September i, 1910. 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD. 



439 



The Goodrich Company Forty Years Old. 



IT is an interesting coincidence that the measures to increase 

 the capitalization of The B. F. Goodrich Co. (Akron, Ohio) 

 to $20,000,000, marking an unprecedented rate of growth in a 

 rubber manufacturing company, should occur at a time when an 

 article was being prepared in the offices of this paper in com- 

 memoration of the fortieth anniversary of the company. The 

 historical details are there- 

 fore presented in the pres- 

 ent number. 



The history of the india- 

 rubber industry in Akron 

 dates back forty years ago, 

 when there came into the 

 hands of a young physi- 

 cian in New York an ad- 

 vertising folder that had 

 been distributed by fifteen 

 business men of the Ohio 

 town, who had constituted 

 themselves into a sort of 

 board of trade. It was 

 really a private organiza- 

 tion, supported by its 

 members with a view to 

 the general good of 

 Akron. Colonel George 

 T.Perkins and Mr. George 

 W. Crouse are the two 

 surviving members of the 

 original group. 



In glowing terms this 

 little circular described the 

 advantages Akron offered 

 to manufacturers, though 

 at that time there were 

 few if any factories in that 

 town. The young physi- 

 cian mentioned was Ben- 

 jamin Franklin Goodrich, 

 born in Ripley, New York, 

 a graduate of medicine at 

 Cleveland, Ohio ; an army 

 hospital steward during 

 the civil war; and after 

 the war attempting in 

 New York to carve out 

 a business career. With 

 the aid of a friend, Harvey 

 W. Tew, he gained control 

 of a small rubber factory 

 just below Tarrytown-on- 

 Hudson (New York), but 



this was not any too successful, and when the circular from 

 Akron came to hand it offered a new inspiration to the 

 young doctor. 



So, in 1870, Goodrich went to Akron and faced the board 

 of trade. The result was the machinery was moved from 

 Tarrytown and set up in a little brick shop at the corner of 

 South Main (now Rubber) street, toward the end of the year. 

 The ground secured cost $1,800, only one-half of which sum 

 represented a cash investment. The new concern was known 

 as "Akron Rubber Works — Goodrich, Tew & Co.," the second 

 member of the firm being the Mr. Tew who had been inter- 

 ested with Dr. Goodrich at Tarrytown, and the "Co." being 



Frank Werner, from 



23 Akron men who had made up between them $13,000, which 

 they loaned to Dr. Goodrich. 



Such was the modest beginning of the first attempt to make 

 rubber goods in the United States, outside of the eastern and 

 industrially established part of the country. Only 25 men 

 were employed during the first year, when the output consisted 



chiefly of belting and pack- 

 ing. Hose and molded 

 goods were made shortly 

 after. It was a wild 

 scheme, the town thought, 

 and few had faith in Dr. 

 Goodrich or his enterprise. 

 Indeed, the individual who 

 advanced real money upon 

 notes of the company was 

 considered "easy," but the 

 man at the head had a 

 will ; he was not one of 

 the kind of men that fail. 

 He believed in the merit 

 of the products of his 

 factory. 



Mr. Crouse, who was a 

 friend of Goodrich in the 

 beginning, says : "He had 

 the keenest eyes of any 

 man I ever saw. He 

 thought things out for 

 himself, and when he came 

 to a conclusion of his 

 own. no power on earth 

 could swerve him. He 

 told me of many things 

 that would happen, and 

 they did happen just as he 

 said — some of them long 

 after his death. He was 

 a man who looked far 

 ahead and laid founda- 

 tions for the development 

 that came years after- 

 ward." 



In 1880 the business was 

 incorporated under its 

 present title— The B. F. 

 Goodrich Co. — with a cap- 

 italization of $100,000, and 

 Dr. Goodrich then offered 

 to pay back to the twenty- 

 three men who had helped 

 to finance his enterprise 

 the $13,000 he owed them, or else give them stock in the com- 

 pany. Twenty-one of them took the money. Colonel George T. 

 Perkins and Mr. George W. Crouse took stock. Both were so 

 well-to-do that the small amount they left in Dr. Goodrich's 

 company mattered little. It was not long before their rubber 

 stock made them wealthy. 



One of the most successful ventures of the Akron rubber 

 works at that time was the manufacture of fire hose, a line 

 which still maintains a high position in the trade. The molded 

 goods department was also developed so ' successfully that this 

 department now fills one of the company's largest buildings, giv- 

 ing employment to some 200 men simply in the machine shop 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN GOODRICH, 

 (rounder of The B. F. Goodrich Co. Horn 1848; died 1888. From a painting by 



daguerreotype.] 



old 



