Sub-series 1. United States Bureau of Agriculture and Industrial Chemistry (BAIC) Reports, 1942-1946

The David Spence: Guayule Rubber Project Records contain the personal papers of American rubber chemist David Spence. This collection documents two separate projects, both of which were attempts to establish guayule as an alternative source of natural rubber. The documents from the period 1926-1936 detail experiments carried out under David Spence’s oversight by Intercontinental Rubber Company to determine the quality and yield of guayule rubber. The documents from the period 1941-1946 concern the Guayule Rubber Project, a World War II defense project carried out as part of the Emergency Rubber Project in co-operation with the United States Forest Service, which was a federal effort to produce natural rubber from American grown guayule. Spence served as a consultant on this latter project. The collection is arranged into the following four series: