Background
Firestone was born on the Columbiana, Ohio farm built by his paternal grandfather. He was the second of Benjamin and Catherine (née Flickinger) Firestone's three sons; Benjamin had a son and a daughter by his first wife.
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(Stated first edition bound in brown cloth with paper titl...)
Stated first edition bound in brown cloth with paper title labels. Top edge gilt, frontis plate A near fine copy in a poor dust jacket. Rubs to the book's spine tips and corners. Dust soiling to the edges of the upper page block. The dust jacket is tanned and dust soiled. The rear panel has a 2" x 4" piece missing along the lower spine seam. Chips and tears along the edges, with the front panel missing a 3/4" x 2" piece at the upper right corner. The upper 1" of the spine is chipped away.
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Firestone was born on the Columbiana, Ohio farm built by his paternal grandfather. He was the second of Benjamin and Catherine (née Flickinger) Firestone's three sons; Benjamin had a son and a daughter by his first wife.
Education high school and business college. Honorary Doctor Business Administration, Mount Union College, Alliance, O. Scroll of distinction, Spencerian School of Commercial Accounts and Finance, Cleveland, O.
Honorary Doctor of Laws, Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio, 1934.
After graduating from Columbiana High School, Firestone worked for the Columbus Buggy Company in Columbus, Ohio before starting his own company in 1890, making rubber tires for carriages. As manager of the Detroit agency of a buggy company he furnished a set of solid-rubber tires in 1895 to Henry Ford, who was experimenting with his second model of a horseless carriage.
Five years later, after experience in Chicago as a dealer in tires, Firestone settled in Akron, Ohio, the center of the rubber industry, to become a tire manufacturer. The Firestone Tire & Rubber Company, founded in 1900, soon began making pneumatic automobile tires. Firestone was its president from 1902 to 1932 and chairman of the board until his death.
The Firestone Company introduced the mechanically fastened straight-side tire to take the place of the "clincher" which hooked on the rim with a hard rubber bead and required the use of a crowbar. Other improvements were demountable rims, an angular nonskid tread (in 1908, when most treads were smooth and slippery), cord fabric instead of squarewoven cloth for the tire plies, gum-dipping to insulate the cords against internal heat, truck rims and tires, and low-pressure balloon tires (1922). In order to keep prices of tires down, he fought monopolies in rims, tire-building machines, and Far Eastern plantation rubber and won each battle.
(Rubber, : Its history and development [Harvey Samuel Fire...)
(The story of transportation [Harvey Samuel Firestone] on ...)
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(Rated 5.0/5: Buy Man on the move;: The story of transport...)
(Stated first edition bound in brown cloth with paper titl...)
Member Ohio Council National Defense, World War, also instrumental in organizing rubber div. of War Industries Board.
Married Idabelle Smith, November 20, 1895. Children: Harvey Samuel, Russell Allen, Leonard Kimball, Raymond Christy, Roger Stanley, Elizabeth Idabelle.