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Akron, Ohio: how four tire companies built the Rubber Capital of the World, the 1975 to 1981 collapse that cost 80,000 rubber jobs, what replaced it, and LeBron James’s hometown legacy

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Lesson breakdown

  1. You'll understand how B.F. Goodrich, Goodyear, Firestone and General Tire made Akron the Rubber Capital of the World, and how the city grew about 200 percent in the decade after 1910, faster than any US city.

  2. You'll learn how the collapse actually worked: production moved out of Akron from 1975 to 1981 while headquarters and research stayed, and the whole decline cost an estimated 80,000 to 90,000 rubber jobs.

  3. You'll see what replaced rubber in Akron: hospitals, energy, the maker of Purell spun out of the rubber industry itself, and a university polymer science program that is a direct legacy of the boom.

  4. You'll recognize how LeBron James emerged as a cultural symbol of Akron's post-industrial reinvention, representing both the city's resilience and the aspirations of a generation born after the rubber collapse.

About this study

“Akron, Ohio: how four tire companies built the Rubber Capital of the World, the 1975 to 1981 collapse that cost 80,000 rubber jobs, what replaced it, and LeBron James’s hometown legacy” is a free, 4-lesson study on Akron, Ohio: how four tire companies built the Rubber Capital of the World, the 1975 to 1981 collapse that cost 80,000 rubber jobs, what replaced it, and LeBron James’s hometown legacy at novice level, created with soclever, a personal AI teacher. Each lesson takes a few minutes and ends with a check-in question; finish the curriculum and you can take a certificate test to earn a diploma. Starting is free and needs no account — or generate your own study on any topic. Shared by @meirrosenschein.

What you'll learn

  1. Why Akron Became Rubber Capital. Start with the check. In 1870 Benjamin Franklin Goodrich moved his rubber company to Akron on a $13,600 grant from the Akron Board of Trade. The business incorporated as B.F.…
  2. The Rubber Industry Collapse. The collapse happened in a sequence, and the sequence is the whole lesson. Step one, production. Between 1975 and 1981, Goodrich, Goodyear and Firestone all stopped making tires…
  3. Deindustrialization and Economic Shift. First, the population. The city of Akron sits at about 189,000 to 190,000 and is slowly declining. The metro area around it is about 571,000 and growing slightly. Now the…
  4. LeBron James and Post-Industrial Identity. Start with what the record shows. The Akron record first: LeBron James played at St. Vincent-St. Mary High School from 1999 to 2003. Over those four years the school went 101-6…

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