The U.S. Rubber Famine during World War II
Alexander Field
The U.S. Rubber Famine during World War II
Abstract
Contrary to what is widely believed, manufacturing productivity fell sharply in the United States between 1941 and 1945. The main causes were the sudden, radical, and ultimately temporary changes in the product mix. By April 1942 Japan had created additional disruption, cutting off almost all supplies of natural rubber, the one strategic material for which the United States had effectively no domestic sourcing. The resulting famine aggravated downward pressures on U.S. productivity and adversely affected the country’s military capability. The risks, widely foreseen, could be mitigated by stockpiling, cultivation of guayule, or production of synthetic. In his roles as head of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation and then Federal Loan Administrator, Jesse Jones slow walked the first and third of these strategies. This largely forgotten history has relevance for the reassessment of the benefits of cheap foreign sourcing, especially where there is minimal home capacity or possibilities for substitution.