Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-lj6df Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-15T01:51:16.706Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Rubber in Brazil: Dominance and Collapse, 1876-1945

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2012

Randolph R. Resor
Randolph R. Resor
Affiliation:
Special Assistant to the President, Association of American Railroads, Washington, D.C.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

For the first few years of this century, Brazil was the major supplier of rubber to the world. However, the Amazonian wild rubber industry was unable to compete, in either price or quality, with the Asian plantation rubber that began to appear on world markets after 1906. Development of a successful plantation culture in the Amazon seemed imperative, but even with public subsidy, plantations remained an economic impossibility. By 1945 the Brazilian rubber industry, overwhelmed by Asian production, had virtually disappeared.

Type
Research Article
Information
Business History Review , Volume 51 , Issue 3 , Autumn 1977 , pp. 341 - 366
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1977

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Wolf, Howard and Wolf, Ralph, Rubber: A Story of Glory and Greed (New York, 1936), 19.Google Scholar

2 Wolf & Wolf, Rubber: A Story of Glory and Greed, 26-27.

3 Akers, Charles, The Rubber Industry in Brazil and the Orient (London, 1914), 2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Wolf & Wolf, Rubber: A Story of Glory and Greed, 295.

5 Akers, The Rubber Industry in Brazil and the Orient, 111.

6 Bates, Henry Walter, The Naturalist on the River Amazons (London, 1884), 113.Google Scholar

7 Bates, The Naturalist on the River Amazons, 385.

8 Cook, O. F., “Beginnings of Rubber Culture,” Journal of Heredity, 19 (1928), 206–207CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 Wickham, Henry A., Rough Notes of a Journey Through the Wilderness (London, 1872)Google Scholar.

10 Stern, H. J., Rubber, Natural and Synthetic (New York, 1967), 8.Google Scholar

11 Wolf & Wolf, Rubber, 155.

12 Henry A. Wickham, quoted in Wolf & Wolf, Rubber, 160.

13 Barker, P. W., “Rubber Statistics 1900-1937,” Trade Promotion Series No. 181 (Washington, 1938), 42.Google Scholar

14 Bates, Naturalist, 73-74.

15 Woodruffe, Jospeh, The Rubber Industry of the Amazon (New York, 1911), 61–62Google Scholar.

16 Woodruffe, The Rubber Industry of the Amazon, 101.

17 Pearson, Henry, The Rubber Country of the Amazon (New York, 1911), 65–66.Google Scholar

18 Akers, The Rubber Industry, 65-66.

19 Akers, The Rubber Industry, 97.

20 Woodruffe, The Rubber Industry of the Amazon, 50.

21 Barker, “Rubber Statistics 1900-1937,” 5.

22 Burkill, I. H., “Early Distribution of Para Rubber Plants,” Bulletin (Straits Settlement, 1915), quoted in Journal of Heredity, 19 (1928), 202.Google Scholar

23 Henry A. Wickham, On the Plantation Curing and Preparation of Para Indian Rubber, 45-47, quoted in Journal of Heredity, 19 (1928), 207.Google Scholar

24 Akers, The Rubber Industry, 166.

25 Labroy, O., A Borracha no Brazil (Rio de Janeiro, 1913), 12.Google Scholar

26 Ridley, Henry N., Annual Report Straits Settlement, Royal Botannic Gardens (N.P.: 1897)Google Scholar, quoted in Journal of Heredity, 19 (1928), 210Google Scholar.

27 Wright, Herbert, The Science of Para Rubber Cultivation, (Colombo, 1907), 37.Google Scholar

28 “Some Notes on Plantation Rubber,” The India Rubber World (hereafter referred to as IRW, 41 (1909), 15.

29 de Sousa Carneiro, A. J., Rubber in Brazil (Rio de Janeiro, 1913), 77.Google Scholar

30 Akers, The Rubber Industry, 176.

31 Pearson, The Rubber Country, 98.

32 Akers, The Rubber Industry, 106-107.

33 Garzert, Frederic William, “The Boundary Controversy in the Upper Amazon Between Brazil, Bolivia and Peru, 1903-1909,” The Hispanic American Historical Review, 14 (1934), 435.Google Scholar

34 Kravigny, Frank W., The Jungle Route (New York, 1940), xix.Google Scholar

35 Ashmead, P. H., “The Madeira-Mamore Railway,” Bulletin of the Pan American Union, 32 (1911), 443.Google Scholar

36 IRW, 51 (1914), 88.

37 Kravigny, The Jungle Route, 37.

38 Schurz, William L., “Rubber Production in the Amazon Valley,” Trade Promotion Series No. 23, Crude Rubber Survey (Washington, D.C., 1925), 146.Google Scholar

39 Akers, The Rubber Industry, 107.

40 Pearson, The Rubber Country, 100.

41 Akers, The Rubber Industry, 110.

42 “The Profits of Plantation Rubber Culture,” IRW, 41 (1909), 10.Google Scholar

43 Figart, David, “The Plantation Rubber Industry in the Middle East,” Trade Promotion Series No. 2, Crude Rubber Survey (Washington, 1925), 5.Google Scholar

44 Lawrence, James Cooper, The World's Struggle With Rubber 1905-1931 (New York, 1931), 15.Google Scholar

45 IRW, 42 (1910), 375.

46 “The Rubber Congress at Manaos,” IRW, 42 (1910), 216.Google Scholar

47 “The Rubber Congress at Manaos,” 233.

48 “What Helps to Keep Rubber Dear,” IRW, 42 (1910), 300Google Scholar.

40 P. W. Barker, “Rubber Statistics 1900-1937,” 5.

50 Lawrence, The World's Struggle With Rubber, 14.

51 “The United States Rubber Company's Best Year,” IRW, 42 (1910), 315Google Scholar.

52 Huber, Jacques, “The Present and Future of the Native ‘Hevea’ Rubber Industry,” IRW, 42 (1910), 315.Google Scholar

53 Bulletin of the Pan American Union, 33 (1911), 64Google Scholar.

54 “Brazil's ‘Valorization’ Project,” IRW, 44 (1911), 105.Google Scholar

55 Carneiro, Rubber in Brazil. The detailed regulations of April 1912 occupy thirty pages of Carneiro's monograph.

Monograph No. 23 is in English. The other twenty-two monographs, published in Portuguese, are detailed surveys of the rubber industries of individual states, and a survey of Balata production (Balata is an inelastic rubber similar to gutta-percha, used mainly as an insulating material).

56 Akers, The Rubber Industry, 106.

57 IRW, 53 (1915), 165.

58 Schurz, “Rubber Production in the Amazon Valley,” 38.

59 Woodruffe, The Rubber Industry of the Amazon, 123.

60 P. W. Parker, “Rubber Statistics 1900-1937,” 43.

61 “The Rubber Situation in Brazil,” IRW, 51 (1914), 62Google Scholar. “The Rubber Situation in Brazil” was a regular monthly feature in the IRW until the early 1920s. After 1912 it was usually just a short letter from “our regular Brazilian correspondent.” His name was never given.

62 “The Rubber Situation in Brazil,” 63.

63 IRW, 52 (1915), 179.

64 Figart, “The Plantation Rubber Industry in the Middle East,” 4.

65 Schurz, “Rubber Production in the Amazon Valley,” 8.

66 Figart, “The Plantation Rubber Industry in the Middle East,” 3.

67 Lawrence, The World's Struggle with Rubber, 35 ff.

68 “Second Report of the Stevenson Committee,” reproduced in Lawrence, The World's Struggle With Rubber, 113.

69 Lawrence, The World's Struggle With Rubber, 51. Besides the reports by Schurz and Figart, the Crude Rubber Survey project also produced “Marketing of Plantation Rubber,” by J. J. Blandin (Bulletin No. 180) and “Possibilities for Para Rubber Production in the Philippines,” by C. F. Vance et al. (Bulletin No. 17). I believe there was a study of Africa as well.

70 J. C. Alves de Lima in a letter to Henry Ford, quoted in Wilkins, Mira and Hill, Frank Ernest, American Business Abroad (Detroit, 1964), 166.Google Scholar

71 Firestone established a plantation in Liberia at about the same time that Ford was considering his Brazilian venture. Unlike Fôrdlandia and Belterra, Firestone's plantation was an almost immediate success. In 1940, when Ford was still struggling to produce 1,000 tons of rubber a year, Firestone shipped 7,000. By the end of World War II, output from the Firestone venture had reached 20,000 tons. Further, the plantation still produces rubber; in March 1975 the Washington Post carried a filler item about Liberian rubber shipments to U.S. ports.

72 “The Ford Rubber Concession in the Amazon Valley,” IRW, 77 (1927), 56–57Google Scholar.

73 “The Ford Rubber Concession,” 56.

74 Wilkins & Hill, American Business Abroad, 172.

75 “The Ford Rubber Plantations: I” IRW, 104 (1941), 35Google Scholar.

76 “The Ford Rubber Plantations: II,” IRW, 104 (1941), 45.Google Scholar

77 The Ford Rubber Plantations: II,” 47-48.

78 Wright, The Science of Para Rubber Cultivation, 8.

79 Archibald Johnston, Manager of the Ford plantations, quoted in Wilkins & Hill, American Business Abroad, 182.

80 Wilkins & Hill, American Business Abroad, 182.

81 Stern, Rubber, Natural and Synthetic, 68.

82 Wilkins & Hill, American Business Abroad, 183.

83 Wilkins & Hill, American Business Abroad, 184.

84 Kravigny, The Jungle Route, 188. The Manaus port charges are mentioned by Pearson. Vide footnote 40.

85 Figart, “The Plantation Rubber Industry,” 58.