Rubber Stamp
How Charles Goodyear became the first name in rubber.
Written by Filed under History
The Goodyear blimp.
In the early 1850s, Charles Goodyear had a vision of the future—a world filled with rubber products. He envisioned books with rubber pages, ships with rubber sails and workers sitting at rubber desks, as well as countless consumer goods that ultimately achieved commercial acceptance. Ironically, he never pictured his name on a set of tires, largely because he died decades before the automobile was invented. Nevertheless, most people naturally assume that Goodyear founded the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, which was actually conceived by Frank and Charles Seiberling in 1898 and named in the deceased inventor’s honor.
In the recent book “Noble Obsession” (Hyperion), author Charles Slack revisits the tragic life of Charles Goodyear (b. 1800), a man who literally devoted his entire existence to experimenting with and improving rubber. Today, few individuals give rubber a second thought, but much like the Internet in the late 1990s, it was initially perceived as a commodity destined to change the world. In the early 1830s, businessmen invested millions of dollars into this “miracle” substance and new companies sprang up virtually overnight to meet the expected demand for rubber goods. However, rubber had what Slack calls a “fatal flaw”—it would melt in the heat and crack in the cold. The fledgling industry soon collapsed as consumers discovered that hot weather turned rubber-based products into putrid, unsightly lumps. In a few short years, rubber went from being yesterday’s miracle to an object of contempt.
Yet, Goodyear was determined to fix rubber’s flaws and worked doggedly for the better part of a decade to find a reliable formula for what is now known as vulcanization—the process by which rubber is made impervious to heat and cold. He was willing to endure any sacrifice for the cause. His refusal to work a conventional day job to support his wife and children plunged the Goodyear family into abject poverty and repeatedly landed him in debtor’s prison. Undeterred by criticism from friends and relatives, he stubbornly continued on his quest, sometimes begging for food and pawning family possessions to finance his experiments.
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