Akron, Ohio gave America tyres, clay marbles and the K–12 school system
A canal town named after the Greek word for summit ended up shaping everyday American life in odd ways. Akron pioneered the graded school system used in every state, mass-produced the first popular toy marbles, and housed four giant tyre makers at once, earning the nickname Rubber Capital of the World.
Simon Perkins and Paul Williams laid the town out in December 1825 at the high point of the new Ohio and Erie Canal, and Irish canal workers built around 100 cabins nearby. The canal tied the settlement to wider markets. In 1847 a local law set up public schools divided into grades from kindergarten through twelfth, a pattern later adopted across the United States.
Industry arrived in unexpected forms. Ferdinand Schumacher, who bought a mill in 1856, turned out oat bars for Union soldiers during the Civil War. A local journalist founded the Akron Toy Company in 1883, and a year later Samuel Dyke was mass-producing clay marbles; rubber balloons, ducks and balls followed. The Akron Plan, a church layout first used in 1872, spread to congregations nationwide.
Rubber defined the twentieth century. B.F. Goodrich, Goodyear, Firestone and General Tire were all headquartered in the city, helping launch American trucking, and Goodyear remains there today. So many factory jobs went to deaf workers that Akron was called the Crossroads of the Deaf. Company bosses built whole neighbourhoods for staff, such as Goodyear Heights and Firestone Park, and the city also became a centre of airship development.
Public health owes it a debt too. Between 1916 and 1920, 10,000 schoolgirls joined the Akron Experiment, which showed that iodised salt could prevent goitre in a region nicknamed the Goiter Belt. Sojourner Truth gave her Ain't I A Woman speech at a church here in 1851, and Alcoholics Anonymous was founded in the city. Akron counted 190,469 people in 2020, and its university focuses on polymer science, a nod to the rubber years.
Source: Akron, Ohio
