Of Tires and Tribulations

Goodyear, Ford, and Firestone

America’s brightest lights (at least after the Civil War) have always been, “Captains of Industry.” The Protestant work ethic has entrenched itself so deeply and profoundly in our everyday lives that those heroes we seek to emulate were those who found the best way to do the most work the quickest. This is in no small part due to the adaptations WASP culture had to make so they’d survive the Industrial Revolution (though to be fair America had tons of time and land to absorb the societal A-bomb that is industrialization, other countries like Germany and Japan weren’t so lucky…) but perhaps it’s more due to the perennial human desire to hold up and praise winners.

And when I think winners, I think tires.

When discussing such things as winners and losers, the most apt metaphor I imagine is that of a race. A race is a race be it by foot, horse, or tire. There’s a winner, there’s a runner-up, and then there’s everyone else whose name you don’t remember because they’re too slow.

If you walked up to the average American on the street and asked him who the Tenth President of the United States was (John Tyler, so you don’t have to Google,) he’d probably look at you like a man coming home to find his dog shat on his carpet. But if you asked that same hypothetical average Joe who the two biggest Tire companies in the United States were, he could probably name at least one of them.

And those two are the only two worth knowing: Goodyear and Firestone.

The trials, tribulations, and triumphs of WASP genius Charles Goodyear (descended from a founder of New Haven) could be an article in and of itself, but for our purposes it’s sufficient to say that he invented modern rubber. Before Mr. Goodyear found a way to vulcanize (harden by heating) rubber, most products worldwide were made with fast-rotting India gum rubber, which is naturally occurring. Such rubber was first introduced to the United States as chewing gum, when Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna was living in exile in New Jersey.

Mr. Goodyear’s invention made rubber viable for the mass production of, well… everything. Shoe soles, rain jackets, life preservers, wire coating, pipe coating, hoses, weather balloons, kickballs, and of course tires. All while the nation was hungry for anything it could build fast and cheap.

Tires pre-exist industrialization (like most things, including arguably computers.) They used to be made of leather or iron, and were shaped around wooden cart or wagon wheels by Wheelwrights (a profession killed by industrialization, many such cases!) But when we figured out how to harness steam to turn wheels, the old world which brought about Wheelwrights was blown away near overnight.

Well, not exactly overnight, but fast enough to number the days on long painstaking hours spent shaping an iron tire to fit a single cartwheel perfectly. Wheelwrights were largely repurposed to Steam Locomotives, though those wheels had much more to do with a forging process than with shaping wood.

Then, some farmer from Michigan named Henry Ford blew the world open again. The Model T made the obsolete Steam Locomotive, which had already made approximately eight-thousand years of human history obsolete. Now transport wasn’t limited to rivers, canals, or rail-line which took thousands of hours of back breaking (and quite deadly) work to lay. Now, the same efficiency could be captured on regular roads. But the breakneck pace of Mr. Ford’s invention ran into a problem.

Have you ever tried to walk outside barefoot? How about attempting to walk without feet? Some horses can walk unshoed, but never un-hoofed. The same principle applies to automobiles. No matter how powerful the engine is, you can’t go anywhere without wheels. And wheels can’t stay on for long without tires.

Enter Harvey Samuel Firestone. Like his best friend Henry Ford (the two often vacationed together, and the product of their progeny’s marriage currently chairs the U.S.-Mexico Chamber of Commerce,) Harvey Firestone was a midwest farmer who won his fame through diligence and innovation. First founding his tire company in Akron, Ohio (the headquarters of Goodyear Tire and Rubber named for but not founded by Mr. Goodyear,) Harvey Firestone’s company soon became the world's largest producer of tires, largely due to the partnership with Henry Ford.

How were they so successful? Firestone sourced all of its rubber in-house- that is, from plantations in Liberia utilizing slave labor. That wasn’t the only reason, Firestone also deployed at scale within the U.S. and worldwide, utilizing the then in vogue “Company Towns” model of industrial organization.

Of course, all good things can’t last forever, and Firestone didn’t long independently outlast the death of its founder. Now, it’s owned by an aptly named Japanese firm called Bridgestone, and together they’re the largest rubber producer on Earth. How the great fall.

A car is only as good as its tires. Having good tires on your car improves everything from ride comfort to gas mileage. They can also fuel a worldwide chain of logistics that creates a Civilization so far removed from what our ancestors thought possible that their heads would explode just looking at it.

Esoterica Americana. It’s in the monuments and libraries of D.C., but also on the tires of your car. I hope this article sells at least one set of American Tires.