Akron Life February 2022

HISTORICAL 330

THERE ARE ASHES OF INDUSTRIES LEFT BEHIND THROUGHOUT THE RUST BELT AND ONCE-THRIVING CITIES THAT ARE NOW IN DECAY. WHILE OTHERS WERE NOT SO FORTUNATE, AKRON HAS SURVIVED AND EVEN THRIVED IN THE FACE OF OBSTACLES. In the 1850s, the biggest enter prise in Akron was agriculture. That industry helped usher in what we would become most well known for — rubber. The beginning of the rubber era was like a gilded age for this city. Much of the culture we have today comes from the people who worked in the rubber factories and the rub ber barons’ massive fortunes. They are the results of the blood, sweat and tears of a diverse labor force. It was good fortune that Benjamin Franklin Goodrich met an old friend in Jamestown, New York, a meeting that changed the course of history and the fate of Akron, a city that was a Lieberth has been research ing how the city became the Rubber Capital of the World, spending hours and hours combing through archives and old news clippings at The University of Akron’s library short train ride away. Akron historian David

He notes that most people thought Goodrich saw a bro chure about Akron on a train, but he found new information that proves differently. Lieberth: I just ran across this magazine in the library. It was called Topics , and it had a story written by a guy named James Braden in 1929. He had first-person inter views with people who knew how Dr. Goodrich came to town. There’s always been some confusion about that. B.F. Goodrich was from Jamestown, and he knew a guy named Clement Barnes, who had been a friend of his when one day in Jamestown. Dr. Goodrich said, How is your town doing? He knew that Barnes had married a woman from Akron and had moved here. Barnes said, You know, it’s a coming city. It’s only a few hours away on the train. You should come and take a look. So that is what Goodrich did. When he got to town, Goodrich they were growing up. They met on the street had a meeting at the bank in what is now the Everett Building. There were 22 people and one law firm that got together, sometimes they call it 23. And they raised $13,600. That would be the equivalent of about half a million dollars today. Here’s the important part. Goodrich came here because he had the capital. He had a group of people invest in him. And with that $13,600, plus his

own resources, he was able to get a building along the Ohio and Erie Canal which he could use for water supply. By the early 20th century, Akron was leading the way in rubber. Rubber companies B.F. Goodrich, Goodyear and Firestone were well-established, along with General Tire and others later on. By the 1910s, Akron was the fastest growing city in the country, Lieberth says. This was all because of the tire and rub ber companies located here. The rubber companies had made an unprecedented move, sending recruiters to West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and other southern states to find workers during the early growth period between 1910 and 1920, according to Lieberth, because they were in dire need of workers. men. When you look at the pictures of these early rubber workers, for example, you see them pulling tires by hand, and it took a lot of brawn, a lot of muscle to build a tire. They needed about 70,000 people to run all the rubber companies during that time. As the auto industry took off, so did the tire industry in Akron. The town was busy and bustling as restaurants and businesses catered to rubber workers along Market, Bowery and Main streets for the big three (Goodyear, B.F. Goodrich and Firestone). But it wasn’t without conflict. But the kind of workers they needed were strong

and the Akron-Summit County Public Library.

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