Charles Goodyear / Goodyear Tyre and Rubber

[SPArKy_Dave 8,881]

Charles Goodyear filed his patent application for vulcanized rubber on February 24, 1844

(almost one hundred seventy-nine years ago today)

 

Goodyear left school at age 12 to work in his father’s hardware store in Connecticut. At age 23 he married Clarissa Beecher and soon afterwards the couple moved to Philadelphia, where Goodyear opened a hardware store of his own.

 

Goodyear was a competent merchant, but his passions were chemistry, materials science, and invention. In the late 1820s he became particularly fascinated with finding and improving practical applications for natural rubber (called India rubber).

His experimentation would change the world, but Goodyear’s path to success would be challenging.

 

In 1830, at age 29, Goodyear was suffering from health issues and his rubber experiments (which he had funded by borrowing) had not been successful. By the end of the year his business was bankrupt and he was thrown into debtor’s prison. In was an inauspicious beginning to his career as a scientist and inventor.

The principal troubles with finding commercial applications for natural rubber was that the material was inelastic and was not durable, decomposing and becoming sticky depending on temperature.

Goodyear was determined to find a chemical solution to overcome those issues, beginning his experiments while in jail.

After numerous failures, his breakthrough came when he tried heating the rubber together with sulfur and other additives.

 

In 1843 he wrote a friend, “I have invented a new process of hardening India rubber by means of sulphur and it is as much superior to the old method as the malleable iron is superior to cast iron. I have called it Vulcanization.”

 

Goodyear filed his patent application for vulcanized rubber on February 24, 1844 (one hundred seventy-nine years ago today) and the patent was issued four months later. It is thanks to vulcanization that rubber can be used to make tires, shoe soles, hoses, and countless other items. It was one of the most profoundly important technological achievements of the 19th century.

So, Charles Goodyear became wealthy as a result?

 

Unfortunately, no. He continued to struggle financially for the rest of his life, embroiled in litigation with other inventors over the validity of his patent, preventing him from profiting from it. Meanwhile, his wife Clarissa contracted tuberculosis and much of the family’s income was devoted to her medical expenses and extensive travel in search of a cure. Clarissa died in 1848 at age 39, leaving six children, between the ages of 4 and 17.

 

At age 54, while still struggling to defend his patents and commercialize his invention, Goodyear married 40-year-old Mary Starr (who had not previously been married) and the couple would go on to have two children together. It too was a happy marriage, but Goodyear was not destined to long enjoy it.

 

Suffering the adverse effects of years of exposure to dangerous chemicals, Goodyear collapsed at a hotel in New York City on July 1, 1860, dying later that day. At the time of his death, he was 59 years old, penniless, and deeply in debt.

 

The Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, founded in Akron, Ohio by Frank Seiberling nearly 40 years later, was named in honor of Charles Goodyear.

Neither Charles Goodyear nor anyone in his family was connected with the company.

 

Reflecting on Goodyear’s achievements, the historian Samuel Eliot Morrison wrote, “The story of Goodyear and his discovery of vulcanization is one of the most interesting and instructive in the history of science and industry.” But, as he added, “It is also an epic of human suffering and triumph, for Goodyear's life was one of almost continuous struggle against poverty and ill health.”

Goodyear himself was philosophical about his failure to achieve financial success, writing that he was not disposed to complain that he had planted and others had gathered the fruit.

 

“The advantages of a career in life should not be estimated exclusively by the standard of dollars and cents, as is too often done.

Man has just cause for regret when he sows and no one reaps.”

 

[deankxf 20,292]

Cool story. 

Chemicals back in those days were probably without much safety research also.

[hendrixhc 10,921]

From Wiki - a nice list of chemicals used!

 

 

Between the years 1831 and 1832, Goodyear heard about gum elastic (natural rubber) and examined every article that appeared in the newspapers relative to this new material. The Roxbury Rubber Company, of Boston, had been for some time experimenting with the gum, and believed it had found means for manufacturing goods from it. It had a large plant and was sending its goods all over the country. It was some of Roxbury's goods that first attracted Goodyear's attention. Soon after this, Goodyear visited New York, and his attention went to life preservers, and it struck him that the tube used for inflation was not very effective nor well-made. Therefore, upon returning to Philadelphia, he made tubes and brought them back to New York and showed them to the manager of the Roxbury Rubber Company.

The manager was pleased with the ingenuity that Goodyear had shown in manufacturing the tubes. He confessed to Goodyear that the business was on the verge of ruin and that his products had to be tested for a year before it could be determined if they were perfect or not. To their surprise, thousands of US$ worth of goods that they had determined to be of good quality were being returned, the gum having rotted, making them useless. Goodyear at once made up his mind to experiment on this gum and see if he could overcome the problems with these rubber products.

However, when he returned to Philadelphia, a creditor had him arrested and imprisoned. While there, he tried his first experiments with India rubber. The gum was inexpensive then, and by heating it and working it in his hands, he managed to incorporate in it a certain amount of magnesia which produced a white compound that appeared to take away the stickiness.

He thought he had discovered the secret, and through the kindness of friends was able to improve his invention in New Haven. The first thing that he made was shoes, and he used his own house for grinding, calendering and vulcanizing, with the help of his wife and children. His compound at this time consisted of India rubber, lampblack, and magnesia, the whole dissolved in turpentine and spread upon the flannel cloth which served as the lining for the shoes. It was not long, however, before he discovered that the gum, even treated this way, became sticky. His creditors, completely discouraged, decided that he would not be allowed to go further in his research.

Goodyear, however, had no mind to stop here in his experiments. Selling his furniture and placing his family in a quiet boarding place, he went to New York and in an attic, helped by a friendly druggist, continued his experiments. His next step was to compound the rubber with magnesia and then boil it in quicklime and water. This appeared to solve the problem. At once it was noticed abroad that he had treated India rubber to lose its stickiness, and he received international acclamation. He seemed on the high road to success, until one day he noticed that a drop of weak acid, falling on the cloth, neutralized the alkali and immediately caused the rubber to become soft again. This proved to him that his process was not a successful one. He therefore continued experimenting, and after preparing his mixtures in his attic in New York, would walk three miles to a mill in Greenwich Village to try various experiments.

In the line of these, he discovered that rubber dipped in nitric acid formed a surface cure, and he made many products with this acid cure which were held in high regard, and he even received a letter of commendation from Andrew Jackson.

Exposure to harsh chemicals, such as nitric acid and lead oxide, adversely affected his health. Once, he nearly suffocated himself by gas generated in his laboratory. Goodyear survived, but the resulting fever came close to taking his life.