When the United States entered World War II, the ability to manufacture synthetic rubber had existed for over two decades. Acting jointly, Standard Oil in the United States and IG Farben in Germany had acquired in the early 1920's patents related to the production of synthetic rubber and its products. This positioned the two countries to control further developments and markets, but Germany and the United States took much different paths. The Germans, preparing for war under government guidance and control, pursued the development of synthetic rubber, tires, fuels and lubricants relentlessly. In the U.S., Goodyear began research in synthetic rubber after it had acquired Zeppelin patents in 1924, and in 1933 synthetic rubber research became a full-time project at the company. Four years later, Goodyear built and tested the first American-made synthetic rubber tire. However, despite warnings that unless a substantial synthetic rubber industry was created, the American military would be left with cars, trucks, tanks, and aircraft without tires, the United States continued to rely on natural rubber supplies from Southeast Asia.

By the end of 1939, with the war in Europe already underway, the Americans counted only 125,800 tons of crude natural rubber in stock – substantially less than half the stocks available in the first five years of the decade. It was not until June 28, 1940 that Congress amended the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) Act to authorize the creation of corporations for the purpose of acquiring strategic and critical materials. Rubber was quickly placed on the “critical” list and the Rubber Reserve Company (RRC) created. Between December 7,1941 (Pearl Harbor) and February 3, 1942 (fall of Singapore) all available raw rubber in the Far East, amounting to 114,000 tons, was sent to the U.S. But as attacks on Allied shipping increased and supplies became limited to what could be grown primarily in South America, two new programs were designed by the RRC: The Scrap Rubber and the Idle Tire Projects. Citizens were asked to collect whatever rubber they could find and send the Government any unused tires in their possession. Greeted enthusiastically by the American people, the amounts of rubber collected gave the United States military some reprieve.

Paralleling these developments, representatives of the chemical, petroleum and rubber industries met with the National Defense Advisory Committee in August of 1940 to discuss establishing a synthetic rubber program. Company officials brought preliminary engineering plans to build commercial units capable of producing 100,000 tons annually. However, the following questions had to be resolved before production could take place:

1. What were the most satisfactory standards for synthetic rubber used for tires and tubes?
(Approximately seventy percent of the total annual rubber consumption in the U.S. was required just for tires and tubes).

2. What production processes should be employed?

3. Are the necessary raw materials readily available?

4. How much critical construction material was required for the producing plants, and how quickly could plant construction be completed?

5. What are the optimal sizes and locations for the producing plants?

With time running short, on March 26, 1942 industry representatives and the U.S. government agreed upon a common formula to produce synthetic rubber. Almost immediately, the RRC had U.S. Rubber (Uniroyal), Goodrich, Goodyear and Firestone design, build and manage government-owned facilities at their company locations. Goodyear for example built government synthetic rubber plants in Ohio, Texas and California. By the end of the war, the nation had spent as much money on its rubber program as it did on the atomic bomb. Following the war, the main plants owned by the Government but operated by industry were auctioned off (Goodyear purchased two of the plants in 1954) and the less important auxiliary plants (those that had supplied raw materials) were closed down.

In the aftermath, much was written and said about the success of the Synthetic Rubber Program - the reports issued by the Rubber Reserve Company for example praise the cooperation between industry and Government and the way a potential crisis was turned into a success story. But there were also severe critics. Robert A. Solo, a professor of economics at the City College of New York, argued in a study for the Subcommittee on Patents, Trademarks, and Copyrights of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary that the program was a wasteful tug of war between the oil companies and non-technical Government officials.