Seiberling, Franklin Augustas, b. 1859 Ohio - son of John Frederick & Catherine (Miller) Seiberling
from a book found on HeritageQuestOnline.com -not in my line as far as I know
Title: Akron and Summit County
Authors: Grismer, Karl Hiram
City of Publication: Akron, Ohio
Publisher: Summit County Historical Society
Date: 1952
Page Count: 831
Notes: Date of publication suggested by OCLCQ in OCLC
"Biographies": p. [647]-821
Reproduction of original in the Newberry Library
Includes bibliographical references (p. [822]) and index
ill., maps, ports.
Reel/Fiche Number: (Genealogy and local history; LH14656)
Akron and Summit County, Ohio
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Franklin Augustas Seiberling was born in the hamlet of Western Star, Ohio on Oct. 6, 1859. He was the son of John Frederick and Catherine (Miller) Seiberling. His great-great grandfather was Michael Seiberling, a pioneer who came here from Stuttgart, German, in 1741, to settle in Lynnville, Pennsylvania. In 1861, the Seiberling family moved to Doylestown, Ohio, and four years later again moved, this time to Akron.
His father, a native of Summit County, Ohio, long enjoyed fame as an inventor of agricultural implements and machinery. His inventions of a mower, a reaper, and a twine binder helped revolutionize that industry.
After attending the elementary schools, Frank Seiberling entered Heidelberg College at Tiffin, Ohio. Leaving Heidelberg in tow years he went to work for his father who was then engaged in the manufacture of the farm machinery which he had designed.
Several years later his father obtained control of the Akron Electric Street Railway and for a time it looked as though your Seiberling was headed for a utilities career. The elder Seiberling put Frank and his brother, Charles W. Seiberling, in charge of the traction system. Together, they operated Akron’s first electric street railway.
However, the trolley company did not have the appeal for Frank that his father’s manufacturing business did, and within two years he was back with that organization as its secretary and treasurer. He was fast becoming a factor in his community. He was married to Gertrude Penfield, dau. of James Penfield of Willoughby, Ohio on Oct. 12, 1887. The course of his life at this period gave every indication that he was settling into the routine career of a more or less uneventful life.
But a storm was looming on the industrial horizon, which was to change the whole course of Frank’s life and introduce a new era in business practice. American industry was coming of age. Some of its members, grown to formidable proportions, had set out to dominate the scene, industrial giants which strode across the land, crushing the weaker and smaller concerns who stood as obstacles to their spreading power and control. The Seiberling Company for a time successfully parried the thrusts of those aggressors, but not for long. In the end, the company fell, a victim of the “trusts.”
Thus in 1898 the Seiberlings, father and son were forced to liquidate. When all the creditors had been satisfied there was little left. Frank Seiberling, with a wife and three small children was broke and without a job. He wasted no time looking for a profitable outlet for the vast store of energy and enthusiasm with which he was gifted.
He learned of an abandoned strawboard factory in East Akron, which he believed ideal for an industrial project, although at the time he had no idea of what character it might be. And it was on a train returning to Akron after borrowing $3,500, required as a down payment on the strawboard factory, that he hit upon the idea of starting a rubber company.
The rubber industry was a growing one, rubber tires for bicycles and buggies just then becoming popular. Seiberling recognized the possibilities of the business and determined to enter it despite the overwhelming odds against him. Thus he started the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, names to honor Charles Goodyear, inventor of the rubber vulcanizing process.
The early days were precarious ones as far as the financial fortunes of the infant Goodyear Company were concerned. Seiberling tells the story of how, after paying all the expenses incidental to the launching of his venture he had just $4,000 left in the till with which to meet payrolls and the bills for raw materials.
Perhaps one of the most valuable assets which the Goodyear Company had at that time was the inventive genius Frank Seiberling had inherited from his father. The horseless buggy had made its entry upon the world stage and tires were in demand for this new vehicle. During lulls in the legal battles which rival companies instituted in their endeavors to force him out of business, Seiberling spent much time at a work bench. He was experimenting with the inflated tire.
The results of these experiments were three inventions, which have since produced revolutionary changes in the tire industry: the straight-side tier, the detachable rim, and the tire building machine.
Seiberling was one of the first in the rubber industry to appreciate the compelling influence of advertising. The story is told in connection with those early years in the tire business of how Seiberling, with $150,000 profit on his company’s books and hid board of directors clamoring for a dividend, persuaded them to let him divert the funds to advertising with the result that in the following year profits were four times greater.
Seiberling’s successful management of the Goodyear Company reaped its full regard when in 1916, the company passed its competitors to become the world’s largest manufacturer of automobile tires. But with all the problems of administering the affairs of his business and the great volume of work which those duties entailed, Frank had time to devote to a wide array of outside interests.
He became deeply absorbed in the efforts of Walter Wellman to develop lighter-than-air craft.
After Wellman had suffered reverses, abandoned his project and it had been taken up by his engineer, Melvin Vaniman, Seiberling lent financial aid and encouragement that enabled Vaniman to continue. And even after Vaniman lost everything when fire destroyed his airship and he was forced to abandon further experiments, Seiberling continued his interest and support until the idea assumed practical proportions.
Then came 1920, another fateful year in the career of Frank Seiberling. It saw the Goodyear’s sales rise to a new high of $200,000,000. Later the same year saw the beginning of a disastrous financial panic. Seiberling’s company, like many another, found itself in financial difficulties. The result was that control of the company passed into the hands of a group of outside bankers.
Seiberling felt that he could not continue as the company’s head under the existing conditions, and resigned the presidency. In May 1921, at the age of 61, he was out once more. For many men, the closing of the door at Goodyear might have been the end. But not Frank Seiberling.
In November 1921, six months after he had walked out of the Goodyear offices, Seiberling launched the Seiberling Rubber Company, with plants in Barberton, Ohio, and New Castle, Pennsylvania, the smallest of 300 rubber companies, operating in the United States in that year.
In a few years Seiberling’s new venture, begun in one of the darkest period in the history of American industry, had grown to be the eighth largest tire manufacturing organization in the country. As the years passed, Seiberling developed a growing interest in producing a closer relationship between labor and capital. Always in active and personal sympathy with his employees, he introduced many social welfare innovations. Conspicuous among these was Goodyear Heights, a model community where workers were able to buy their homes on a basis approximating rent. He also sponsored Seiberling Field, an athletic plant rivaling in completeness the athletic fields of some of the largest universities.
In February 1938, after 40 years as a chief executive in the rubber industry, Frank Seiberling felt that the time had come when he should delegate more of his duties to others and enjoy more leisure time. He resigned the presidency of Seiberling Rubber Company in favor of his son, J. Penfield Seiberling, and assumed the newly-created post of chairman of the board of directors.
Mr. Seiberling was a former trustee of Buchtel College, former chairman of the board of trustees of Lincoln Memorial University, which conferred the degrees of LL.B. in 1915 and was a trustee of Heidelberg College and Western Reserve Academy. He was a member of the City, University and Portage Country Clubs in addition to many social and civic groups.