Beyond Rubber
Today, rubber becomes more than just rubber. The University of Houston presents this series about the machines that make our civilization run, and the people whose ingenuity created them.
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1941 found us using a lot of rubber. Car tires, boots, insulation, seals ... Then, Pearl Harbor. Most of our rubber had come from Malaya and the Dutch East Indies – countries the Japanese were now invading. So we abruptly lost access to ninety percent of our natural rubber supply – just when we’d really need it.
Latex being collected from a rubber tree
Sure, we needed vehicles, airplanes, ships, tanks ... But they all needed rubber. As did we civilians. Think rubber bands, boots, tires, and – Well, rubber had changed from a novelty in the 18th and 19th centuries, to a necessity in the 20th.
Maybe you once read A. A. Milne’s old book of poems, Now We Are Six. Milne imagined a bad King John who prayed: Oh! Father Christmas, if you love me at all, Bring me a big, red India-rubber ball!”
King John gets his India-rubber ball.
Real rubber has wonderful elasticity. So rubber balls made fine children’s toys. And that word India-rubber. Well, the rubber had not come from India. That was simply what the British called it. The Western world’s chief rubber source had first been Brazil. Then a remarkable explorer, one Henry Wickham, obtained Brazilian seeds. And those seeds followed a tortuous route from Brazil to England, all the way to Southeast Asia. And there, they spawned the world’s major rubber production.
Sir Henry Wickham
What comes out of a rubber tree is a liquid called latex. From that they coagulate rubber. Consider latex gloves. They are rubber, but they’re first made directly from latex. So much went on between latex emerging from a tree and any final rubber product. A great deal of applied chemistry had gone into rubber.
And both Germany and America had gone further and done substantial work on synthetic rubber. That knowledge was now vitally important in both countries. Being Japan’s ally did not give Germany access to Malay rubber. Ersatz rubber would now have to serve us each.
Here in America, my father was restricted to owning no more than five tires. But that caused little inconvenience since we were allowed only four gallons of gasoline a week. And, in those days, we were lucky to go eighteen miles on a gallon.
So: What was the aftermath of war? Well, think about what our car tires are now made of. They still include a fair amount of real rubber. But we also find synthetic rubber, silica, carbon black, textile fibers – even some steel belts and wires.
Typical automobile tire construction
So it is with so many products today. As rubber has merged with so many other materials, it is only one more example – only one more instance – of the way today’s industrial chemistry creates an Irish stew of almost any product that we now use.
I’m John Lienhard, at the University of Houston, where we’re interested in the way inventive minds work.
(Theme music)
Some sources:
U.S. Synthetic Rubber Program - National Historic Chemical Landmark - American Chemical Society
Rationing in the United States - Wikipedia
World War II and How It Changed Rubber Forever - AirBoss Rubber Solutions
What Was Synthetic Rubber Used for in WW2? - ScienceInsights
I have only grazed the remarkable Henry Wickham. For more of his story, see: Henry Wickham (explorer) - Wikipedia
Plant Transfers and Imperial Botany
King John image is Milne’s original image, drawn by one E. H. Shepard. Color added and layout modified by JHL. All other images are courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
This Episode first aired August 25, 2026.