Little is known that the history of rubber hoses is also the history of the discovery and production of latex for countless industrial uses, large and small, over nearly five centuries. Now, more than 4 million tons of natural rubber and 7 million tons of synthetic rubber are produced worldwide. But before our current era of mass production, rubber was known to the indigenous peoples of America, especially in the Amazon, before the entry of Europeans in the 15th century.
Who knew that before our modern era, handmade waterproof shoes, balls, and buckets were three utilitarian objects made of rubber? Later, in the 18th century, interest in the properties of latex by one Charles de la Condamine in Peru led to the first scientific report on the subject, marking the beginning of our modern fascination and scientific experimentation with the raw material. Around the same time, Pierre Joseph Macquer of Paris, author of the first chemical dictionary, followed Codamine’s research and discovered that the substance could be transformed into tubes.
However, it was not until the 19th and 20th centuries that rubber and especially the advent of rubber hoses for wide use in firefighting, the automotive industry, and the medical field came into prominence. 1821 saw the first patent for fire hoses by James Boyd of Boston, Massachusetts. That first giant weighed nearly forty-five pounds, but it replaced the leather hoses of yesteryear, which were prone to splitting and cracking under intense water pressure. Boyd’s invention was made with a rubber-lined cotton net, a rudimentary method with basic principles that are still widely applicable today.
Only twenty years later, when BF Goodrich discovered how to vulcanize rubber in the 1840s, helping it withstand extreme temperatures, did it expand the possibilities of rubber as a protective surface and container. In the next five years, the rubber band was also patented. Only years later, the rubber industry flourished in Brazil, where rubber trees were mined for their raw latex. To accommodate this growth, its seeds were shipped to Africa and Southeast Asia via London, where large-scale production began and continues today. At all times, the material had been used to make tires and textured treads for horse-drawn carriages. As we now know, cars adopted this same technology, which helped passengers not feel vibrations from the road.
As with many other industries, the war created the circumstances for an even wider use of raw materials such as latex. Latex tube blood transfusions emerged with World War I alongside oxygen breathing systems in aeronautics, while naval ships used the rubber hose to refuel at sea during World War II. Hydraulic systems large and small, from heavy machinery to dishwashers, continue to depend on the rubber hose to transport pressurized fluids, making rubber components ubiquitous in a large number of machinery. It would not be an exaggeration to say that it is one of the most important and most used materials of our time.
