Vanished Makes: American Hard Rubber Company

I have several old developing trays that are perfect for receptacles when changing oil on my bikes, because they have a spout built into one end.

I happened to notice their maker's information:

In the days before plastic, many consumer goods were made from "hard rubber", invented by Charles Goodyear in 1844 and marketed as "ebonite" or "vulcanite."  This included buttons, plates, and pipe stems, among many other products.  The state of New Jersey became an early focus for the rubber industry. As early as 1838, Horace Day constructed one of the country's first rubber factories in New Brunswick, New Jersey, making rubber shoes from a combination of alcohol, white lead, lampblack and rubber from salvaged Brazilian shoes and syringes.  (Day claimed to have been the first to vulcanize rubber, and lost a law suit about this to Goodyear.)  In 1851, the first hard rubber comb was made.  In 1868, the Newbrough Hard Rubber Company built a factory in Butler, New Jersey.  Eventually, the town's smaller rubber companies merged to form the Rubber Comb and Jewlry Company in 1876.  Richard Butler, after whom the town is named, took the helm of the company, changing it to the Butler Hard Rubber Company in 1882.  In 1898, it merged with its competition (the India Rubber Comb Company and the Goodrich Hard Rubber Company) to become the American Hard Rubber Company.  It also earned the distinction of being the oldest manufacturer of hard rubber products in the world. 

(During World War I, when sources of imported rubber were drying up, Edison was urged by his friends Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone to turn his talents to finding a substitute.  He actually was able to develop a strain of goldenrod that produced rubber, but its yields were insufficient for commercial purposes.)

In 1924, the company introduced the Ace brand and its spade trademark became synonymous with the back pocket comb. 

Life, 1953

The production of combs seems to have been spun off after World War II, moving to Booneville, Arkansas.  (James Dean used an Ace comb in "Rebel without a Cause.)  The Ace Comb Company was purchased by Newell Rubbermaid in 1986.

In 1934, the American Hard Rubber Company developed a rubber separator to be used between lead acid battery plates, replacing such earlier materials as flannel, strips of glass, and wood.  In 1953 the company morphed into the Amerace Corporation, which continues to make such products today.

The fortunes of the town of Butler declined after the war.  In 1957, the Pequanoc Rubber Company factory was engulfed in a huge fire. At the time, it was one of the largest rubber reclaiming mills in the U.S., producing over 100 tons of reusable sheet rubber daily from 200 tons of scrap.  The glow of the fire was reported to be visible 100 miles away.

The Amerace Corporation folded its Butler plant in 1974.  Today, the remains of the Pequanoc Rubber Company are being developed into a retail/residential/greenway complex.  The American Hard Rubber factory has now been re-christened the Butler Center, and hosts a number of small businesses.