Vandelay Industries Quiz | History

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. Art Vandelay wants his employees to know a little something about the history of rubber. Where did rubber originate?

Answer: the Americas

Many sources report pre-Columbian civilizations using rubber in a variety of ways, including a Mayan ball game which utilized a 15-pound rubber ball. The rubber used in Mexico probably came from Castilloa elastica, a different species than the tree commercially cultivated in modern rubber plantations.

2. Mr. Vandelay also tests George by telling him that, contrary to a popular misconception, the latex used in making rubber is not the sap of a rubber tree. Is this statement true or false?

Answer: True

The sap of a rubber tree actually runs in a deeper layer of the trunk than the layer which is tapped during latex harvest. The cambium of the rubber tree divides the wood and xylem in the deeper layer from the soft bark containing the phloem and latex vesicles to the outside.

The skill in harvesting the latex is to make a shallow enough cut so as not to harm the cambium, but deep enough to maximize the amount of latex collected.

3. Vandelay Industries got its start in the 1870s in the country which was the center of the rubber trade at that time. What country was this?

Answer: Brazil

Hevea brasiliensis provides the latex for the modern natural rubber industry. These trees, as their name implies, were found growing wild in the Amazonas area of Brazil. In the wild, the trees grew fairly far apart from each other, and so the large rubber companies bought up immense tracts of land to provide as much latex production as possible.

The city of Manaus was the center of rubber production during this time period.

4. As a big player in the 19th century rubber trade, Vandelay Industries lost out when a European national "stole" tens of thousands of rubber tree seeds and took them to Europe. What European country does Mr. Vandelay tell George the company still has a grudge against for this seed-snatching?

Answer: Britain

In 1876, Henry Wickham collected around 70,000 seeds of Hevea plants in Brazil, and smuggled them out to the Kew Gardens in England. The seeds were difficult to successfully transport from Brazil to Europe because of the high levels of oil and latex in them; only around 2700-2800 of the seeds Wickham took germinated when they were cultivated at Kew Gardens.

5. Next, Mr. Vandelay tells George that, after the seeds were germinated in Europe, there was a plan to begin commercial cultivation of rubber trees in Southeast Asia. Where were the seedlings first sent?

Answer: Sri Lanka (Ceylon)

Most of the germinated seeds collected from Wickham were sent to Sri Lanka (then known as Ceylon), in the hopes of starting rubber plantations in the area. However, the plan did not begin well, with planters in the area reluctant to try a new crop given the profitable nature of the tea-and-coffee growing businesses already started in the region. One source even reports an individual who cut down all his rubber trees when the trees did not bear rubber balls as fruit.

6. Mr. Vandelay told George about the rapid decline of the Brazilian rubber industry in the early 20th century. The rubber barons had a virtual monopoly of rubber production in the late 19th century, and they owned huge tracts of rainforest, where the rubber trees were located relatively far away from each other. What was the main reason Brazil's global market share of rubber fell to around 50% by 1910?

Answer: By planting trees closer together, collection and processing of the latex was much more efficient on the Asian plantations

Naturally growing rubber trees do not grow close together, so as to avoid the rapid spread of botanical rainforest diseases. By artificially concentrating a large number of trees close together, the planters in Southeast Asia were able to decrease production costs by being able to efficiently collect a large amount of latex from a much smaller area than in Brazil. By 1907, one source reports over 300,000 hectares of land devoted to rubber production in Asia. Brazil's market share had fallen to less than 2% by 1940.

7. Concurrently with the development of the rubber industry, great strides were made in the technology of working with rubber, which drove up the demand for latex. One of Vandelay Industries' important customers is an American tire company named for the inventor of the process of vulcanization. Who was this inventor?

Answer: Charles Goodyear

A big problem in the early production of rubber products was that rubber tended to change with the weather. When it was cold out, the rubber was hard and somewhat brittle, and when it was hot, the rubber was tacky. Goodyear tried to change these characteristics by adding various substances to the rubber. By most accounts, he stumbled by accident upon the solution when he spilled a combination of sulfur, lead, and rubber upon a hot stove.

This mixture produced rubber which did not change with the climate, and would return to its original shape if stretched out.

8. Mr. Vandelay also proudly showed George a garment which he called a "macintosh", waterproofed through a process discovered in the early 19th century. What is this garment?

Answer: a raincoat

Charles Macintosh, a Scottish chemist, developed a process in which naphtha was used as a solvent for rubber. The resulting substance was then placed in between two layers of fabric to provide an effective waterproof cloth. While many garments were made out of this cloth, the term "macintosh" has become synonymous with a raincoat.

9. Mr. Vandelay also told George about a shift in the worldwide rubber market starting in the 1940s. Synthetic rubber was growing in importance, and there was a resurgence in the development of rubber production in the Americas. Thinking geopolitically, why were the big rubber companies looking for options other than latex from Southeast Asia at this time?

Answer: Japanese conquests during World War II were threatening the rubber plantations

The Japanese presence in the Pacific disrupted the supply of natural latex and rubber products, so, with the fact that most every component of every item used in the war effort depended in some way on rubber (gaskets, wiring, tires, etc.), alternative sources for latex were explored.

The synthetic rubber industry saw a boom during this period. Synthetic rubber is produced from by-products produced during petroleum refining, though it became much more expensive to produce synthetic rubber after the price of petroleum skyrocketed in the 1970s.

10. Mr. Vandelay tells George not to worry; the natural rubber industry is quite healthy, because developments in the manufacture of a certain transportation-related item required the use of natural rubber. What item is Mr. Vandelay talking about?

Answer: tires

There has been a trend back toward natural rubber, mainly due to technological developments in tire manufacturing. Radial tires require stronger rubber compounds, which necessitates the use of natural rubber because it is generally stronger than synthetic rubber. Aircraft tires as well generally require the use of natural rubber, because natural rubber tires do not generate quite as much heat.

There has been some success in combining natural and synthetic rubber compounds in these products.

Source: Author abechstein

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor bloomsby before going online.
Any errors found in FunTrivia content are routinely corrected through our feedback system.

Vandelay Industries Trivia Quiz

As "Seinfeld" fans know, George told his unemployment insurance investigator that he was interviewing with Vandelay Industries as a latex salesman. This quiz will explore what George might be expected to learn if he actually got the job.

NEXT>

NEXT>

NEXT>

NEXT>

NEXT>

NEXT>

NEXT>

NEXT>

NEXT>