a statue honoring the working man

 

Alan Cottrill. Rubber Worker. 2020. Akron.

The look of this 12' bronze sculpture comes from the foto on this book, “Wheels of Fortune: The Story of Rubber in Akron”, written by Steve Love and David Giffels, and published in 1999. The sculpture was ready for a September installation. It was delayed more than a couple of times, over the creation and delivering of the stone base. The statue was lowered in place Wednesday, and Thursday the 13th it was shown to the public. It is the centerpiece marking the end of construction of “Main Street Phase 1”. Traffic circles/roundabouts are new to Akron, and this will give people something to look at. Later a kiosk will be installed nearby to access oral histories, and films.

A short walk up the street is a historical marker of the 1936 Akron Rubber Sit Down Strike. United Rubber Workers began in 1935. The conditions and pay for rubber workers were bad, and the Great Republican Depression made things worse. Roosevelt's New Deal favored unionisation. Later in 1936 the more famous Flint autoworkers' strike took place. What made such strikes effective was that management could not bring in scab workers to bust the strike, since the workers were in place occupying; and while management was always prone to bring in police, private thugs, and the National Guard to attack workers, management was not willing to risk the equipment and machinery in the factories, and mills.