Vanderbilt Chemicals, LLC

R. T. Vanderbilt Company opened its doors for business on 42nd Street in New York City in 1916. It was started by a 31-year-old named Robert Thurlow Vanderbilt who had $1,000 of his own, a $24,000 family loan, and a contract to sell clay for a company in the South. However, while soft clay was geared to the needs of the paper industry, Continental Clay and North American Clay Company (of which Robert was a director) were also mining hard clays more suitable to the rubber industry. This introduced Vanderbilt to the rubber industry. The rubber industry was in its infancy with the most significant market being tires. R. T. Vanderbilt entered into an agreement to sell rubber chemicals into non-tire markets, and the Vanderbilt Rubber Handbook was created to support how to technology in hoses, footwear, wire and cable, and mechanical goods. The Vanderbilt Handbook remains as the most comprehensive reference in rubber compounding today. In 1948, Vanderbilt begin to manufacture chemicals in...