Charles goodyear invention

(1800-1860)

Synopsis

Charles Goodyear was born on December 29, 1800 in New Haven, Connecticut. In 1834, he began experimenting with natural rubber. In 1839, he accidentally discovered the process of vulcanization. He struggled to patent it, as Thomas Hancock had recently patented vulcanized rubber. Goodyear died broke on July 1, 1860 in New York City. The Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company was founded in his name in 1898.

• Name: Charles Goodyear
• Birth Year: 1800
• Birth date: December 29, 1800
• Birth State: Connecticut
• Birth City: New Haven
• Birth Country: United States
• Gender: Male
• Best Known For: American inventor Charles Goodyear discovered the process of vulcanizing rubber. The Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company was posthumously named after him.
• Industries
• Astrological Sign: Capricorn
• Death Year: 1860
• Death date: July 1, 1860
• Death State: New York
• Death City: New York City
• Death Country: United States

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• Article Title: Charles Goodyear Biography
• Author: Biography.com Editors
• Website Name: The Biography.com website
• Url: https://www.biography.com/inventors/charles-goodyear
• Access Date:
• Publisher: A&E; Television Networks
• Last Updated: November 6, 2019
• Original Published Date: April 2, 2014

Serendipity has played a part in many of the greatest engineering breakthroughs: Velcro, Teflon, Kevlar, even dynamite. But there has been perhaps no more serendipitous event in the development of industrial materials than when, in 1839, Charles Goodyear accidentally dropped a piece of sulphur-coated rubber onto a hot stove, causing it to char and metamorphose into a leather-like substance. In one moment, the American inventor had uncovered the secret to stabilising the sticky, unreliable and unmanageable latex from the rubber tree Hevea brasiliensis that had struggled to fulfil its long-observed potential.

Even though it could be argued that the Mesoamericans had discovered vulcanization more than three millennia ahead of Goodyear, it was the self-taught manufacturing engineer from New Haven, Connecticut whose name would appear at the top of the United Stated Patent Office document (No. 3633) outlining a process for the ‘Improvement in India-Rubber Fabrics’ that would be named after the Roman god of fire. ‘I hereby declare’ wrote Goodyear that ‘my principal improvement consists in the combining of sulphur and white lead with the India-rubber, and with the submitting of the compound thus formed to the action of heat at a regulated temperature’ As noted in Who Made America? over the following decades vulcanized rubber ‘was to be used to manufacture shoes, waterproof clothing, life jackets, balls, hats, umbrellas, rafts... and one day, it would be an important component in tires, roofs, floors, transmission belts, assembly lines, shock absorbers, seals and gaskets.’ By the close of the 20th century, Goodyear’s name was most associated with a typographical logo emblazoned on tyres supplied to the Formula One motor racing franchise.

Charles Goodyear was born in the last days of the 19 century on 29 December 1800 in the state of New York. Descended from one of the founders of the colony of New Haven, his ancestor Stephen Goodyear was head of the London Mer

Natural or India rubber, as it was once known, was of limited usefulness to industry. Rubber products melted in hot weather, froze and cracked in cold, and adhered to virtually everything until the day in the mid-19th century when inventor Charles Goodyear accidentally dropped some rubber mixed with sulfur on a hot stove. Goodyear's discovery, which came to be known as vulcanization, strengthened rubber so it could be applied to a vast variety of industrial uses, including, eventually, automobile tires.

Goodyear was born in New Haven, Connecticut. He entered the hardware business with his father but the venture failed in 1830. Thereafter he turned his talents to the commercial improvement of India rubber, which, until his time, was not used much in industry because of the adhesiveness of the surface and because of its inability to withstand temperature extremes. After numerous experiments, in 1836 Goodyear developed a nitric acid treatment which partially remedied these defects.

The famous vulcanizing process, patented in 1844, was to revolutionize the rubber industry, but Goodyear was unable to profit financially from his discovery. His numerous patents were constantly infringed, and although he was able to establish his rights legally, he died a poor man.

By the mid 1830s, it seemed as though the rubber industry in America was going under. The problem with the new material was that it was unstable – becoming completely solid and cracking in the winter, then melting into goo in the summer. Miraculously the industry was saved by inventor Charles Goodyear – a man with no knowledge of chemistry who worked stubbornly and tenaciously to develop vulcanized rubber.

After incidentally learning about rubber's fatal flaw, Charles Goodyear became determined to invent a way to make the substance more stable. Without a steady job, he lived for years off of advancements from investors. When his experiments with rubber continually failed, Goodyear reduced his family to poverty, was jailed for debt and derided by society as a mad man.

Undeterred, inventor Charles Goodyear finally found that, by uniformly heating sulfur- and lead-fortified rubber at a relatively low temperature, he could render the rubber melt-proof and reliable. He patented the process in 1844, licensed it to manufacturers and was ultimately hailed as a genius.

Years after his death, when the age of automobiles dawned, two brothers from Ohio decided to name their company after the man who made their product possible – hence Goodyear tires were born.