Charles Goodyear’s discovery of the vulcanization of rubber—a process that allows rubber to withstand heat and cold—revolutionized the rubber industry in the mid-1800s. Automotive tires, pencil erasers, life jackets, balls, gloves, and more are all in commercial use because of Goodyear’s relentless experimentation to unlock the molecular structure of rubber—and to solve what has been called the greatest industrial puzzle of the 19th century. Part scientist, part dreamer, part entrepreneur, Goodyear devoted his life, and sacrificed his family’s wealth and his own health, to the commercial improvement of rubber.
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.
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