The archives hold records (correspondence, reports, and photographs) of the firm's intermittent contacts with Russian and Soviet officials concerning the sale of tires and tire manufacturing equipment. Among the holdings are: reports of R. Q. Harris of the Motor Tire Department, January, March, and April 1915, about a contract with the tsarist government for tires—later cancelled as the Russians decided to buy direct from the manufacturers; a thick, uncatalogued folder of letters, agreements, work papers, etc., labeled "Amtorg Trading Corp." (1929) relating to Soviet plans to have Firestone build a tire factory in the USSR (the scheme fell through); reports, February-March 1932, to Firestone management concerning the production of Koksaghy Rubber in the Soviet Union and Soviet experiments with various rubber plants; and "Ford—Russia Equipment Purchase," 1940–43 and 1957, uncatalogued, relating to the October 1943 purchase of the Ford Motor Company's tire manufacturing plant for shipment to the Soviet Union as part of the lend-lease program. Materials are restricted to officers and top executives of the Firestone Company. The archives has unpublished inventories and finding lists for its collections.
