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Rubber in Brazil: Dominance and Collapse, 1876-1945

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2012

Randolph R. Resor
Randolph R. Resor
Affiliation:
Special Assistant to the President, Association of American Railroads, Washington, D.C.
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Abstract

For the first few years of this century, Brazil was the major supplier of rubber to the world. However, the Amazonian wild rubber industry was unable to compete, in either price or quality, with the Asian plantation rubber that began to appear on world markets after 1906. Development of a successful plantation culture in the Amazon seemed imperative, but even with public subsidy, plantations remained an economic impossibility. By 1945 the Brazilian rubber industry, overwhelmed by Asian production, had virtually disappeared.

Type
Research Article
Information
Business History Review , Volume 51 , Issue 3 , Autumn 1977 , pp. 341 - 366
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1977

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