The Firestone Tire and Rubber Company is an American tire company founded by Harvey Firestone in 1900 to supply pneumatic tires for wagons, buggies, and other forms of wheeled transportation common in the era. Firestone soon saw the huge potential for marketing tires for automobiles. The company was a pioneer in the mass production of tires. Firestone used this relationship to become the original equipment supplier of Ford Motor Company automobiles, and was also active in the replacement market.
In 1988, the company was sold to the Japanese Bridgestone Corporation.
Firestone was originally based in Akron, Ohio, also the hometown of its archrival, Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company. The company initiated operations in 1900 with 12 employees.[1] Together, Firestone and Goodyear were the largest suppliers of automotive tires in North America for over three-quarters of a century. In 1906 Firestone was chosen by Henry Ford for the Model T.[2]
In 1919, Firestone Tire and Rubber Company of Canada was incorporated in Hamilton, Ontario and in 1922, the first Canadian-made tire rolled off the line on September 15.[3] During the '20s, Firestone produced the Oldfield tire, named for racing driver Barney Oldfield.
At one point, the company had a rubber plantation in Liberia that covered more than 4,000 square kilometers (1 million acres).
The company sponsored The Voice of Firestone on the radio beginning on December 1928. The program was transferred to television as an NBC simulcast on 5 September 1949. The last broadcast was in 1963.[4]
In 1928 the company built a factory in Brentford, England, for long an Art Deco landmark on a major route into the city. This closed in 1979.
During World War II the company was called on by the U.S. Government to make artillery shells, aluminum kegs for food transport and other rubberized military products. In the 1940s, Firestone was given a defense contract to produce plastic helmet liners. While outproduced by Westinghouse Electric they still made a fair amount for the M1 Helmet.
Corporal Missile
In 1951, Firestone was given the defense contract for the MGM-5 Corporal missile. Firestone was given a total of US$6,888,796 for the first 200 Missiles. This missile was known as the "Embryo of the Army" and was a surface-to-surface guided missile which could deliver a high explosive warhead up to 75 nautical miles (139 km). It was later modified to be able to carry a nuclear payload for use in the event of Cold War hostilities in Eastern Europe. This missile was replaced in 1962 by the MGM-29 Sergeant system.
Firestone relied on other companies to manufacture the rubber. His firm simply fastened the rubber to steel carriage wheels. In its first year of operation, the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company grossed more than 100,000 dollars in profit. In 1903, the company began to manufacture rubber, and in 1904, the firm proceeded to develop pneumatic tires for automobiles. In 1905, Henry Ford placed his first order for tires from Firestone. Firestone immediately hired additional workers, raising the number of employees from one dozen to 130. The following year, the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company produced more than twenty-eight thousand tires and sold more than one million dollars worth of tires. By 1910, the company manufactured more than one million tires. Firestone's innovations in tire design allowed automobiles to travel faster and more safely.
Firestone also became involved in producing tires for automobile racing. The first racecar to win the Indianapolis 500 in 1911 used Firestone tires. Between 1920 and 1966, every car that won the race used Firestone tires as well. The company also began to open automotive service stations, where customers could purchase tires and other items for their cars. From 1928 to 1964, Firestone also sponsored a weekly radio program titled the "Voice of Firestone." All of these activities helped to make Firestone a household name by the mid-twentieth century.
While the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company prospered, its workers sometimes suffered. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, factory workers faced poor working conditions, low wages, and almost no benefits. This was true for the workers employed by rubber manufacturers in Akron, Ohio, such the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, B.F. Goodrich, and Firestone. In an attempt to alleviate their conditions, workers established a union named the United Rubber Workers in 1935. The following year, this union organized its first major strike within Akron's rubber industry.
The strike began as a protest against a plan created by Goodyear to reduce wages and increase the pace of production. The workers utilized the concept of the "sit-down" strike. In the past, when workers went on strike they would leave the factory to join picket lines. Company owners often hired "scab" laborers to cross the picket lines and continue production. The practice of using scab labor made it difficult for striking workers to obtain their demands. In contrast, in a sit-down strike, workers quit working but still occupied their places within the factory. This process meant that the factory owners could not send in additional workers to continue the job. In addition, factory management was more reluctant to use private security forces or other strikebreakers to intimidate the striking workers, as that approach threatened destruction to plant property.
In addition to the sit-down strike, the rubber workers also organized long picket lines in protest. Akron's mayor, Lee D. Schroy, attempted to send in the police to put down the strike, but the police officers refused to do so when they faced the thousands of organized workers. In the long term, the rubber companies were forced to recognize the United Rubber Workers and negotiate better contracts with workers. One immediate success was a six-hour workday.
Several reasons existed for the workers' success in this strike. First, sit-in strikes made it much more difficult for employers to replace their striking workers. Equally as important in this strike was the federal government's recent passage of the Wagner Act. This legislation made unions legal for the first time in United States history. Finally, the United Rubber Workers belonged to a larger organization, the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). The CIO consisted of an umbrella organization for multiple unions. These unions worked together by providing both moral and material support to CIO-member unions, especially when these member unions went on strike.
In 1988, the Bridgestone Corporation, a Japanese Company, purchased Firestone. Bridgestone is involved in tire manufacturing on an international scale, making the corporation one of the largest of its kind in the world.
Bridgestone Corporation is the world's leading manufacturer of tires, and the company is number three in the North American tire market, trailing the other two of the world's "Big Three" tiremakers, Michelin and The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company. In addition to its flagship Bridgestone and Firestone brands, the company makes and markets tires under the names Dayton, Seiberling, Road King, Gillette, and Peerless, as well as private and house brand tires. Bridgestone also makes the raw materials that go into tires and maintains an extensive network of company-owned tire retail outlets, including nearly 2,300 in North America and about 700 in Japan. The company's tires also are sold through tens of thousands of independent retailers operating in more than 150 countries around the world. Nontire products, which account for about 20 percent of sales, include automotive components, particularly vibration- and noise-isolating parts, such as engine mounts and air springs; industrial products, such as polyurethane foam, conveyor belts, and rubber tracks for crawler tractors; construction and civil engineering materials; and sporting goods--golf balls and clubs, tennis balls and rackets, and bicycles. Products are manufactured within more than 40 tire plants and more than 60 nontire plants on six continents. Geographically, sales break down as follows: 44 percent from North and South America, 37 percent from Japan, 11 percent from Europe, and the remaining 8 percent from elsewhere (Africa and the Asia-Pacific region outside of Japan).
Origins of Pioneering Japanese Tiremaker
Bridgestone was founded by Shojiro Ishibashi, whose name means "stone bridge." Prior to founding the company, Ishibashi, along with his brother, had led the family clothing business, which produced tabi--Japanese workers' footwear; Ishibashi made a fortune by adding rubber soles. Deciding that his future lay in the rubber business, he began intensive research and development in 1929, founding Bridgestone Ltd. two years later in Kurume, Japan, as the first local tire supplier for the nascent Japanese automotive industry. Headquarters were moved to Tokyo in 1937. In 1942 the company changed its name to the Nippon Tire Co., Ltd., but was renamed Bridgestone Tire Co., Ltd. in 1951 and became Bridgestone Corporation in 1984. Ishibashi was an aggressive businessman with strong marketing skills whose main business principle was to expand during recessionary periods. He also thrived on business connections made through his children's marriages. It was said in Japan that his family connections to government officials allowed Bridgestone to secure orders during the Korean War of the 1950s, helping the company to gain its strong position in the domestic market. Meantime, production of nontire products began early on, with golf balls added to the portfolio in the 1930s and bicycles in 1946.
Before World War II, Bridgestone's business--like that of other major Japanese industrial concerns--was focused on supplying military requirements; at the same time, Bridgestone tires also supplied the growing Japanese automobile industry. Production was based at two plants, one in Kurume, the other in Yokohama. Growth after the war was rapid, with the establishment of four new production facilities in the 1960s and six during the 1970s. Bridgestone's first overseas factory was established in Singapore in 1963, with further factories built in Thailand in 1967 and Indonesia in 1973. Bridgestone Singapore ceased operations in 1980 following the Singapore government's lifting of tariff protection for locally made tires. In 1976 Bridgestone set up a sales company in Hamburg, Germany, in partnership with Mitsui. This new company, named Bridgestone Reifen G.m.b.H., was intended to increase tire sales in the important West German market. In 1990 Bridgestone set up a new subsidiary in London, Bridgestone Industrial, to handle industrial rubber products throughout Europe.
Expansion Through 1980s Acquisitions
Since the 1980s Bridgestone's most significant expansion has been by acquisition, acquiring majority interests in Uniroyal Holdings Ltd. (UHL), the South Australian tire manufacturer, in 1980 and a Taiwanese company in 1986. In 1983 Bridgestone gained its first U.S. production base by purchasing a plant in LaVergne, Tennessee, belonging to the Firestone Tire & Rubber Company. This proved to be the first step toward Bridgestone's acquisition of that U.S. company in 1988, for a total of $2.65 billion.
Based in Indianapolis, Ind., Firestone Building Products Company, LLC (FSBP), a subsidiary of Firestone Diversified Products, LLC (FSDP), is responsible for managing FSDP’s construction businesses. These include Firestone Roofing Products Company; Firestone GenFlex Roofing Systems, LLC; Firestone Metal Products, LLC; Firestone Specialty Products Company, LLC; Firestone Building Products International; and Firestone Energy Solutions.
Firestone GenFlex Roofing Systems, LLC (FSGF)
GenFlex was acquired by FSDP in September 2006 to serve as a complementary alternative to the Firestone brand in the commercial roofing market. GenFlex operates with an independent management team, technical force, sales organization and customer service department while utilizing Firestone manufacturing and FSDP shared services. GenFlex specializes in selling EPDM and TPO single-ply roofing systems along with polyiso insulation and associated accessories primarily to commercial roofing distributors. Headquartered in Indianapolis, Ind., GenFlex is part of Firestone Building Products Company, LLC.
Firestone Metal Products, LLC (FSMP)
Firestone Diversified Products, LLC acquired Copper Sales, Inc. in June 2005. As a result of the acquisition, Firestone offers a full line of metal systems marketed under the “UNA-CLAD by Firestone” name. Firestone Metal Products, LLC (FSMP) offers vertical wall panels. FSMP has more than 500,000 square feet of production located in seven facilities throughout the U.S. Headquartered in Anoka, Minn., FSMP is part of Firestone Building Products Company, LLC.
Firestone Specialty Products Company, LLC (FSSP)
Firestone Specialty Products Company, LLC began as a spin-off of the Building Products business and manufactures lining and geomembrane and thru-wall flashing products. The company’s geomembrane products, for example, are used in a wide variety of decorative and critical containment applications including commercial and residential ponds, waterfalls and streams; irrigation canals; storm water retention ponds; and aquaculture ponds, constructed wetland, anaerobic digesters and reservoir caps. Product offerings include PondGard Rubber Liners, Firestone EPDM Geomembrane and fPP-R Geomembrane, as well as a full line of accessories. FSSP is part of Firestone Building Products Company, LLC.
In 1988, the company was sold to the Japanese Bridgestone Corporation.
Firestone was originally based in Akron, Ohio, also the hometown of its archrival, Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company. The company initiated operations in 1900 with 12 employees.[1] Together, Firestone and Goodyear were the largest suppliers of automotive tires in North America for over three-quarters of a century. In 1906 Firestone was chosen by Henry Ford for the Model T.[2]
In 1919, Firestone Tire and Rubber Company of Canada was incorporated in Hamilton, Ontario and in 1922, the first Canadian-made tire rolled off the line on September 15.[3] During the '20s, Firestone produced the Oldfield tire, named for racing driver Barney Oldfield.
At one point, the company had a rubber plantation in Liberia that covered more than 4,000 square kilometers (1 million acres).
The company sponsored The Voice of Firestone on the radio beginning on December 1928. The program was transferred to television as an NBC simulcast on 5 September 1949. The last broadcast was in 1963.[4]
In 1928 the company built a factory in Brentford, England, for long an Art Deco landmark on a major route into the city. This closed in 1979.
During World War II the company was called on by the U.S. Government to make artillery shells, aluminum kegs for food transport and other rubberized military products. In the 1940s, Firestone was given a defense contract to produce plastic helmet liners. While outproduced by Westinghouse Electric they still made a fair amount for the M1 Helmet.
Corporal Missile
In 1951, Firestone was given the defense contract for the MGM-5 Corporal missile. Firestone was given a total of US$6,888,796 for the first 200 Missiles. This missile was known as the "Embryo of the Army" and was a surface-to-surface guided missile which could deliver a high explosive warhead up to 75 nautical miles (139 km). It was later modified to be able to carry a nuclear payload for use in the event of Cold War hostilities in Eastern Europe. This missile was replaced in 1962 by the MGM-29 Sergeant system.
Firestone relied on other companies to manufacture the rubber. His firm simply fastened the rubber to steel carriage wheels. In its first year of operation, the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company grossed more than 100,000 dollars in profit. In 1903, the company began to manufacture rubber, and in 1904, the firm proceeded to develop pneumatic tires for automobiles. In 1905, Henry Ford placed his first order for tires from Firestone. Firestone immediately hired additional workers, raising the number of employees from one dozen to 130. The following year, the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company produced more than twenty-eight thousand tires and sold more than one million dollars worth of tires. By 1910, the company manufactured more than one million tires. Firestone's innovations in tire design allowed automobiles to travel faster and more safely.
Firestone also became involved in producing tires for automobile racing. The first racecar to win the Indianapolis 500 in 1911 used Firestone tires. Between 1920 and 1966, every car that won the race used Firestone tires as well. The company also began to open automotive service stations, where customers could purchase tires and other items for their cars. From 1928 to 1964, Firestone also sponsored a weekly radio program titled the "Voice of Firestone." All of these activities helped to make Firestone a household name by the mid-twentieth century.
While the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company prospered, its workers sometimes suffered. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, factory workers faced poor working conditions, low wages, and almost no benefits. This was true for the workers employed by rubber manufacturers in Akron, Ohio, such the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, B.F. Goodrich, and Firestone. In an attempt to alleviate their conditions, workers established a union named the United Rubber Workers in 1935. The following year, this union organized its first major strike within Akron's rubber industry.
The strike began as a protest against a plan created by Goodyear to reduce wages and increase the pace of production. The workers utilized the concept of the "sit-down" strike. In the past, when workers went on strike they would leave the factory to join picket lines. Company owners often hired "scab" laborers to cross the picket lines and continue production. The practice of using scab labor made it difficult for striking workers to obtain their demands. In contrast, in a sit-down strike, workers quit working but still occupied their places within the factory. This process meant that the factory owners could not send in additional workers to continue the job. In addition, factory management was more reluctant to use private security forces or other strikebreakers to intimidate the striking workers, as that approach threatened destruction to plant property.
In addition to the sit-down strike, the rubber workers also organized long picket lines in protest. Akron's mayor, Lee D. Schroy, attempted to send in the police to put down the strike, but the police officers refused to do so when they faced the thousands of organized workers. In the long term, the rubber companies were forced to recognize the United Rubber Workers and negotiate better contracts with workers. One immediate success was a six-hour workday.
Several reasons existed for the workers' success in this strike. First, sit-in strikes made it much more difficult for employers to replace their striking workers. Equally as important in this strike was the federal government's recent passage of the Wagner Act. This legislation made unions legal for the first time in United States history. Finally, the United Rubber Workers belonged to a larger organization, the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). The CIO consisted of an umbrella organization for multiple unions. These unions worked together by providing both moral and material support to CIO-member unions, especially when these member unions went on strike.
In 1988, the Bridgestone Corporation, a Japanese Company, purchased Firestone. Bridgestone is involved in tire manufacturing on an international scale, making the corporation one of the largest of its kind in the world.
Bridgestone Corporation is the world's leading manufacturer of tires, and the company is number three in the North American tire market, trailing the other two of the world's "Big Three" tiremakers, Michelin and The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company. In addition to its flagship Bridgestone and Firestone brands, the company makes and markets tires under the names Dayton, Seiberling, Road King, Gillette, and Peerless, as well as private and house brand tires. Bridgestone also makes the raw materials that go into tires and maintains an extensive network of company-owned tire retail outlets, including nearly 2,300 in North America and about 700 in Japan. The company's tires also are sold through tens of thousands of independent retailers operating in more than 150 countries around the world. Nontire products, which account for about 20 percent of sales, include automotive components, particularly vibration- and noise-isolating parts, such as engine mounts and air springs; industrial products, such as polyurethane foam, conveyor belts, and rubber tracks for crawler tractors; construction and civil engineering materials; and sporting goods--golf balls and clubs, tennis balls and rackets, and bicycles. Products are manufactured within more than 40 tire plants and more than 60 nontire plants on six continents. Geographically, sales break down as follows: 44 percent from North and South America, 37 percent from Japan, 11 percent from Europe, and the remaining 8 percent from elsewhere (Africa and the Asia-Pacific region outside of Japan).
Origins of Pioneering Japanese Tiremaker
Bridgestone was founded by Shojiro Ishibashi, whose name means "stone bridge." Prior to founding the company, Ishibashi, along with his brother, had led the family clothing business, which produced tabi--Japanese workers' footwear; Ishibashi made a fortune by adding rubber soles. Deciding that his future lay in the rubber business, he began intensive research and development in 1929, founding Bridgestone Ltd. two years later in Kurume, Japan, as the first local tire supplier for the nascent Japanese automotive industry. Headquarters were moved to Tokyo in 1937. In 1942 the company changed its name to the Nippon Tire Co., Ltd., but was renamed Bridgestone Tire Co., Ltd. in 1951 and became Bridgestone Corporation in 1984. Ishibashi was an aggressive businessman with strong marketing skills whose main business principle was to expand during recessionary periods. He also thrived on business connections made through his children's marriages. It was said in Japan that his family connections to government officials allowed Bridgestone to secure orders during the Korean War of the 1950s, helping the company to gain its strong position in the domestic market. Meantime, production of nontire products began early on, with golf balls added to the portfolio in the 1930s and bicycles in 1946.
Before World War II, Bridgestone's business--like that of other major Japanese industrial concerns--was focused on supplying military requirements; at the same time, Bridgestone tires also supplied the growing Japanese automobile industry. Production was based at two plants, one in Kurume, the other in Yokohama. Growth after the war was rapid, with the establishment of four new production facilities in the 1960s and six during the 1970s. Bridgestone's first overseas factory was established in Singapore in 1963, with further factories built in Thailand in 1967 and Indonesia in 1973. Bridgestone Singapore ceased operations in 1980 following the Singapore government's lifting of tariff protection for locally made tires. In 1976 Bridgestone set up a sales company in Hamburg, Germany, in partnership with Mitsui. This new company, named Bridgestone Reifen G.m.b.H., was intended to increase tire sales in the important West German market. In 1990 Bridgestone set up a new subsidiary in London, Bridgestone Industrial, to handle industrial rubber products throughout Europe.
Expansion Through 1980s Acquisitions
Since the 1980s Bridgestone's most significant expansion has been by acquisition, acquiring majority interests in Uniroyal Holdings Ltd. (UHL), the South Australian tire manufacturer, in 1980 and a Taiwanese company in 1986. In 1983 Bridgestone gained its first U.S. production base by purchasing a plant in LaVergne, Tennessee, belonging to the Firestone Tire & Rubber Company. This proved to be the first step toward Bridgestone's acquisition of that U.S. company in 1988, for a total of $2.65 billion.
Based in Indianapolis, Ind., Firestone Building Products Company, LLC (FSBP), a subsidiary of Firestone Diversified Products, LLC (FSDP), is responsible for managing FSDP’s construction businesses. These include Firestone Roofing Products Company; Firestone GenFlex Roofing Systems, LLC; Firestone Metal Products, LLC; Firestone Specialty Products Company, LLC; Firestone Building Products International; and Firestone Energy Solutions.
Firestone GenFlex Roofing Systems, LLC (FSGF)
GenFlex was acquired by FSDP in September 2006 to serve as a complementary alternative to the Firestone brand in the commercial roofing market. GenFlex operates with an independent management team, technical force, sales organization and customer service department while utilizing Firestone manufacturing and FSDP shared services. GenFlex specializes in selling EPDM and TPO single-ply roofing systems along with polyiso insulation and associated accessories primarily to commercial roofing distributors. Headquartered in Indianapolis, Ind., GenFlex is part of Firestone Building Products Company, LLC.
Firestone Metal Products, LLC (FSMP)
Firestone Diversified Products, LLC acquired Copper Sales, Inc. in June 2005. As a result of the acquisition, Firestone offers a full line of metal systems marketed under the “UNA-CLAD by Firestone” name. Firestone Metal Products, LLC (FSMP) offers vertical wall panels. FSMP has more than 500,000 square feet of production located in seven facilities throughout the U.S. Headquartered in Anoka, Minn., FSMP is part of Firestone Building Products Company, LLC.
Firestone Specialty Products Company, LLC (FSSP)
Firestone Specialty Products Company, LLC began as a spin-off of the Building Products business and manufactures lining and geomembrane and thru-wall flashing products. The company’s geomembrane products, for example, are used in a wide variety of decorative and critical containment applications including commercial and residential ponds, waterfalls and streams; irrigation canals; storm water retention ponds; and aquaculture ponds, constructed wetland, anaerobic digesters and reservoir caps. Product offerings include PondGard Rubber Liners, Firestone EPDM Geomembrane and fPP-R Geomembrane, as well as a full line of accessories. FSSP is part of Firestone Building Products Company, LLC.