History of Rubber
Rubber is indigenous to Central and South America and mainly collected from the Castilla elastica plant. The first accounts of the utilization of rubber are in the Mesoamerican civilizations around 1600 BCE. These civilizations used rubber to create rubber balls in a form of a ritualistic game. Since this game spanned different societies such as the Aztecs and Mayas, there were different forms: some involved kicking the ball and others throwing the ball through hoops. Sound familiar? Many games we play today such as soccer, basketball, and volleyball closely mimic these ancient games, with the exception of extreme violence. During the time that these games were played, sacrificial rituals of the losing team captains were not uncommon. Thankfully nowadays, the losers only have to deal with the sting of defeat.
Today, the most common commercial rubber tree is the Para rubber tree grown mostly in Southeast Asian countries such as Malaysia. The switch from South America to Asia occurred due to Henry Wickham in 1876. He gathered thousands of seeds and sprouted them in England, and then shipped them off. Wickham however, was not the one to name rubber. In 1770 Joseph Priestley noted that the material was great for rubbing out pencil marks and thus named it ‘rubber’ and consequently created the first eraser. From that moment onwards, we have never looked back and have even created synthetic rubber in lieu of natural.
As Malaysia is to natural rubber, Connecticut is to refined rubber. There is a small town called Naugatuck, CT that is heralded as the rubber cradle of the US and is where Charles Goodyear spent a good portion of his life. Although he was not born there, several of his businesses ran from Naugatuck including Goodyear’s India Rubber Glove Manufacturing Company and Goodyear Metallic Rubber Shoe Co. It was Goodyear who first ‘discovered’ the process of vulcanization of rubber. He combined sulfur and natural rubber to create the stable and durable rubber that we use today. The process of vulcanization has not changed much throughout the years since he perfected the technique in 1844.
Besides the Para rubber tree and Castilla elastica, there are other plants that can also produce different types of latex. The Guayale is native to Southwestern US and is the leading source of creating hypo-allergenic latex. Other sources of latex include the Ficus elastica tree, spurge, and dandelions; however they are not used often for the production of rubber due to the creation of synthetic rubber. Spurge latex is caustic, and when in contact with mucous membrane can cause severe inflammation and pain. The dandelion latex has been used in home remedies for mosquito repellants, as well as reducing the size of warts. Ficus elastica is used on occasion for rubber; however the Para rubber tree far outnumbers it in production.
Rubber is present in most people’s childhood memories from the rubber duckie to super bouncy balls to balloons. And of course, who can forget the rubber super heroes. But besides this, rubber is an extremely versatile material and has an interesting connection with the fetish world.