The eighty-year-old inventor even began new experimental
project. Another
solution was find another source organic rubber which
could grown the US. The idea was not substitute American for Malayan and
South American production, but ensure supply domestic
rubber emergency. the early 1920s the consumed about 70% the
world's rubber, mainly for the growing automobile industry. Many strategic materials were
concentrated few places and subject being cut off in
wartime. His friend
Henry Ford was partly responsible for the increased demand, and
subsequent increased value, rubber; and was Henry Ford,
along with Harvey Firestone the Firestone Tire and Rubber
Company, who persuaded Edison look for domestic source of
rubber. Subsequently several attempts had been made to
produce synthetic rubber, but with little success. The Edison Botanic Research Company was
formed 1927.XIV- 2
Orange. Ford and Firestone provided the capital and
2
. This became Edison's goal. The
supply rubber was largely British and Dutch hands, and
they were not above exploiting their monopoly rubber
production. During the First World War, the United States'
dependency foreign raw materials was underlined to
industrialists like Edison.
With Charles Edison running the business affairs the
company, Thomas Edison could spend more his time
experimenting. the late 1920s continued his research on
the recording sound and the battery for the Ford automobile
