Frank Seiberling

Franklin Augustus Seiberling (October 6, 1859 – August 11, 1955), also known as F.A. Seiberling, was an American innovator and entrepreneur best known for founding the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company in 1898 and the Seiberling Rubber Company in 1921. He also built Stan Hywet Hall, a Tudor Revival mansion, now a National Historic Landmark and historic house museum in Akron, Ohio.

Early life Son of a German American entrepreneur from Ohio, Seiberling was born on October 6, 1859, in Western Star (present day Norton), Ohio, a community a few miles southwest of Akron, in Summit County, Ohio. He was the second of nine children born to John Frederick and Catherine Miller Seiberling, where he had one brother and seven sisters.

Career Seiberling spent two years attending Heidelberg College in Tiffin, Ohio, before joining the J.F. Seiberling Company, his father's farm machinery manufacturing business, working there as secretary and treasurer. His father, John Seiberling, founder of that Akron, Ohio, company, invented one of the first reaping machines. While working for the company, Seiberling invented a twine binder that tied grain bundles with a bow knot.

Many businesses failed in the panics of the 1890s, including the street railway company owned by Seiberling's father. In 1898, Seiberling was jobless, nearing forty years old, with a wife and three children. He learned of the availability of an old strawboard factory in East Akron, which he purchased, together with the it stood on, for $13,500. In partnership with his brother C.W. Seiberling, he decided to open a rubber company, picked a name, and was selling stock. The company would be named for Charles Goodyear, the discoverer of vulcanization, who had died penniless almost forty years before.

Seiberling became known as the "little Napoleon" of the rubber industry because of his small stature and his unremitting determination to succeed. He played a leading role in developing Akron from a small town into the "rubber capital of the world."

In 1921, Goodyear was refinanced and reorganized, and Frank and Charles Seiberling resigned from the company. Frank Seiberling then began the Seiberling Rubber Company in Barberton, Ohio. During his lifetime, Seiberling became famous for his fair treatment of workers.

In June 1911, Seiberling announced that he was financing an attempt at a transatlantic airship flight, to be headed by Melvin Vaniman.

During his lifetime, Seiberling used his fortune and influence to create fair housing, build a hospital, improve transportation both locally and nationally, preserve green space for the community's enjoyment and fund countless arts and culture programs and organizations. Seiberling believed true prosperity was gained through the enlightenment and improvement of every citizen. A 1937 Akron Beacon Journal editorial, opined, "One reason we all like the Seiberlings is because they never went 'high hat' on Akron; perhaps no other local family ever enjoyed greater prosperity and achievement . . . yet they were never so busy as to turn a disinterested ear to any pleader for Akron's future or civic welfare . . . No man in Akron ever had a broader conception of Akron's civic problems than Frank Seiberling."

Seiberling focused on projects that directly impacted the lives of his Goodyear employees and thereby ensured the success of Akron. He developed and underwrote the creation of Goodyear Heights, a neighborhood for factory workers; and Fairlawn Heights, a neighborhood for white-collar employees. In addition, he was a founder of The Peoples Hospital, the Fairlawn Country Club, and the Metropolitan Park system in Akron. Seiberling also supported four educational institutions, his alma mater Heidelberg College, the University of Akron, Lincoln Memorial University in Cumberland Gap, Tennessee and the Western Reserve Academy a private boys school in Hudson, Ohio.

He was also involved in the following organizations:

Personal life In 1887, he married Gertrude Ferguson Penfield, who was later to serve (1919–1921) as president of the National Federation of Music Clubs. The couple had seven children, three girls (Irene, Virginia, Grace Wenonah) and four boys (Fredrick, Willard, Penfield, and Franklin)--their youngest daughter Grace Wenonah did not live to adulthood; she died of bronchial pneumonia at only 18 months old. Their son Frederick married Henrietta McBrayer Buckler. Together they were famous as the parents of U.S. congressman from Ohio John F. Seiberling, Jr.; while Henrietta became well known for connecting the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Seiberling died in Akron on August 11, 1955, of pneumonia, and is buried in Glendale Cemetery.