone executives took a parental attitude toward communities in which the company operated — encouraging managers to sit on civic boards and carefully monitoring United Way contributions by neighboring companies to insure Firestone always contributed the most in each community where the factory was located.5

Similarly, Uniroyal, which had no connection to Akron, held on to its iconic Detroit plant for many losing years because of its importance to the community. The rubber companies in most cases held on belong the first years of losses. When Goodyear moved its radial production to Oklahoma, shutting its Akron plants, Goodyear invested in a $100 million Akron research center to help stabilize the area. General Tire held its plant in Akron; but in 1979, O’Neil brokered a final desperation deal with the union. Jerry O’Neil, like his father, faced the union members head on at the Local 9 Union Hall. In the end, both management and the union gave. The situation, however, was approaching that of the steel industry, where if the workers worked for

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free, they could not make steel cheaper than that of imported steel. However, the General Tire new Akron plant concept failed to materialize. General Tire’s Plant Number 1 had been built in 1915 and was still making mostly bias tires. The deal with the union included a 36 cents an hour pay cut and a loosening of work rules. The money would go into escrow to build a new plant in Akron. It looked like General Tire had found a new way with the union, but the flood of auto imports in the end couldn’t justify building a new plant. The plant closed in 1982. The General Tire unit was sold in 1987 to Continental AG of Germany. American headquarters for its tire company was moved to Charlotte, North Carolina. The aerospace part of the company became GenCorp, and its headquarters remained in Akron with manufacturing elsewhere. The death of rubber, the Rubber City, and the rubber towns created a change in the management of the companies. Middle managers and executives at Firestone, Goodyear, and others were loyal to their communities. In many cases, they delayed plant closings only to be replaced by headhunters representing the corporate boards. John Nevin at Firestone in 1979 was typical of the end of the paternal era for the rubber companies. For the first time the Firestone board had assigned an outsider to Akron and the rubber industry. Nevin was an axe man and he was proud of it. This was the era of Jack Welch, who was going to make American industry competitive again by making it lean. He seemed to enjoy the fear that he knew best. He had played the axe man role at Zenith years before. He hung a needlepoint in his office of a tiger ready to pounce!6 The sad part of the story is that Leonard Firestone, son of Harvey and a major stockholder, supported Nevin, feeling it was necessary, and no one from Akron could do it. Leonard’s roots were never in his father’s city. The problem was no one could really save the industry or Akron from the change of America to an international duty-free trade style of capitalism. Firestone was heading to bankruptcy. When the Firestone board sent John Nevin to Akron to takeover operations, CEO Richard Riley was still running things on paper. Nevin was backed by an army of consultants and virtual yes men to implement the deal that had been cut in Chicago between Leonard Firestone and Nevin. Nevin would need the moral support as the managers and the community knew what Nevin was sent to do. Nevin was organizationally isolated; any decision or move was quickly translated to the grapevine and to the Portage and Firestone country clubs. When Nevin wrote his initial report to close seven of Firestone’s seventeen plants, Riley refused to sign the death note for Akron’s two plants; the old Barberton plant (of Frank Seiberling); the Los Angeles plant; Pottstown, Pennsylvania; Salinas, California; and Dayton, Ohio. Riley was forced out, and Nevin would finish the job on those plants. Maybe the biggest blow to Akron was the 1987 announcement that Firestone would move

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its headquarters to Chicago. That announcement went to the heart of a proud city and was felt by all Akronites. The press blamed everybody except the economic gurus of American manufacturing policy in Washington and high dollar trade for the free trade policy. This policy was hailed as the necessary movement of capitalism in free markets. Economic professors talked of America losing its competitive edge or moving on to an information age. The nation was told this was a good thing, and the solution was even more free trade. We, as a nation, were too smart for manufacturing jobs. The government would help with retraining for the emerging high tech jobs that never came. Thirty some years later the streets of Akron tell a different story. The computers and high products and come and gone to China. Community colleges switched from high tech training to green jobs, but now they too have gone to China. America has reached the point where retraining is no longer a growth industry. Certainly, loyalty and hard work were no longer a guarantee without bosses like Harvey Firestone and Paul Litchfield. The fall of the Rubber City in the 1980s marked the real end of the age of the barons. Unionization of the 1930s had first broken the companyemployee-community bonds. Still, there remained a civic pride and community ownership that lived on in the 1950s and 1960s. The massive plant closings and layoffs of the 1970s and 1980s broke the understanding that remained of a job for life. The optimism of the industry was gone, and the morale of the workforce was crushed. The last of the old gum-dipped loyalists were being forced to take early retirement. The nature of rubber making was now changed forever. The loss of the old barons meant the loss of the best political help for industrial cities and towns as well. Men like Harvey Firestone, Bill O’Neil, Paul Litchfield, and Frank Seiberling commanded presidential visits to the area. Harvey Firestone could be heard in the White House with a single phone call. Presidents would travel hundreds of miles to sit around a campfire with Firestone or launch an airship with Litchfield. It was a time when the barons controlled the politicians. Politicians came to Akron for support and money. And maybe those were the good old days. It was what made us different from the government planned industries of the Soviet Union where the politicians controlled industrialists. The passing of the age of the barons also slowed individual motivation and widened the gap between the worker and management. Under the barons, the rubber companies had hired college educated managers but never closed the door on promotion through the ranks. A man could rise in the organization based on performance. By the 1960s after the barons, rubber managers had to have college degrees. Maybe that change is best exemplified by Joyce Dyer’s description of her father’s demotion: “One day in 1962, my dad was told that

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because he had only a high-school diploma, he was going to be demoted…. He was not promotable without a college degree. His salary would necessarily also be reduced, you certainly will understand, Tom.”7 Tom Coyne had worked under Harvey Firestone and set production records; he loved and admired Firestone. Having worked his way up to management had been the proudest part of his life. He was a gum-dipped loyalist. This post-baron management movement coupled with unionization made for two industrial classes of employees. This class distinction had never existed under the barons. Coyne proudly ended his career at Firestone as a janitor; he never told his family of the demotions. Tom remained loyal to the memory of the old company but was crushed by the new. Such a thing could not happen under the barons, but now it was commonplace. Expertise, education, and skills were all highly prized, but cherished by the barons were performance and loyalty. Tom’s story is heartbreaking, and it reflects the story of the industry itself. Many have pointed to 1978 or 1982 as the fall of the Rubber City, but maybe 1962 was the real beginning of the end.

17

Back to the Future In passing along the highway one frequently sees large and spacious buildings, with the glass broken out of the windows, the shutters hanging in ruinous disorder, without any appearance of activity and enveloped in solitary gloom. Upon inquiring what they are, you are almost always informed that they were some cotton or other factory, which their proprietors could no longer keep in motion against the overwhelming pressure of foreign competition.1 — Henry Clay, 1820, in his founding of the Whig Party and American System

The rise of American industry and the rubber industry was a matter of choice and a national determination. We have been here before, as noted by Henry Clay in 1820. The future, however, is not in the price of goods or labor costs or unions or management but in the hands of the people and their government. Henry Clay was touring the once great textile industry of New England that had been wiped out by imports when he made a decision to bring back American industry. Clay’s movement would take many years, but it replaced those broken windows and ushered in American industry’s glory years. In 1820, Henry Clay started a grassroots movement that would be fully embraced by a young Whig, Abraham Lincoln, in his new party and brought to full implementation by William McKinley of Ohio. Akron would become the very heart of the Whig Party; it was the political roots of the barons such as Harvey Firestone and Frank Seiberling. The Whig Party family background was the most common factor of all the barons. While many would argue that the failure of the rubber industry was because of lack of the leadership and innovation of the management lacking the barons, the facts suggest that by 1982, little could be done by the companies given the environment. The real missing link might well have been the barons’ belief in economic nationalism and economic manifest destiny. The extension of American Whig philosophy through Ohio Republicanism would have made a difference. It was in Akron that the views of the Iron Whigs of Eastern Ohio and 216

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Western Pennsylvania, and those of the Western Reserve immigrants of New England (Akron area), were forged into McKinley Republicanism that would be the banner of Ohio Republican presidents such as James Garfield, William McKinley, William Taft, and Warren Harding. William McKinley and James Garfield were the native sons of the Western Reserve of Ohio. These were the titans of American industrial protection. The Whigs had no social platform, only a determination to make America great economically. Many considered Firestone’s home town of Columbiana, Ohio, as the heart of the Whigs. The Whig economic platform was combined with abolitionism to create the Republican Party in 1856 in nearby Pittsburgh. The Akron and New England rubber barons were the children of that political merger. It was the political platform of the Whigs that defines the barons. It was a simple national Whig economic mission defined as the American System. The American System of the Whigs, and later Abraham Lincoln, was summarized best by historian Edgar Jones and is far different than the platform of either of today’s parties. That summary is: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

A high protective tariff Internal Improvements A loyal adherence to the constitution of the United States Ardent support of the union Passionate patriotism and a belief in the lofty destiny of America.2

The Whigs believed in America as being given a special economic destiny, but today that economic manifest destiny seems dying, if not dead. Many called it economic nationalism, which may still be a sleeping giant. While the industrial forest has been lumbered out, the roots remain. Old industrial cities in Europe have often sprung up on the old ruins after centuries. The symbolic heart of the industry, the Rubber City, is far from dead and shows those roots. Goodyear, the number 3 tire company, is still headquartered there. Bridgestone-Firestone still has its research center there. Two Korean tire companies have moved their research there as well because of the expertise remaining in the area. Polymer science has flourished in place of the rubber, but the massive numbers of jobs are gone. The loss of tax base has devastated the community, but it has fared better than the devastation of Youngstown to the east. Cleveland remains in decline. Detroit, the Motor City, can take the title of the worst of the Rust Belt, although General Motors and Ford remain headquartered there. Toledo, the Glass City, remains headquarters for Libbey Glass and Libbey-Owens but mirrors Detroit. Pittsburgh, the Steel City, has survived the best; steel is no longer made in the city limits, and it has morphed into a research and education center, but even here a steel company can pop up. The passing of the rubber barons and their counterparts in other indus-

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tries marked a change in America. The fall of the rubber industry marks that transformation. We moved from a paternal, nationalistic capitalism to free trade and international capitalism. The rubber barons, while some of the country’s earliest international businessmen, were extremely patriotic and nationalistic. The barons fought hard against the international free trade capitalism of the Gilded Age bankers such as J.P. Morgan. The barons and their lieutenants came up through the ranks or founded the business. They were rooted in their communities and resisted any outside banking interests. Often they were outspoken on their dislike of bankers. Many historians often misunderstand the dislike of bankers. Bankers represented external interference and a struggle for control. The barons most often grew up in the factory communities they fostered. Their business decisions factored in community, and there was a pride in being the builders of the rubber towns and cities. They were protected by a nationalistic group of politicians such as James Garfield, William McKinley, Teddy Roosevelt, and William Howard Taft. They protected the rubber industry with high tariffs but also demanded investment of the profits into plant expansion and jobs. They balanced their approach where regulated by a congressional overview committee. They wanted trade that favored their American plants; however, they opened foreign operations where necessary. The barons and their lieutenants were replaced by internationalists who saw the companies as transnational. New alliances were made with the big bankers to back and facilitate their international expansion. Community relationships were considered necessary but not really part of the corporate fabric. The new breed of rubber CEOs were bankers or bank-backed executives who favored the international perspective. They were hardly paternal. Where or by whom rubber products were made was a straight business decision. American politicians also became internationalists with their dollar policy. They didn’t sell out but believed that they could bring peace in the world with duty-free trade, which now has become free trade. At first, free trade favored America after World War II, since the bombed out factories of Europe and Japan offered little competition. Then the high dollar policy and free trade policies slowly and steadily started to overwhelm American rubber plants. The very political and business infrastructure that had built the Rubber City was transformed. The unions, management, and even the politicians pointed fingers, but few looked to the ivy covered buildings of schools, such as the University of Chicago, where the economic structure of the postwar world had been defined. This was the face of what we now know as globalization. The political system of the age of the barons was low taxation and highly protective. While they detested government involvement in unionization, they relied on tariffs and government efforts in a national road or transportation systems. The government of the barons favored a nationalistic, paternal-

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istic, and regulatory approach to capitalism. Tariffs were as high as 40 percent but that came with heavy, daily regulation by a standing committee of Congress to assure profits were invested in new factories. The industries of the barons were protected as long as profits were put back in the expansion of factories, job creation, and to some degree, community improvements. The barons themselves were highly patriotic, and while expanding internationally, no effort was made to be transnational; in fact, they were more typical of the “ugly” American bringing American methodology to other countries. They believed fully in American exceptionalism. Bill O’Neil of General and P.W. Litchfield of Goodyear were outspoken opponents of communism and socialism. It would be difficult for the barons to close an American factory and move offshore for two reasons: (1) they were nationalists above all; and (2) Congress would strip them of their protective tariff status. Politically, they were Whigs (or Glided Age Republicans), believing all political platforms should be based solely on the growth of America economically. The program of economic nationalism favored both worker and manager under the barons. The barons had fought the unions more for control than money. The unions, however, knew that a Firestone or a Seiberling was not going to pack up the factories and leave town, let alone the country. The barons saw the community as part of their own legacy. The new internationalist executives and New York bankers had no loyalty to any city, state, or nation. In the 1970s and 1980s, it was all about international competition. There was one unusual successful American company that bucked the odds and trends of the 1970s and 1980s. Cooper Tire moved from a second tier tire company to the nation’s fourth largest tire maker in the 1990s. Many have looked to Cooper Tire as an American model in this globalized market. The secret was one of basic principles of early barons such as Harvey Firestone. One trade magazine credited Cooper’s success to its founding principles of I.J. Cooper of good merchandise, fair play, and a square deal.3 While certainly Cooper’s principles were the core of this hometown company, Cooper’s success was a combination of applying a niche strategy for a declining industry. In particular, it strategically played the switch to radials and imports by playing the niche need for bias tires for the replacement market. Cooper was a replacement market supplier and didn’t need to make a rapid switch to the expensive radial tires being driven by the auto companies. Cooper chose to move slowly and supply a quality and well-priced tire in the expanding replacement market as others switched capacity for original equipment to radial production. Armstrong and Kelly-Springfield used a similar approach. Cooper was able to learn from the mistakes of the big manufacturers in the switch to radial. The growth of the replacement market was driven by inflation driving up car prices and owners holding on to older cars. Cooper slowly invested rising profits from bias replacements into radial tire

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equipment. Cooper’s brand loyalty kept sales ahead of production throughout the period. And there was one Akron baronial company that survived and still prospers. It was a family company that predated Goodyear, Firestone, and General tire. Prior to the Model T in 1907, this company was the fourth largest tire supplier in the United States and second in the world. The same year it had a tire plant in Milltown, New Jersey. In 1930, it was briefly in fourth in American tire sales. It was a company that was born in an unlikely farming community. In the early 1900s, this company was B.F. Goodrich’s largest competitor. The company was Michelin, which is still ruled by the founding family today. It would be Michelin that bought out Goodrich and Uniroyal (U.S. Rubber). Why has Michelin been successful in this global market? Michelin was of the same paternal bent as the American rubber barons. Early on it had focused on employees and community in France and the United States. Michelin was supplying employee housing 1911 in France before Firestone or Goodyear. In its Milltown community in America, Michelin supplied housing and recreational areas. It continued its paternalism to this day. Michelin is still a tightly owned family company that works off the business news grid of most corporations. Michelin more than anything was a company founded and grown on technology. From its very beginning in producing superior racing, it had maintained its edge with technology. The biggest reason was it won the postwar technological battle with its steel-belted radials in the 1950s. Michelin remains aggressive in technology and vertical integration. The Michelin family remains autocratic and top driven, but paternal and open to new ideas as well. While Michelin can be autocratic, it is willing to deal face to face with all levels of employees. Michelin family members remain close to the factory floor and demand the same type of style from its managers. Michelin also allows for conflict to be resolved at the lowest level possible. Like the days of Harvey Firestone and Frank Seiberling, loyal hard driving managers can rise quickly in this family owned organization. Auto executives at Renault-Nissan and international business rock star Carlos Goshen are products of the Michelin organization. There are many similarities between Goshen and Paul Litchfield of Goodyear. In many ways, Michelin stands as proof that the way of the barons can be successful even in today’s different environment. Today some things are the same. Four companies control over 75 percent of the American tire market, but the names have changed to Goodyear, Bridgestone, Michelin, and Cooper. Continental is fifth and a major original equipment supplier (Continental AG purchased General Tire in 1987). All of the companies go back to the era of the barons. Domestic plants continue to close; Goodyear alone has closed ten domestic plants from 2000 and continues to close plants. Only a recent 35 percent tariff on Chinese tires prevents the

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final devastation from Kumho Tires. Chinese rubber workers make only 50 cents an hour, making labor competition impossible for the American worker. Unions are and have been giving to save jobs, but they deal with international, globalized executives from financial backgrounds and a government policy that says to make decisions based on a global view. Such a history of the age of the barons and the decline of a great American industry begs the question — can we return to the glory days of the barons? Are there any young barons out there? The following characterization is based on the historical facts. It will not please Democrats or Republicans nor liberals or conservatives. The answer is yes — there are young Firestones and Seiberlings; but that’s not the real question. The question is, is America capable of bringing out these young barons? The answer is no. So what changes would be needed to return and why aren’t we trying? The solution is not, as many suggest, political; in fact, neither party has the whole answer, but that is what limits us. Each party has part of the components of the age of barons but is so polarized that no one can bring the necessary segments together. A type of economic nationalism would be required for the roots to grow again. Next, we would need to create the early educational environment of the barons. Surprisingly, the educational system of the barons lacked hard science and advanced math but was rich in the basics as well as American and heroic history. Education was a local community responsibility and tended to be one-room, poorly lighted, and cold, lacking many physical amenities of today. The only wall decorations were pictures of Washington and Lincoln. Homework seemed endless. Men like Firestone, while not great students, found inspiration their in McGuffey Readers. It was a highly competitive classroom and playground. Much of the discipline and playground behavior would be banded today! The other characteristic of the educational system was endless stories of the greatness of America. Self-reliance and the need to help the less fortunate, who seemed to build a foundation for paternal capitalists, was the basic lesson plan. The barons all had a similar style of direct and hands-on management. The exception was United States Rubber and Charles Flint, who designed a successful hierarchical corporate structure. For B.F. Goodrich, Harvey Firestone, Bill O’Neil and Frank Seiberling, it was different. They had built from the ground floor, hiring even the initial workers. Their companies were family. The barons knew their managers and foremen and would have them over to their mansions. Like Harvey Firestone, all received weekly reports from their district sales managers — in the case of Firestone, forty a week. Even as the organization grew, they maintained close contact with district sales and engineering product managers. Firestone had weekly committee meeting on products with engineers and salesmen as did the other barons. On the plant operations side, they favored hand picking strong managers. So many of these

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industrial barons were known for their selection of their number 2 men, like B.F. Goodrich selection of Bertram Work, Frank Seiberling’s selection of P.W. Litchfield, Harvey Firestone’s selection of John Thomas, Andrew Carnegie’s selection of Charles Schwab, H.J. Heinz’s selection of Sebastian Mueller, and Edmund Libbey’s selection of Michael Owens. The baron driven companies, including today’s Michelin, had the amazing ability to generate a core of loyal and hard driving lieutenants. It seems to come from the family oriented and paternal organization. The ability to move up depended on performance and loyalty. This type of loyalty is common in the barons of auto, steel, coal, and iron. Andrew Carnegie had a group of managers who idolized him long after he was their boss. These loyal managers allowed the organizations to run extremely flat and allowed for personal dealings even as the organization grew. It allowed the barons to clone themselves as upper, middle, and front line managers. As long as the baron remained at the head, the organization remained a clone of his strategy. Not that these managers were robotic. They often showed the same creativity of the founder, but they functioned in the shell created by the founder. They almost seemed born to be the world’s best number 2s and 3s in the world. Of course, they were often hand selected and groomed to be just that by the founding barons. Bill O’Neil who remained in Akron to run his company, ran the flattest organization. Biographer Dennis O’Neil would say, “General Tire was reputed to be the biggest business in the country without an organizational chart.”4 This type of structure was true of the early days of B.F. Goodrich, Firestone Tire & Rubber, and Goodyear. Unfortunately, such management structures cannot be sustained as an organization grows, and the founder retires. The barons handpicked all key managers, and they believed this to be critical. They looked to energetic and highly motivated leaders. Education was secondary to these. Trust and loyalty were basic requirements to join the organization. Leadership skills were considered vital. They wanted men that would join the family and stay. They wanted men like themselves. They filled jobs based on the man versus training or skill sets. It was not unusual for some unknown foreman or white collar worker to be given a big jump in responsibility and authority based on the assessment of the founder. These barons were also big believers in cross-training and multi-functional teams. They loved to move men from sales to operations or vice versa. This cross functional training had been the core of Litchfield’s famous Flying Squadron at Goodyear. These barons had great confidence in their skills of identifying leaders to motivate the organization. There is another unique type of motivation found in all these barons of rubber and in others such as George Westinghouse, Henry Ford, Charles Schwab, and H.J. Heinz. This attribute of looking at life as a challenge was to be embraced. They believed in success and enjoyed starting from nothing

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to gain it. Money was a mere measure of success, not an end in itself. Seiberling proved the point in starting all over in his sixties. The barons believed in a performance and loyalty based organization. There were no ceilings for men without college degrees. The unionization of the employees and passing of the barons ended this type of understanding that performance and loyalty were the only limitations to how far a man could go. The union limited advancement to seniority, which men like Harvey Firestone and Paul Litchfield violently opposed. Once the union had established a boundary, movement to management became more difficult. This destroyed the morale and motivation of high performers like Goodyear’s Flying Squadron. Then the next generation of executives following the barons started to require a college degree as an entrance into management. Finally, the cost problems of the 1970s squeezed opportunity. Clearly, one of the most powerful motivational tools of the barons was individual opportunity. What of the government and society? Society was self-reliant and competitive, reflecting the training of the educational system in the day of the barons. They did, however, believe that moral and religious training were the core of American capitalism and society. In this belief, they often joined hands with their business competitors. Bill O’Neil was so impressed with Goodyear’s sponsorship of the life of Christ radio series that he took out an ad across the nation in all major newspapers praising it: This is an unusual advertisement. It invites you to listen to a radio program of a competitor of ours…. It is the “The Greatest Story Ever Told” and is sponsored by Goodyear Tire…. It reminds us that without faith men have no moral yardstick by which to judge the motives of their leaders…. Listening to a radio program may seem a small weapon against so grave a danger. But unless the great majority of us deem it worthwhile to renew our faith in the Source of our power and blessings, we may not find the strength to preserve them.5

The one single point that Bill O’Neil, Harvey Firestone, F.A. Seiberling, P.W. Litchfield, and the barons agreed on was that religious freedom and liberty were the core of society and business. They arrived at this core value from very different religious traditions. There was also a belief that America was too unique to be considered as a mere member of an international community, and they didn’t play well with other countries. While expanding internationally for more profits, the barons tended to be isolationists. The pacifists tended to be such men as Harvey Firestone, Henry Ford, and Andrew Carnegie. Another somewhat surprising characteristic was their hatred of bankers and, in particular, the international bankers of New York. They preferred to finance through stock and bond issues. Of course, at least the first part of their careers was in a world of no personal or corporate taxes. They were religious and charitable. Many espoused

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Christian principles in their management styles including Frank Seiberling and Harvey Firestone, who often spoke and wrote on the role of Christian or religious based principles in managing. One area where the barons stood together but on the wrong side of history was with unions. Unionization turned out to be less threatening than they had envisioned. Unions did increase costs, but the barons paid well anyhow. What they did envision was that higher wages and benefits could not be sustained in the duty-free trade system of the United States. American labor and the rubber companies were competing with slave type labor with no tariffs to balance the indifference. Companies were forced offshore in this type of environment. The barons had been backed by a string of protectionist presidents such as James Garfield, William McKinley, Teddy Roosevelt, William Taft, Warren Harding, and Herbert Hoover. Many of these presidents were guests at their Akron and southern mansions. For the barons, control of the factory floor would have been the big controllable downsize. In the workplace, they believed in loyalty and results over higher education. They even forced their sons to at least work through the various levels and departments. While they reflected society’s biases of the time, they generally put the results of the person above all else. Youths were given as much responsibility as they demonstrated they could handle. They preferred paternalism to unionism, although they came to at least tolerate unions while reluctantly giving up authority. They avoided the full extremes of free trade and protectionism. The believed in a policy of economic nationalism, and one often found pictures of Alexander Hamilton, Henry Clay, Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley, and William Taft in their homes. Finally, they were flawed humans, requiring government regulations and oversight (often demanding it). In any case, they are missed in Akron and the United States.

Timeline 1839 1867 1868 1870 1888 1892 1894 1898 1900 1905 1906 1907 1908 1909 1910 1912 1913 1914 1916 1919 1921 1922 1925 1930 1936

Charles Goodyear patents the vulcanization process. Joe Banigan incorporates Woonsocket Rubber in Rhode Island and becomes America’s first rubber baron. Harvey Firestone born in Columbiana, Ohio. B. F. Goodrich opens first factory in Akron, Ohio. First pneumatic tire built by John Dunlop. Several companies merge to form U. S. Rubber Company under rubber baron Charles Flint’s leadership. Diamond Rubber Company established in Akron. Goodyear Tire & Rubber incorporated by Frank and Charles Seiberling. Firestone Tire and Rubber founded in Akron; P. W. Litchfield joins Goodyear Tire. Five-year battle between clincher style and straight side tire designs. Firestone delivers first big order for Ford’s Model T. Cord tires invented for electric cars. Durant forms General Motors. Goodyear builds first airplane tire. Straight wall design wins industry battle; rubber hits $3 a pound. Diamond Rubber merges with Goodyear. I.W.W. strike in Akron. World War One starts in Europe. Goodyear opens first rubber plantation. Colonel Dwight Eisenhower’s transcontinental truck convoy; start of Industry Assembly at Goodyear (many see it as a company union). Seiberlings lose Goodyear Tire and Rubber. Seiberling Rubber established; balloon tires enter market. Firestone rubber plantation opens in Liberia. Ira Cooper brings Giant Tire, Cooper Corporation and Falls Rubber together to form Master Tire & Rubber. Akron rubber strike. 225

226 1939 1946 1950 1953 1957 1960 1964 1965 1966 1967 1973 1975 1979 1981 1986 1987 1988 1991 1993 1995

T IMELINE Statue of Charles Goodyear dedicated; B. F. Goodrich markets first synthetic tires. Master Tire & Rubber renamed Cooper Tire & Rubber. Harvey Firestone statue and monument built in Akron. Firestone introduces a tubeless nylon cord tire. First Japanese car arrives in America at the port of San Francisco. Dun’s Review rates Firestone Tire & Rubber one of America’s best managed. Sale of Seiberling Rubber to Firestone. Armstrong Tire the first to introduce a bias-belted tire in America. United States Rubber stockholders vote to change name to Uniroyal. First Michelin steel belted radial in American market; Goodyear follows later this year with a polyester belted bias tire. Energy crisis; Arab oil embargo. B. F. Goodrich quits making passenger tires in Akron, followed by Goodyear and Firestone in 1978 and General Tire in 1982. Uniroyal closes iconic plant in Naugatuck, Connecticut. Firestone moves its headquarters from Akron to Chicago. Goodrich merges its tire segment with Uniroyal. Goodyear sells aircraft division to ward off takeover by corporate raider James Goldsmith. Bridgestone of Japan purchases Firestone; Firestone headquarters move to Nashville; Pirelli purchases Armstrong Rubber. The iconic rubber plant of Uniroyal-Goodrich in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, closed. Michelin of France buys Uniroyal. A bankrupt United Rubber Workers (URW) merges with the steelworkers (USW), becoming the Rubber-Plastics Industry Conference of the United Steel Workers.

Chapter Notes Chapter 1

2. Mansel G. Blackford and K. Austin Kerr, BFGoodrich: Tradition and Transformation, 1870 –1995 (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1996), p. 23. 3. “Director’s Meeting January 1882,” History and Statistics—B. F. Goodrich, University of Akron Archives, Folder 14, Box NA-1, B. F. Goodrich.

1. Donald Sull, “The Dynamics of Standing Still: Firestone Tire & Rubber and the Radial Revolution,” Business History Review 73, Autumn, p. 440. 2. Michael French, “Structure, Personality, and Business Strategy in the U. S. Tire Industry: Seiberling Rubber Company, 1922–1964,” The Business History Review 67, no. 2 (Summer 1993), p. 247. 3. Ibid. 4. Sull, pp. 430–464. 5. Ibid., p. 430. 6. Bob Downing, “American Hero Dies,” Akron Beacon Journal, August 3, 2008. 7. Congressional Record 1888.

Chapter 4 1. “Pure, Green Greed,” Time 10, no. 12 (September 19, 1927), p. 32. 2. Charles R. Flint, Memories of an Active Life: Men, and Ships, and Sealing Wax (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1923), p. ix. 3. Ibid., p. 298. 4. Scott Molloy, Irish Titan, Irish Toilers (Lebanon: University of New Hampshire Press, 2008), p. 106. 5. Flint, p. 244.

Chapter 2 1. John Tully, The Devil’s Milk: A Social History of Rubber (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2011), p. 21. 2. Ralph Wolf, India Rubber Man: The Story of Charles Goodyear (Caldwell: Caxton, 1939), p. 53. 3. Adolph C. Regli, Rubber’s Goodyear: The Story of a Man’s Perseverance (New York: Messner, 1941), pp. 39–40. 4 . P. W. Barker, Charles Goodyear: Connecticut Yankee and Rubber Pioneer (Boston: Privately printed, 1940), p. 94. 5. George W. Knepper, Ohio and Its People (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1989), p. 293.

Chapter 5 1. Maurice O’Reilly, The Goodyear Story (Akron: Goodyear Tire and Rubber, 1983), p. 8. 2. Ralph C. Busbey, A Centennial History of Akron 1825 –1925 (Akron: Summit County Historical Society, 1925), p. 321. 3. A Wonder Book of Rubber (Akron: Superior [B. F. Goodrich Company], 1917), p. 33.

Chapter 6 1. Paul Dickson and William Hickman, Firestone: A Legend. A Century. A Celebration. (New York: Forbes Custom, 2000), p. 4. 2. The Firestone farm was moved to Greenfield Village in the 1990s.

Chapter 3 1. Paul Litchfield, Industrial Voyage (New York: Doubleday, 1954), p. 59.

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3. Harvey S. Firestone, Men and Rubber: The Story of Business (New York: Doubleday, Page, 1926), p. 39. 4. Ibid., p. 50. 5. Alfred Lief, The Firestone Story: A History of the Firestone Tire & Rubber Company (New York, McGraw-Hill, 1951), p. 18. 6. Blackford and Kerr, p. 50. 7. Ibid., p. 31. 8. Douglas Brinkley, Wheels for the World: Henry Ford, His Company, and a Century of Progress (New York: Viking, 2003), p. 87. 9. Lief, The Firestone Story, p. 51.

Chapter 7 1. John Schell, “American Investment in Tropical Mexico: Rubber Plantations, Fraud, and Dollar Diplomacy, 1897–1913,” The Business History Review 64, no. 2, p. 217. 2. Tully, p. 145. 3. Ibid., p. 144. 4. University of Akron Archives, Goodyear History Box 4, Wingfoot Clan, 1960. 5. Harbel Manor burned down in 1957. Today it is the site of Georgetown Condominiums. 6. Steve Love, Stan Hywet Hall and Gardens (Akron: University of Akron Press, 2000), p. 38. 7. James Newton, Uncommon Friends: Life with Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Harvey Firestone, Alexis Carrel & Charles Lindbergh (New York: Harcourt, 1987), p. 46. 8. Glenn Babcock, History of the United States Rubber Company (Bureau of Business Research: Indiana University), 1966, p. 83. 9. Mark R. Finlay, Growing American Rubber: Strategic Plants and the Politics of National Security (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2009), p. 25. 10. Akron Beacon Journal, February 25, 1913. 11. James Young, Harvey Firestone (Privately printed, 1938), p. 39. 12. The name Silvertown became renowned as Diamond Rubber was taken over by B. F. Goodrich. Goodrich continued the brand name for decades, also calling its outlets Silvertown stores. 13. Litchfield, pp. 127–129. 14. Alfred Lief, Harvey Firestone: Free Man of Enterprise (New York: McGraw-Hill Company, 1951), p. 191. 15. Newton, p. 31.

Chapter 8 1. Lief, The Firestone Story, p. 97. 2. Hugh Allen, The House of Goodyear: Fifty Years of Men and Industry (Cleveland: Corday & Gross, 1949), p. 185. 3. Allen, p. 171. 4. Firestone, p. 151. 5. Dennis J. O’Neil, A Whale of a Territory: The Story of Bill O’Neil (New York: McGrawHill, 1966), p. 51.

Chapter 9 1. Litchfield, p. 200. 2. F. A. “Frank” Seiberling had four sons— John Fredrick (1888–1962), Willard Penfield (1892–1981), James Penfield (1898–1982), and Franklin Augustus Jr. (1908–1990). 3. Letter, F. A. Seiberling to Arthur Kudner, June 14, 1921, Manuscript Collection Stan Hywet. 4. Lief, Harvey Firestone, p. 162. 5. Firestone, p. 9. 6. Finlay, p. 54. 7. Babcock, p. 186. 8. Ibid., p. 180. 9. The Japanese company of BridgestoneFirestone stills runs the rubber plantation. 10. Tully, pp. 113–114. 11. John Loadman, Tears of the Tree: The Story of Rubber—A Modern Marvel (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 141.

Chapter 10 1. Lief, Harvey Firestone, p. 268. 2. Steve Love and David Giffels, Wheels of Fortune: The Story of Rubber in Akron (Akron: University of Akron Press, 1999), p. 40.

Chapter 11 1. Joyce Dyer, Gum-Dipped: A Daughter Remembers Rubber Town (Akron, OH: University of Akron Press, 2003), p. 35. 2. Dick B., The Akron Genesis of Alcoholics Anonymous (Akron, OH: Good Book, 1992), p. 47. 3. Ibid., p. 316.

Chapter 12 1. Pamela Pennock, “The National Recovery Administration and the Rubber Tire In-

Chapter Notes dustry, 1933–1935,” Business History Review 71, Winter 1997, pp. 543–568. 2. Litchfield, pp. 254–255. 3. Ibid., p. 252. 4. Dyer, p. 102. 5. Love, p.26.

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1. “Dalrymple Is Mobbed,” The United Rubber Worker 1, No. 3, URWA, June 1936. 2. Allen, p. 190. 3. Litchfield, p.127. 4. Ibid., p. 261. 5. Lief, Harvey Firestone, p. 302. 6. Newton, p. 48. 7. Babcock, Appendix G. 8. Newton, p. 101.

1. John T. Cumbler, A Social History of Economic Decline (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1989), p. 33. 2. Sull, p. 432. 3. Donald Sull, Richard S. Tedlow and Richard Rosenbloom, “Managerial Commitments and Technological Change in the US Tire Market,” Industrial and Corporate Change 6, no. 2, 1997, pp. 461–482. 4. Robert R. Lottman, The Michelin Men: Driving an Empire (London: Tauris, 2002), pp. 222–223. 5. Donald Sull, Tedlow and Rosenbloom, p. 482. 6. Love and Giffels, p.255. 7. Dyer, p. 141.

Chapter 14

Chapter 17

1. Finlay, p. 171. 2. Walter Gratzer, Giant Molecules: From Nylon to Nanotubes (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), p. 113. 3. Lief, Harvey Firestone, p. 252. 4. Blackford and Kerr, p. 160. 5. Harold M. Fleming, “Good News for Synthetic Rubber,” Harper’s Magazine, December 1943. 6. Tully, p. 341. 7. “Akron Hiring 2,000 a Week,” Akron Beacon Journal, October 4, 1942. 8. Tully, p. 335.

1. Thomas Cochran and William Miller, The Age of Enterprise (New York: Harper & Row, 1942), p. 12. 2. Edgar D. Jones, The Influence of Henry Clay upon Abraham Lincoln (Lexington, KY: Henry Clay Foundation, 1952), p. 22. 3. Curt Holman, “The ‘Overnight’ Success of Cooper Tire and Rubber: More than Seventy Years in the Making,” Elastomerics, July 1992, p. 30. 4. O’Neil, p. 226. 5. Ibid., p. 225.

Chapter 13

Chapter 15 1. O’Neil, p. 51

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Bibliography Security. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2009. Firestone, Harvey S. Men and Rubber: The Story of Business. New York: Doubleday, Page, 1926. Flint, Charles R. Memories of an Active Life: Men, and Ships, and Sealing Wax. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1923. Ford, Henry. My Life and Work, New York: Doubleday, Page, 1922. _____, and Samuel Crowther. Today and Tomorrow: Special Edition of Ford’s 1926 Classic. New York: Productivity Press, 1988. French, Michael. “Structure, Personality, and Business Strategy in the U.S. Tire Industry: Seiberling Rubber Company, 1922–1964.” The Business History Review 67, no. 2 (Summer 1993), p. 246–278. George, Claude. The History of Management Thought. Englewood: Prentice-Hall, 1968. Gratzer, Walter. Giant Molecules: From Nylon to Nanaotubes. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Hoerr, John P. And the Wolf Finally Came: The Decline of the American Steel Industry. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1988. Holt, Racham. George Washington Carver: An American Biography. New York: Doubleday, Doran, 1943. Jaffe, Bernard. Chemistry Creates a New World. New York: Crowell, 1957. Knepper, George W. Ohio and Its People. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1989. Lief, Alfred. Harvey Firestone: Free Man of

Allen, Hugh. The House of Goodyear: Fifty Years of Men and Industry. Cleveland: Corday & Gross, 1949. Babcock, Glenn. History of the United States Rubber Company. Bloomington: Bureau of Business Research, Graduate School of Business, Indiana University, 1966. Barker, P. W., Charles Goodyear: Connecticut Yankee and Rubber Pioneer. Boston: Privately published, 1940. B. F. Goodrich Rubber Company. A Wonder Book of Rubber. Akron: The Superior Printing Co., 1917. Blackford, Mansel G., and K. Austin Kerr. B.F. Goodrich: Tradition and Transformation, 1870 –1995. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1996. Brinkley, Douglas. Wheels for the World: Henry Ford, His Company, and a Century of Progress. New York: Viking, 2003. Busbey, Ralph C. A Centennial History of Akron, 1825 –1925. Akron: Summit County Historical Society, 1925. Collyer, John Lyon. The B.F. Goodrich Story of Creative Enterprise, 1870 –1952. New York: Newcomen Society, 1952. Cumbler, John T. A Social History of Economic Decline. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1989. Dickson, Paul, and William Hickman. Firestone: A Legend. A Century. A Celebration. New York: Forbes Custom, 2000. Dyer, Joyce. Gum-Dipped: A Daughter Remembers Rubber Town. Akron, OH: University of Akron Press, 2003. Finlay, Mark R. Growing American Rubber: Strategic Plants and the Politics of National

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Enterprise. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1951. _____. The Firestone Story: A History of the Firestone Tire & Rubber Company. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1951. Litchfield, Paul. Industrial Voyage. New York: Doubleday, 1954. Loadman, John. Tears of the Tree: The Story of Rubber—A Modern Marvel. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Lottman, Robert R. The Michelin Men: Driving an Empire. London: Tauris, 2002. Love, Steve. Stan Hywet Hall and Gardens. Akron, OH: University of Akron Press, 2000. _____, and David Giffels. Wheels of Fortune: The Story of Rubber in Akron. Akron, OH: University of Akron Press, 1999. Molloy, Scott. Irish Titan, Irish Toilers. Lebanon: University of New Hampshire Press, 2008. O’Neil, Dennis J. A Whale of a Territory: The Story of Bill O’Neil. New York: McGraw Hill, 1966. O’Reilly, Maurice. The Goodyear Story. Akron, OH: Goodyear Tire and Rubber, 1983. Pennock, Pamela. “The National Recovery Administration and the Rubber Tire Industry, 1933–1935.” Business History Review 71, Winter 1997, pp. 543–568. Regli, Adolph C. Rubber’s Goodyear: The Story of a Man’s Perseverance. New York: Messner, 1941. Schell, William. “American Investment in

Tropical Mexico: Rubber Plantations, Fraud, and Dollar Diplomacy, 1897– 1913.” The Business History Review 64, no. 2. Slack, Charles. Noble Obsession. New York: Hyperion Books, 2002. Sull, Donald. “The Dynamics of Standing Still: Firestone Tire & Rubber and the Radial Revolution.” Business History Review 73, Autumn. _____, Richard S. Tedlow, and Richard Rosenbloom, “Managerial Commitments and Technological Change in the US Tire Market.” Industrial and Corporate Change 6, no. 2 (1997). Tully, John. The Devil’s Milk: A Social History of Rubber. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2011. Young, James. Harvey Firestone. Privately Printed. 1938. _____. School Days and Schoolmates of Harvey S. Firestone. Privately Printed. 1929. Weisenburger, Francis. The Passing of the Frontier: 1825 –1850, a History of the State of Ohio, vol. 3. Columbus: Ohio Historical Society, 1941. Wolf, Ralph. India Rubber Man: The Story of Charles Goodyear. Caldwell: Caxton Printers, 1939.

Archives B.F. Goodrich Records, University of Akron Library. Akron, OH. Firestone Collection, University of Akron Library. Akron, OH.

Index African rubber 42–43 A.G. Spalding 55 Akron 5, 7–23, 25–41, 42–43, 63–71, 86– 94, 116–117, 144–153, 154–156, 173, 177, 191–192, 195–197, 211–212 Akron City Hospital 155 Alcoholics Anonymous 2, 154–160 Aldrich, Nelson 95–96 American Federation of Labor 49–51, 98– 101, 164–165, 169–171 Ameripol 188 Anheuser Busch Company 78 Arizona 116, 149–150 Asian rubber 116–118 auto prices 65 auto racing 71–75, 103–105

Canton 8, 25 Carnegie, Andrew 54–55, 75, 79 Carver, George Washington 190 Chaffee, Edwin 31 Chicopee (Massachusetts) 5, 11–12 Churchill, Winston 135–138 Cleveland 8 Cleveland, Grover 47 Clincher Type pneumatic tires 67–71 Collyer, John 179, 197–198 Columbiana (Ohio) 73, 89, 144 Columbus Buggy Company 73, 76–77 Committee for Industrial Organization (CIO) 161, 166–170 compounding 45–49 Congo 141–143 Continental Company of Germany 152, 220–221 Coolidge, Calvin 90, 109 Cooper, Ira 126, 219 Cooper Tire 14, 123–127, 219–220, 225 Cord tires 105–107 cotton fabric 105–107, 116

balloon tires 144–147 balloons 126–127, 129–130, 190–193 Banigan, Joe 49, 53–62 Barber, O.C. 63–64, 92 Barberton (Ohio) 92, 132 Baruch, Bernard 96, 188–189 Baruch Committee 188–192 Belmont, August 54, 61 bicycles 51–52, 66, 80–81 blimps 128–130 Boston Rubber Shoe Company 36–37, 57– 59 Brazlian rubber 42–51, 59, 95–97 Bridgestone 9, 23, 226 British rubber plantations 136–137 Buchtel, Charles 79 Buchtel College 79–80, 148 buggy tires 75–80 Buna-N rubber 185–190 Buna-S rubber 185–190 Burbank, Luther 109–110, 113 Burroughs, John 109–110, 112–113 butyl rubber 185–188

Davis, F.B. 180 Day, Horace 35–36 Dayton Tire 201–202 Diamond Match Company 64 Diamond Rubber 13, 38, 52, 63–64, 73, 77–81, 88, 104, 225 Dodge Brothers 76 Dunlop Rubber 51, 62, 68–69, 136, 179 Du Pont Chemical 185–193 Du Pont family 152–153, 181–183 Duryea Car Company 68 Eagle Rubber 33 Eau Claire (Wisconsin) 5, 12, 22 Ebonite 45 Edison, Thomas 1–2, 109–115, 144–145

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I NDEX

Eisenhower, Dwight 110–112, 138 electric cars 74–76, 78 employee representation plans 119–123 Erie Canal 26 Fairlawn Country Club 147 Firestone, Harvey 1, 7, 52, 54, 67–68, 72– 81, 88–92, 99, 109–115, 123–124, 133– 135, 145–146, 155–160, 178, 184–185, 196, 225–226 Firestone, Harvey, Jr. 142–143, 145–148, 179, 189 Firestone, Leonard 213 Firestone, Raymond 196–197 Firestone, Russell 157–160, 196 Firestone Country Club 8, 14, 16, 147 Firestone family 155–160, 196–197 Firestone One-Stop stores 145–146 Firestone rubber plantation (Liberia) 137– 140, 225 Firestone Tire Company 70–71, 72–81, 96–98, 168–172, 225–226 Firestone Victor Tire Company 73 Fisk Rubber 22, 55, 77, 161 Flint, Charles 53–62, 95 Flying Squadron 108–109, 168–169, 173– 175 Ford, Henry 61, 70, 72–81, 109–115, 138– 143, 187–190, 225 Ford rubber plantation (Fordlandia) 138– 143 Gadsden Alabama Goodyear plant 173–175 General Motors 144–147, 152–153, 181–183, 225 General Tire Company 16, 19, 119–124, 164–171, 212–213, 225–226 Goldenrod (rubber) 114–115 golf balls 51–52 Gompers, Samuel 49, 54 Goodrich, B.F. 1, 7, 28, 37–39, 42–51, 88– 90, 104, 178–179, 185–187, 192, 225–226 Goodrich, Charles (son) 50, 52 Goodrich, David 179, 197 Goodrich Rubber Company (B.F. Goodrich) 10, 12–13, 19, 45–51, 61, 68– 70, 77–78, 88–90, 93–96, 102, 105, 107, 116–117, 129–134, 184–185, 188–189, 197– 199, 212, 225–226 Goodrich, Tew, and Company 40 Goodyear, Charles 1, 31–35, 225–226 Goodyear, Henry 33–34 Goodyear Metallic Shoe Company 33, 59, 163

Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company 14, 19– 21, 40, 63–71, 105–109, 118–123, 145– 153, 155, 162–172, 173–180, 190–192 GR-S synthetic rubber 189–192 Great Exhibition 34–36 Great India Rubber case 34 Guayule rubber 95–100, 118, 186–188, 190 Hall of Fame 7, 18 Hancock, Thomas 30–32, 35–36 Harbel Manor 89–90 Harbel Villa 147 Harding, Warren 90, 109–110 Hartford Rubber Company 62, 70 Haskell, Coburn 51 Haywood, Nathaniel 33 Haywood Rubber Company 37 Hood, George 134 Hoover, Herbert 109–110, 135–136 Hudson Rubber Company 46 IBM Company 53–54, 163 IG Farben Industries 184–186 imports 203–211, 215–220 India Rubber Glove Company 37, 59, 73 Indianapolis 500 70, 145 industrial assembly 120–123, 173 Industrial Workers of the World 49–50, 97–100 International Rubber 95–97, 113 Ishibashi, Shojiro 9 Joseph Banigan Rubber Company 60 Kelly-Springfield Company 63, 66, 126, 161–162 King Leopold 141–142 Knight, Charles 79 Knights of labor 49–50, 58–59 Koroseal 184–185 Ku Klux Klan 101–103 labor strikes 162–172, 175–178, 191–192, 200–210, 225–226 Lamb, Edward 201–202 Lewis, John 166–167 Lincoln Highway Association 110–112 Lindbergh, Charles 114, 151 Litchfield, Paul 15, 67–70, 99–110, 118, 149–153, 164–166, 173–175, 179 Liberia 137–139, 190–191 Los Angeles 11–13, 126 LTV Steel 17

Index Mackintosh, Charles 30 Malcomson, Alexander 76 management style 221–222 Mansfield Tire 166, 201–202 Marks, Arthur 64, 77–79, 93, 118 Mason Rubber 126 Maxim, Hiram 56 McKinley, William 13, 23–24, 42, 55–56, 64, 74, 216–217 Mechanical Rubber Company 61 Mercer, Robert 20 Michelin Tire 13, 19, 51–52, 152, 203–214, 220–221 Miller, Louis 4, 27, 39–40, 48 Miller Rubber Company 64, 126, 134 Mishawaka Plant (Indiana) 5, 22, 79, 166, 177, 180–181, 192–193 Mohawk Rubber 90, 123, 163 Montgomery Ward 145, 161 Morgan, J. P 54 Nashville 20 National Labor Relations Act 169 National Labor Relations Board 119–120, 169 National Recovery Act 163–170 Naugatuck (Connecticut) 5, 11, 27, 32, 37, 46, 53, 118, 150, 192–194 Naugatuck Rubber 33, 150 neoprene 185 neoprene tires 188–190 Nevin, John 15, 213 New Haven (Connecticut) 31 New York Belting and Packaging Company 61 Newton, James 156–160 Nieuwland, Father 185 nylon tires 193–194, 204 Oenslager, George 79, 118 Ohio & Erie Canal 25, 39–40 oil crisis 208–209 Oldfield, Barney 103–104 O’Neil, Bill 7, 15, 96, 118–119, 123–124, 134, 155, 159–160, 162–164, 168–169, 189, 197–198 O’Neil, Grace 134 O’Neil, Jerry 212–213 O’Neil, Michael 27 O’Neil family 197–198 Oxford Group 2, 154–160 Palmer tire 104 Panhard-Levassor cars 74–75

235

para rubber 42–51, 80 paternal capitalism 165–172, 174–176 PEP Boys 163 Perkins, George 29, 39–40, 48, 50 Perkins, Simon 48 Philippines 117–118 pneumatic tires 144–146 polyvinyl chloride (PVC) 184–190 Portage Country Club 8, 14, 51, 88, 147, 168, 182–183, 195 Portage Rubber Company 132 price wars 128–132 Priestly, Joseph 30 Providence 60 radial tires 13–14, 303–214 raw rubber 27–35, 42–51 Ripley, Richard 15, 213 RKO General 199–200 Rockefeller, John D. 75 Roxbury (Massachusetts) 31 Roxbury India Rubber Company 31–32 rubber: aircraft products 127, 128–132, 150–153, 184–189; belts 46; club 110, 117; gaskets 35; hose 47; industry 85–90, 103–105, 203–204; plantations 128–143; prices 36, 43–44, 48, 86, 94, 96, 108, 117, 128–129, 130–133, 138, 151–152; raincoats 30–32; shoes 30–35, 44, 46, 53, 57–58, 60, 126, 149–150, 163–164, 181– 182, 212; solid tires 74–80, 87–94; tires 47, 62, 64–69, 85–89, 128–129, 188–193 Rubber Boot and Shoe Association 55 Rubber Glove Company 59 St. Thomas Hospital 155, 159–160 Schumacher, Ferdinand 27 Schwab, Charles 54–55, 147 Sears, Roebuck & Company 145, 152, 161– 162, 181, 207 Seiberling, Charles 132–133 Seiberling, F.A. 1, 7, 20, 48, 63–71, 89–91, 99–101, 130–133, 146–149, 166–169 Seiberling, Gertrude 90–93, 147–149 Seiberling, Henrietta 158–160 Seiberling, James Penfield 132, 179, 201 Seiberling, John 2, 40, 132 Seiberling, John Frank (Congressman) 20, 63–71, 155 Seiberling, Willard Penfield 132 Seiberling family 154–160, 197–199 Seiberling Rubber Company 132–136, 200–202 Semon, Waldo 184–186

236

I NDEX

Sister Ignatia 159–160 Smith, Doctor Bob 158–160 Stan Hywet 89–91, 132, 147–149 Standard Oil 185–190 steel belted tires 207–210, 220–221 Stevenson Plan 135–138 straight side tires 65–69, 80–84 stream powered cars 73–75 Sumatra 116 Sweinhart, James 78 Sweinhart Rubber 126, 162 synthetic rubber 184–194 Taft, Howard 54, 90, 117 tariffs 23–24, 166, 215–219 task system of slavery 140–142 tennis balls 44 Thiokol 188 Thomas, Eddie 126–127, 179 Thomas, John 83, 147–148 Thomson, Robert 31 threads (tire) 83–84 tire life 13, 68–70, 104–106, 113, 129, 206 tire making 70–71, 97–100, 105–109 Trenton (New Jersey) 203 truck tires 87–90, 107–108, 144–146, 162 tubeless tires 199–201 Union Rubber Company 36 unionization 48–49, 57–60, 81–84, 97– 102, 118–123, 161–172, 173–180, 223–224 Uniroyal 11–12 Uniroyal Goodrich Company 12, 220, 225–226 United Rubber Workers 22–23, 209

United States Electric Lighting Company 56–57 United Steel Workers 22–23 U.S. Rubber Company 11, 37–38, 53–62, 77, 88–90, 93–95, 136–138, 149–150, 163–164, 177–183, 192–193; Detroit tire plant 70, 83, 152, 200 vagabonds (Ford, Firestone, Edison, Burroughs) 109–114, 145–146 vulcanization 34–36, 45–48, 77, 185 Webster, Daniel 34 West Virginia 86–87 Westinghouse, George 54, 57 Whig Party 27, 38, 216–217 White Anchor Hose 40 Wickham, Henry 94–95 Willys-Overland Company 132 Wilson, Bill 158–160 Wilson, Woodrow 119 Wingfoot Lake 151 Winton, Alexander 52, 72, 74–76 Winton Automobile Company 70, 74–76 Woburn (Massachusetts) 33 Woonsocket Rubber 49, 56–59 Work, Alanson 48 Work, Bertram 50, 93 World War I 116–127 World War II 184–194 W.R. Grace Company 56 Youngstown 9 zeppelins 130, 150–153