The rubber industry was born in bankruptcy and built through bankruptcies. As this history details, many of the great rubber barons—Charles Goodyear, Harvey Firestone, B.F. Goodrich, F.A. Seiberling—found themselves or their companies in bankruptcy courts. Fortunately, the industry has always proven as elastic as its product.
From the early search for an American location to process the rubber of the tropics to the collapse of the industry, this is the story of rubber in America.

Quentin R. Skrabec, Jr., an international expert in management, manufacturing and globalization, is the author of numerous books on American industrial history, capitalism and notable business leaders. He lives in Maumee, Ohio.

Quentin R. Skrabec, Jr.
Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 244
Bibliographic Info: 18 photos, notes, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2014
pISBN: 978-0-7864-6998-7
eISBN: 978-1-4766-1217-1
Imprint: McFarland

Table of Contents


Acknowledgments vi

Preface 1

Introduction 3

 1. The Fall of Rubber’s Rome 7

 2. The Road to Akron 25

 3. The Rubber Industry Comes to Akron 42

 4. The Greatest of Them All—The New England Rubber Barons 53

 5. Seiberling Brings Goodyear to Town 63

 6. A New Baron in Town 72

 7. The Rubber Boom and Rubber Cartels 85

 8. The War and Auto Sales Change the Industry 116

 9. Plantation Owners—Golden Years of the Barons 128

10. Rubber Profits and the Roaring Twenties 144

11. Social and Community Reforms 154

12. The Taming of the Lions—1930s 161

13. The World Turned Upside Down 173

14. War and Synthetic Rubber 184

15. The Passing of the Old Guard—The Postwar Rubber Industry 195

16. The Four Horsemen 203

17. Back to the Future 216

Timeline 225

Chapter Notes 227

Bibliography 231

Index 233

“The author sets the story within the context of the general development of American capitalism and often offers (typically admiring) biographical details about the lives of the rubber barons that dominated the industry”—ProtoView