World History of Rubber

Stephen L. Harp is Professor of History, Professor of French, and Director of Humanities at the University of Akron, USA. He is a social and cultural historian focused on transnational European and world history.  He is the author of Au Naturel:  Naturism, Nudism, and European Tourism in Twentieth-Century France (2014), Marketing Michelin:  Advertising and Cultural Identity in Twentieth-Century France (2001), and Learning to Be Loyal:  Primary Schooling as Nation Building in Alsace and Lorraine, 1850-1940 (1998).  He resides in Akron, Ohio, the former global “rubber capital.”

• Acknowledgments ixTimeline xiGlobal Rubber and Tire Companies xviiIntroduction: Why Rubber? 1Global Connections 81 Race, Migration, and Labor 10“Wild Rubber” and Early Industry 11“Wild Rubber” and Empire 14Plantations’ Progress: “Rationality and Efficiency” 17Plantation Hierarchies 21Race and Industry in the United States and Europe 292 Women and Gender on Plantations and in Factories 40Gendering the Jungle and the Plantation 42Asian Women on Plantations 44European Women and Racism 48The Colonizing Woman 50Gendered Production in the United States and Europe 52Rubber and Sex in Indochine 563 Demand and Everyday Consumption 61Everyday Consumption on Southeast Asian Plantations 62Class and Consumption in North America and Europe 64Race and Consumption in Europe and North America 68Gender and Consumption in Europe and North America 71Gendering Reproduction 774 World Wars, Nationalism, and Imperialism 83World War I 84“See America First” on “Good Roads” 86Flying for the Nation 88Restricting Rubber in the Wake of War 90American Assertions: Herbert Hoover and US Trade 91Firestone and Friends 94Firestone in Liberia 96Germany: Colonies and Chemicals 99World War II and the US Scramble for Rubber 102Nazi Racism and Buna at Auschwitz 105Imperialism and Nationalism in the Wake of World War II 1075 Resistance and Independence 111Plantations and Resistance 112Global Economic Crisis and Plantation Labor 118Success of the Smallholders 120Plantations under the Japanese 124Independence and Decolonization 126United Rubber Workers 131Conclusion: Forgetting and Remembering Rubber 137Suggested Readings 142Index 157