Chains of Opportunity: The University of Akron and the Emergence of The Polymer Age 1909–2007

NOTES

NOTES introduction 1.Brooke Hindle, ed. America’s Wooden Age (Tarrytown, NY: Sleepy Hollow Restorations, 1975), 3. 2. Herman Mark, “Coming to an Age in Polymers in Science and Technology ,” History of Polymer Science and Technology, ed. Raymond Seymour (New York: Marcel Dekker, 1982), 5. 3. This was based upon a talk given by Clayton F. Ruebensaal, a corporate planning director from Uniroyal. He argued that the new “polymer age” followed three other main periods in the development of rubber: wild rubber, plantation rubber, and synthetic rubber. “New Rubber Age,” Chemical Week (April 14, 1976). 4. J. Harry DuBois and Frederick W. John, Plastics, 6th ed. (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1981), v. 5. National Research Council, “Growth in Polymer Production,” Akron Beacon Journal, June 12, 1983. 6. Grecia Matos and Lorie Wagner, “Consumption of Materials in the United States,” Annual Review of Energy and the Environment 23 (November 1998): 103–122; Kathleen Frankart, “Americans Have a Real Penchant for Polymer,” UA News (September 1981): 5. 7. David Teegarden, Polymer Chemistry: Introduction to an Indispensable Science (Arlington, VA: National Science Teachers Association Press, 2004), xv. 8. Poly Styrene, email message to author, December 11, 2006. 9. She remained somewhat ambivalent about the ultimate good or evil of this Polymer Age. She warned of potential destruction to the natural environment but still called it a “Pandora’s Box of hope.” Her last line in the song, “I fell from the rayon trees,” was prophetic in that she would soon retreat from this persona she created, disband the group she created, X-Ray Spex, and join the Hare Krishna movement. 295 Bowles.267-364 6/16/08 4:24 PM Page 295 10. Ed Noga, “A Day in the Life . . .” Rubber & Plastics News (March 20, 2006): 12–13. 11. Madeline Goodstein, Plastics and Polymers Science Fair Projects: Using Hair Gel, Soda Bottles, and Slimy Stuff (Berkeley Heights, NJ: Enslow Publishers , 2004). 12. Frank Kelley, “The Next Time You String Popcorn, Think of Akron,” Akron Beacon Journal, (September 25, 1991); Frank Kelley, “What Is a Polymer Anyway?”, undated manuscript, College of Polymer Science and Polymer Engineering Archives; Frank Kelley, “Challenges for a Rust-Belt Phoenix,” December 16, 1993, Akron Roundtable presentation, College of Polymer Science and Polymer Engineering Archives; “Akron’s Future: Polymers ,” brochure published in 1985, College of Polymer Science and Polymer Engineering Archives. 13. Gary Hamed, interview with the author, March 13, 2008. 14. Steve Love, “Polymers’ Pied Pipers,” Akron Beacon Journal, June 15, 2001. 15. David E. Nye, American Technological Sublime (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1994). 16. Meikle, American Plastic, 8. 17. Charles E. Carraher, Jr., “History of Polymer Education—USA,” in History of Polymer Science and Technology, ed. Raymond B. Seymour (New York: Marcel Dekker, 1982), 183. 18. Yasu Furukawa, Inventing Polymer Science: Staudinger, Carothers, and the Emergence of Macromolecular Chemistry (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997), 2. 19. Frank M. McMillan, The Chain Straighteners (London: Macmillan, 1979); Peter J.T. Morris, Polymer Pioneers: A Popular History of the Science and Technology of Large Molecules (Philadelphia: Center for History of Chemistry, 1986). 20. John Loadman, Tears of the Tree: The Story of Rubber—A Modern Marvel (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005); Charles Slack, Noble Obsession : Charles Goodyear, Thomas Hancock, and the Race to Unlock the Greatest Industrial Secret of the Nineteenth Century (New York: Hyperion, 2002). 21. Furukawa, Inventing Polymer Science, 3. 22. David A. Hounshell and John Kenly Smith, Jr., Science and Corporate Strategy: DuPont R&D, 1902–1980 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988). 23. Mansel G. Blackford and K. Austin Kerr, BFGoodrich: Tradition and Transformation, 1870–1995 (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1996). 24. Steve Love and David Giffels, Wheels of Fortune (Akron, OH: University of Akron Press, 1999). notes to pages 4–8 296 Bowles.267-364 6/16/08 4:24 PM Page 296 chapter 1 1. John Loadman, Tears of the Tree: The Story of Rubber—A Modern Marvel (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 22. 2. Charles Slack, Noble Obsession: Charles Goodyear, Thomas Hancock, and the Race to Unlock the Greatest Industrial Secret of the Nineteenth Century (New York: Hyperion, 2002), 2, 30–31. 3. Charles Goodyear, The Applications and Uses of Vulcanized Gum-Elastic , vol. 2 (New Haven, CT: 1855). 4. P.W. Allen, Natural Rubber and the Synthetics (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1972), 31. 5. David E. Nye, Electrifying America: Social Meanings of a New Technology , 1880–1940 (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press...