One hundred years ago last week a persevering Yankee named Charles Goodyear brewed some crude rubber, sulfur and white lead on his kitchen stove, discovered vulcanization. That invention changed rubber from a scientist's plaything to one of mankind's most useful commodities. Today there are some 35,000 uses for rubber, 4,000,000 people are employed in the industry and its world-wide investment comes to $2,698,000,000. Greatest concentration of this great sum is found in Ohio's 122 rubber factories and last week in Akron, "rubber capital of the world," the industry celebrated its centennial by...
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