While the first rubber product manufacturers were the indigenous people of the Amazon basin, Europeans started to experiment with rubber product manufacturing during the nineteenth century as a method to make waterproof footwear and other types of waterproof clothing and equipment. This early rubber product manufacturing was relatively small scale until Charles Goodyear invented vulcanization in 1839. Vulcanization is a technique utilized by rubber product manufacturers which modifies the chemical structure of rubber so that it is strong enough to withstand extreme heat and cold, making it highly effective in all kinds of industrial applications. Rubber soon became vital to all kinds of industrial design, exponentially increasing the scale of rubber product manufacturing.

As a result of a "rubber boom" at the turn of the twentieth century, rubber plantations and rubber product manufacturing expanded worldwide. The lack of a specific tapping season made Malaysia an excellent location for the rubber extraction trade, because it was difficult to collect natural rubber in South America during the long rainy season.

Global demand for rubber was initially stimulated by the invention of the bicycle. The invention of the pneumatic tire for bicycles was quickly appropriated for the automobile, and the rubber product manufacturing industry developed quickly along with automobile production. Rubber product manufacturers rapidly expanded into a worldwide industry, and persistent development led to a great number of technical advances and improvements in the 20th century. Rubber product manufactures (sometimes referred to as "rubber barons" in the Western world) were able to capitalize on new inventions and industrial opportunities by developing new rubber product manufacturing processes that improved mass production and lowered manufacturing costs. These "rubber barons" formed large scale rubber product manufacturing enterprises that came to dominate the global supply of rubber parts. Many of these original rubber product manufacturers have developed into large and diverse manufacturing enterprises which make important contributions to the development of new products and processes in the rubber product manufacturing industry.

Due to increasing costs for natural rubber during the latter part of the twentieth century, rubber product manufacturers increased their research into synthetic rubber compounds which could replace natural rubber. New types of synthetic rubber compounds with specialized properties and applications were developed by rubber product manufacturers to meet the demands of an increasingly technological world.

Rubber has a chemical structure formed from long polymer chains which reconfigure themselves to distribute stress. During the curing process, these chains create "cross-links" that make them flexible and elastic, keeping them strong yet pliant. Rubber product manufacturers are able to produce diaphragms, connector seals, lip seals, bumpers, grommets, gaskets, washers, packings, isolators, boots, glands, valves, and countless other shapes using different techniques including injection molding, compression molding, and transfer molding processes.