Household and industrial rubber products became common for the first time in the second half of the nineteenth century. As these products won popular acceptance, rubber manufacturing companies proliferated, confronted numerous technological obstacles, and introduced numerous innovations. In the last third of the century, they contributed to the technological dynamism and organizational revolutions that characterized the age.

Rubber is a natural polymer, obtained by collecting and processing the sap of the hevea brasiliensis, a tree common to tropical areas. South American natives had long used small quantities to make a variety of primitive objects, including boots. Their activities attracted the interest of British and American merchants, who exported boots to western Europe and the United States, where their elastic and water-repellent qualities attracted wide interest. The export trade between South America (particularly Brazil) and the U.S. grew rapidly, as demand increased; yet only at the end of the century, as the popularity of rubber products threatened to exceed the supply of crude rubber, did producers create tree farms, notably in the British, Dutch, and French colonies of southeast Asia.

In the meantime, major innovations had occurred in the factory, as inventors and manufacturers devised better ways of processing rubber. The most critical of these breakthroughs occurred between l839 and l845, when Charles Goodyear, a Hew Haven, Connecticut merchant and amateur scientist, discovered the process of vulcanization. By heating natural rubber with sulfur and white lead, Goodyear was able to give rubber objects permanent form, greater elasticity, and other desirable qualities. Vulcanization made rubber a versatile material, opened new markets, and signaled the advent of the modern industry. Goodyear personally derived little satisfaction from his seminal invention. His efforts to manufacture rubber products were only partially successful, and he died in l860, just as the potential of his work was becoming apparent.

The combination of calendaring (reinforcing rubber with a textile product, developed by the l820's and l830's) and vulcanization led to the development of improved boots and rainwear, and the appearance of new industrial products such as hose, belts, insulation, and sundries such as balloons, surgical and dental products. Footwear remained the largest segment of the industry until the l890's and was concentrated in New England shoe centers. Rainwear and industrial products makers clustered near major markets, especially New York City. By l889 there were l67 plants devoted to rubber production, including eleven large footwear factories averaging nearly l000 employees; eleven substantial hose and belt plants, and more than l00 smaller factories devoted to other products.

By the l860's and l880's, rubber boot and shoe manufacturers attempted repeatedly to stabilize prices and limit competition. Their efforts failed until l892, when Charles R. Flint, a Boston merchant merged the largest companies. The resulting United States Rubber Company initially succeeded; it paid dividends during the severe depression of the mid-l890's, and gradually absorbed most of the leading industrial products makers, creating a near monopoly. Its apparent success helped inspire the great industrial merger movement at the turn-of-the-century. Yet many problems remained. Flint ran U.S. Rubber as a holding company, making no effort to consolidate operations or achieve the internal economies which were the hallmarks of successful combinations. He soon faced renewed competition.

In any case, technological change would quickly make the goal of monopoly power and stable prices unattainable. The introduction of the safety bicycle in the l880's opened a vast new market, especially for pneumatic tires, which utilized a separate inner tube inside the tire. The appearance of the clincher rim and tire in the early l890's, easing tire changes and repairs, removed the last major obstacle to their acceptance. By the time the first automobiles appeared, rubber manufacturers had mastered the essentials of the new technology.

Many industrial rubber products producers, including U.S. Rubber, added tires to their product lines in the l890's, but no firm made this transition more successfully than B. F. Goodrich, of Akron, Ohio. Benjamin Franklin Goodrich had moved his struggling industrial products firm to Akron in l870; with the assistance of local capitalists, Goodrich became the largest maker of hose and industrial products. With the addition of a tire department it became almost as large and diversified as U.S. Rubber. Goodrich's success also created a cluster of individuals with technical experience and skills in the Akron area. In the following years, as automobile tire production grew, many of these individuals would create or join new firms. By l900 they had collectively made Akron the center of tire and industrial products manufacture.

By the turn-of-the century, rubber boots, raincoats, hoses, balloons and even tires had become familiar features of American life, and the rubber industry was rapidly assuming its twentieth century form.