Rubber

Vulcanized rubber is a product with widespread industrial, commercial, and military applications. By 1940 world rubber production had reached 1.2 million tons annually, of which 726,000 tons were consumed by American industry. With most of Southeast Asia in Japanese hands early in World War II, the Western Allies found themselves cut off from their most important rubber sources. Yet, because rubber remained critically important to modern military establishments, President Franklin D. Roosevelt sought to address the problem in two distinct ways. The first was to encourage production of synthetic rubber, which rose from 9,000 tons in 1941 to 919,000 tons by 1945, sufficient for most military applications. This constituted a major accomplishment by American industry as, prior to the war, there existed virtually no capacity for mass producing this essential commodity. The second was an active program of civilian conservation. As with scrap metal, citizens were encouraged to collect all unnecessary rubber household goods or toys and donate them in ongoing drives to the war effort. To preserve existing stocks, the government also froze the sale of tires and the recapping of old tires, seeing that these constituted the bulk of rubber consumption. Moreover, car owners could not legally own more than five tires at any given time, and all surplus tires had to be turned over to gas stations for industrial reuse. Finally, the government also imposed a 35-mile-per-hour speed limit on all commercial and civilian vehicles, since rubber tires wore down more quickly at higher speeds. In concert with gasoline rationing, this had the net effect of greatly reducing automobile usage nationwide, with the added benefit of relieving traffic congestion in urban areas and markedly reducing auto-related fatalities. After the war and the liberation of Pacific rubber plantations, the normal American consumer patterns of rubber utilization resumed. Significantly, although great strides had been made in the perfection of synthetic rubber, worldwide production did not finally outstrip that of natural rubber until the 1960s.

Further reading: Vernon Herbert, Synthetic Rubber: A Project That Had to Succeed (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1985).

—John C. Fredriksen