The sponge-rubber war program, 1942–1953: two paper channels at once

1942–1953 · CLASSES 1 AND 2 SIDE BY SIDE · THE FOAM YEARS

The finding: The war years are the peak of the works' patent record, and they break the banked file's foam story open. The lists now add the missing middle term: from 1942 the Mishawaka works' own men patented the making of sponge and foam rubber continuously, in volume, through two channels at once — grants assigned to the Mishawaka company in its own name, and grants by Mishawaka residents assigned directly to the United States Rubber Company — and the two channels run in the same months, on the same subjects, sometimes by the same men. The plant was not merely manufacturing the parent's foam. Its bench was one of the places foam was being worked out, and its paper went wherever the particular grant was steered.

The Mishawaka-name channel: The subsidiary's own sponge paper runs: Blair and Bodle's sponge-material grant of 1943 and laminated-cushion grant of 1949, in Blair's entry; Schott's pore-surfaced foam of 1943, in Schott's; Edward H. Clark, No. 2,342,920, "Equipment for making spongy rubber cushions or the like," of 29 February 1944; Nishan S. Sarkisian, No. 2,314,164, "Garment curing method," of 16 March 1943; Paul L. Bush and Dale E. Lovell, a rubber-coating grant of February 1943 whose number the Index and the structured records give in conflict — carried in the closing entry as a named gap, the grant itself and its date standing on the Index entry; Charles L. Glaes and Schott, "Combining foam rubber," 1943, in Schott's entry; Eugene A. Luxenberger, No. 2,350,175, "Vulcanizing apparatus," of June 1944, and a further Luxenberger grant taken with Herbert C. Erich whose entry the 1944 volume's text leaves incomplete, likewise carried below; Everett A. Eakins, No. 2,458,694, "Method of making sponge rubber material," of 11 January 1949; Frank G. Pierce of Des Moines, Iowa, and A. H. De Groote — the fastener man of 1931, by 1945 printed of Rolling Prairie, Indiana — No. 2,380,787, "Device for cutting sponge rubber or the like," of 31 July 1945, the entry printing the assignee with the ampersand form, "Mishawaka Rubber & Woolen Manufacturing Company"; and the two New Jersey grants of 21 July 1942 that open the program — Malcolm R. Buffington of Millburn and Ellery K. Files of East Orange, No. 2,290,736, "Production of sponge rubber," assigned to the Mishawaka company, printed at Class 1 on the assignee line with their residences in the open, beside Blair, Bradley, and Schott's rubber-material grant of the same grant day. The New Jersey pair are the program's one clear import: parent-side men whose sponge paper was steered into the subsidiary's name, the mirror image of the Mishawaka men steered into the parent's.

The parent channel — the Clayton bench: The direct-to-parent grants open with John B. O'Dell and Claude D. Mason of Mishawaka, No. 2,239,300, "Pneumatic cushion," of 22 April 1941 — Mason, the lining man of 1928, taking the works' first parent-channel grant. Then the sponge bench proper: William J. Clayton of Mishawaka, No. 2,313,464, "Manufacture of sponge rubber," of 9 March 1943, and No. 2,323,119, "Making sponge rubber," of 29 June 1943; Clayton with Walter R. Hoover, No. 2,313,463, "Manufacture of sponge rubber," of 9 March 1943; Clayton with John F. Schott, No. 2,360,201, "Top plate for molds," of 10 October 1944; Clayton with P. V. Butsch of South Bend, No. 2,444,869, "Manufacture of sponge rubber," of 6 July 1948; Edward C. Svendsen and Clayton, a sponge-manufacture grant of August 1944 whose number the records give in conflict, carried below; Svendsen alone, No. 2,446,115, "Creaming of synthetic rubber latices," of 27 July 1948; Svendsen and Clayton again, No. 2,458,221, "Reducing odor and surface tack of neoprene objects," of 4 January 1949; Norman A. Klemp of Mishawaka, No. 2,457,684, "Manufacture of sponge polychloroprene rubber," of 28 December 1948; Dale E. Lovell of Mishawaka, No. 2,595,964, "Vulcanizing sponge rubber," of 6 May 1952, and No. 2,620,022, "Cushion," of 2 December 1952; Leo E. Futterknecht of Mishawaka, No. 2,619,659, "Reversible sponge cushion," of 2 December 1952 — the Futterknecht name of the 1911 sole-protector entry, at the works forty years on, the kinship unstated in the record and unguessed here; Robert O. Borton of Mishawaka, No. 2,640,087, "Manufacture of latex foam sponge," of 26 May 1953; and Eugene J. Bethe of Mishawaka, No. 2,567,988, "Latex foamed with hydrogen peroxide and a polyamine," of September 1951. The rest of the parent channel's Mishawaka bench stands at line size in the chemists' entry below — testing, tanks, raincoats, and resins.

What the two channels mean:

Sources:

1. Index of Patents Issued, 1941–1949 and 1951–1953 — the sponge and foam grants as itemized, both assignee channels read whole.
2. PubChem patent records for U.S. 2,313,463, 2,313,464, 2,323,119, 2,320,425, 2,327,001, 2,376,281, 2,441,235, 2,290,736, and 2,640,087 — titles and full inventor names, including Walter R. Hoover and Ellery K. Files.