biography
| name: |
Firestone, Harvey (Samuel)
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| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1868–1938)
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| biography:
| Manufacturer, born in Columbiana, Ohio, USA. In 1896 he left his uncle's Detroit buggy company and moved to Chicago to open his own business selling rubber tyres for buggies. In 1900 he moved to Akron, OH and founded the Firestone Tire and Rubber Co to make rubber tyres for all kinds of horse-drawn vehicles, but by 1903 he shifted to making rubber tyres for the burgeoning automobile market. Firestone's innovations included the pneumatic automobile tyre and the ‘dismountable rim’ which made possible spare tyres. By 1918 he had begun promoting the use of trucks to haul freight, and he continued to lobby for improved highways. He defeated the British rubber cartel (1924) by establishing his own rubber plantations in Liberia. His company was eventually criticized for its poor treatment of workers as well as for meddling in Liberia's economy. In the USA also he was notorious for being anti-union and for paying low wages. By the time he died, his company supplied some 25 per cent of tyres used in the USA. |
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