Tully - Devils Milk

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THE DEVILS MILK

In the Rubber Coils Punch, 1906

A Social History of Rubber

by JOHN TULLY

Copyright 2011 by John Tully
All rights reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Tully, John A. (John Andrew)

The devils milk : a social history of rubber / John Tully.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-58367-231-0 (pbk.) ISBN 978-1-58367-232-7 (cloth)

1. Rubber industry and trade. I. Title.

HD9161.A2.T85 2010

338.47678209dc22

2010042687

Monthly Review Press

146 West 29th Street, Suite 6W

New York, NY 10001

5 4 3 2 1

PREFACE
Why a Book on Rubber?

INTRODUCTION
The Muscles and Sinews of Industrial Society

PART ONE
From the sacred essence of life
to the muscles and sinews of industrial society

PART TWO
Wild rubber: a primitive mode of extraction

PART THREE
Monopoly capitalism in Akron

11. Sisters, Brothers, Unite!
The Rubber Workers Union in Akron

PART FOUR
Plantation hevea: agribusiness and imperialism

PART FIVE
Synthetic rubber, war and autarky

EPILOGUE
Rubber in the Postwar World

Dedicated to Roger Casement, Walt Hardenburg, Edmund Morel, Benjamin Saldaa Rocca, Wilmer Tate, Tran Tu Binh, Emile Vandervelde, and Chico Mendes for making a difference; to Steve Miletich, Akron rubber worker who died at Belchite in Spain fighting Franco (who was backed by Harvey Firestone); to Primo Levi, who bore eloquent witness; and to Maria Szaglai and her babymurdered at Auschwitz-Birkenauso that we do not forget.

Thanks to Goodyear Tyre & Rubber for the experience of taking apart the Banbury mixer at their Melbourne plant back in 1979 and 1985: it was pretty filthy work, but it provided the original impetus for this book. Years later, when I was writing it, my repeated polite requests for a tour of the firms Melbourne factories did not rate a reply, for reasons about which I can only speculate. The plant is now closed.

Librarians and archivists were much more helpful. Research and writing meant visits to libraries and archives on four continents. Many people helped and among these I must mention Michele Losse, Anne Marshall, Fiona Ainsworth and other members of the archives and library staff at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew in London. Piotr Setkiewicz and his staff at the archives of the State Museum of Auschwitz in Poland provided me with invaluable assistance. Dr. Setkiewicz kindly provided me with an English translation of a chapter from a book he recently published on Monowitz.

While on the subject of Owicimthe Polish name for AuschwitzI should thank the staff of the Interfaith Center for Dialogue and Prayer, where I stayed during my visit. After I read about horrible things all day, they provided me with a warm refuge and restored my faith in humanity.

John Miller, Vic Fleischer, Craig Holbert and their colleagues at the University of Akron Archives patiently dealt with my requests for yet more boxes of files, and John kindly loaned me his bicycle so that I could ride down the beautiful Cuyahoga River valley to see the beavers. Thanks to Jeff Franks of the University of Akrons Bierce Library for his help in locating books on his city and for providing me with a temporary library card and email access. Judy James and Mike Elliot of the Akron-Summit County Public Library went out of their way to acquaint me with the librarys holdings, including some archival material. Norma Hill at the Akron Beacon Journal library kindly assisted me and made me welcome during a visit in 2008. Thanks, too, to Cara Gilgenbach at the Kent State University special collections and archives.

I owe much appreciation to the staff of the Ohio Historical Center in Columbus, Ohio, and to those at the Center for Archival Research, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio. Thanks are also due to the staff of the British Library in London, the Bodleian Library in Oxford, the National Library of Australia in Canberra and the National Archives in London, where I mined much of the material for this book. I also spent some productive days in the Australian Archives at Canberra, made pleasant by the attentive staff and, incredibly in these user-pays days, by the near-utopian free tea and coffee! Much of my original spade-work was done in the State Library of Victoria and various university libraries in Melbourne, and many staff offered me their kind assistance. If I do not know their names, it does not mean that I do not appreciate their help. One librarian I must not forget is my colleague Mark Armstrong-Roper at Victoria University. Mark was unfailingly helpful in tracking down and obtaining books and theses from around the world. Nor should I forget the staff of the archives of the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Brussels, who allowed me access even though I turned up one cold winters morning at what, after all, is a busy civil service department, seeking material on what remains a touchy subject for many Belgians. The staff of the French overseas archives at Aix-en-Provence bravely suffered my accent and catered to my needs. I should also thank Peter Arfanis and his staff at the National Archives of Cambodia in Phnom Penh. I particularly appreciated Peters valiant efforts to keep the lights and computers on when the privatized power company kept turning off the electricity. Nor should I neglect my faculty at Victoria University, which allowed me extended research leave in Europe in December 2005January 2006 on full pay, and also granted me a half-time faculty research fellowship in 2005, a fully funded trip to Akron in 2006, and gave me leave of absence to return to the city in 2008. Thanks, too, to Dr. Julia Kindt from the Classics Department at Sydney University for sharing her knowledge of Herodotus.

My friends Tony Dewberry and Mike Frost also read chapters and were friendly and supportive, although not uncritically so. Thanks too to Gabrielle Thomson for reading some chapters and letting me know that they were accessible for an intelligent young person. I should not neglect my colleagues at Victoria University for their suggestions. In particular, thanks to Professor Phillip Deery, who has always been positive about the project and has read portions of the manuscript, and to Dr. Julie Stephens and Professor Rob Pascoe for standing in for me when I was absent overseas. I must also express my gratitude to Professor Michael Yates, editor at Monthly Review Press, for his support and encouragement in guiding this book to publication. My friend and old teacher, Professor David Chandler, also read portions of the manuscript closely and made invaluable suggestions about style and content; in particular he reminded me to avoid adjectival excess. Thanks also to the voluntary staff of the Jewish Holocaust Centre in Melbourne for their efforts to track down survivors of the Buna and finding other material.