CHARLES GOODYEAR was born in New Haven, December 29, 1800. He was the
son of Amasa Goodyear, and the eldest among six children. His father
was quite proud of being a descendant of Stephen Goodyear, one of the
founders of the colony of New Haven in 1638.
Amasa Goodyear owned a little farm on the neck of land in New Haven
which is now known as Oyster Point, and it was here that Charles spent
the earliest years of his life. When, however, he was quite young, his
father secured an interest in a patent for the manufacture of ivory
buttons, and looking for a convenient location for a small mill,
settled at Naugatuck, Conn., where he made use of the valuable water
power that is there. Aside from his manufacturing, the elder Goodyear
ran a farm, and between the two lines of industry kept young Charles
pretty busy.
In 1816, Charles left his home and went to Philadelphia to learn the
hardware business. He worked at this very industriously until he was
twenty-one years old, and then, returning to Connecticut, entered into
partnership with his father at the old stand in Naugatuck, where they
manufactured not only ivory and metal buttons, but a variety of
agricultural implements, which were just beginning to be appreciated
by the farmers. In August of 1824 he was united in marriage with
Clarissa Beecher, a woman of remarkable strength of character and
kindness of disposition, and one who in after years was of the
greatest assistance to the impulsive inventor. Two years later he
removed again to Philadelphia, and there opened a hardware store. His
specialties were the valuable agricultural implements that his firm
had been manufacturing, and after the first distrust of home made
goods had worn away--for all agricultural implements were imported
from England at that time--he found himself established at the head of
a successful business.
This continued to increase until it seemed but a question of a few
years until he would be a very wealthy man. Between 1829 and 1830 he
suddenly broke down in health, being troubled with dyspepsia. At the
same time came the failure of a number of business houses that
seriously embarrassed his firm. They struggled on, however, for some
time, but were finally obliged to fail. The ten years that followed
this were full of the bitterest struggles and trials to Goodyear.
Under the law that then existed he was imprisoned time after time for
debts, even while he was trying to perfect inventions that should pay
off his indebtedness.
Between the years 1831 and 1832 he began to hear about gum elastic and
very carefully 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 believing that
they had found means for manufacturing goods from it, had a large
plant and were sending their goods all over the country. It was some
of their goods that first attracted his attention. Soon after this
Goodyear visited New York, and went at once to the store of the
Roxbury Rubber Company. While there, he examined with considerable
care some of their life preservers, and it struck him that the tube
used for inflation was not very perfect. He, therefore, on his return
to Philadelphia, made some tubes and brought them down to New York and
showed them to the manager of the Roxbury Rubber Company.
This gentlemen was so pleased with the ingenuity that Goodyear had
shown in manufacturing these tubes, that he talked very freely with
him and confessed to him that the business was on the verge of ruin,
that the goods had to be tested for a year before they could tell
whether they were perfect or not, and to their surprise, thousands of
dollars worth of goods that they had supposed were all right were
coming back to them, the gum having rotted and made them so offensive
that it was necessary to bury them in the ground to get them out of
the way.
Goodyear at once made up his mind to experiment on this gum and see if
he could not overcome its stickiness.
He, therefore, returned to Philadelphia, and, as usual, met a
creditor, who had him arrested and thrown into prison. While there, he
tried his first experiments with India rubber. The gum was very cheap
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
beautiful white compound and appeared to take away the stickiness.
He therefore thought he had discovered the secret, and through the
kindness of friends was put in the way of further perfecting his
invention at a little place in New Haven. The first thing that he made
here was shoes, and he used his own house for grinding room, calender
room, and vulcanizing department, and his wife and children helped to
make up the goods. His compound at this time was 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, and then those who had supplied the money for
the furtherance of these experiments, completely discouraged, made up
their minds that they could go no further, and so told the inventor.
[Illustration: CHARLES GOODYEAR.]
He, however, had no mind to stop here in his experiments, but, selling
his furniture and placing his family in a quiet boarding place, he
went to New York, and there, in an attic, helped by a friendly
druggist, continued his experiments. His next step in this line was to
compound the rubber with magnesia and then boil it in quicklime and
water. This appeared to really solve the problem, and he made some
beautiful goods. At once it was noised abroad that India rubber had
been so treated that it lost its stickiness, and he received medals
and testimonials and seemed on the high road to success, till one day
he noticed that a drop of weak acid, falling on the cloth, neutralized
the alkali, and immediately the rubber was soft again. To see this,
with his knowledge of what rubber should do, proved to him at once
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 the mill of a Mr. Pike, at Greenwich
village, and there try various experiments.
In the line of these, he discovered that rubber, dipped in nitric
acid, formed a surface cure, and he made a great many goods with this
acid cure which were spoken of, and which even received a letter of
commendation from Andrew Jackson.
The constant and varied experiments that Goodyear went through with
affected his health more or less, and at one time he came very near
being suffocated by gas generated in his laboratory. That he did not
die then everybody knows, but he was thrown then into a fever by the
accident and came very near losing his life.
It was there that he formed an acquaintance with Dr. Bradshaw, who was
very much pleased with the samples of rubber goods that he saw in
Goodyear's room, and when the doctor went to Europe he took them with
him, where they attracted a great deal of attention, but beyond that
nothing was done about them. Now that he appeared to have success, he
found no difficulty in obtaining a partner, and together the two
gentlemen fitted up a factory and began to make clothing, life
preservers, rubber shoes, and a great variety of rubber goods. They
also had a large factory, with special machinery, built at Staten
Island, where he removed his family and again had a home of his own.
Just about this time, when everything looked bright, the great panic
of 1836-1837 came, and swept away the entire fortune of his associate
and left Goodyear without a cent, and no means of earning one.
His next move was to go to Boston, where he became acquainted with J.
Haskins, of the Roxbury Rubber Company, and found in him a firm
friend, who loaned him money and stood by him when no one would have
anything to do with the visionary inventor. Mr. Chaffee was also
exceedingly kind and ever ready to lend a listening ear to his plans,
and to also assist him in a pecuniary way. It was about this time that
it occurred to Mr. Chaffee that much of the trouble that they had
experienced in working India rubber might come from the solvent that
was used. He therefore invented a huge machine for doing the mixing
by mechanical means. The goods that were made in this way were
beautiful to look at, and it appeared, as it had before, that all
difficulties were overcome.
Goodyear discovered a new method for making rubber shoes and got a
patent on it, which he sold to the Providence Company, in Rhode
Island.
The secret of making the rubber so that it would stand heat and cold
and acids, however, had not been discovered, and the goods were
constantly growing sticky and decomposing and being returned.
In 1838 he, for the first time, met Nathaniel Hayward, who was then
running a factory in Woburn. Some time after this Goodyear himself
moved to Woburn, all the time continuing his experiments. He was very
much interested in Hayward's sulphur experiments for drying rubber,
but it appears that neither of them at that time appreciated the fact
that it needed heat to make the sulphur combine with the rubber and to
vulcanize it.
The circumstances attending the discovery of his celebrated process is
thus described by Mr. Goodyear himself in his book, "Gum Elastic." It
will be observed that he makes use of the third person in all
references to himself:
"In the summer of 1838 he became acquainted with Mr. Nathaniel
Hayward, of Woburn, Mass., who had been employed as the foreman of
the Eagle Company at Woburn, where he had made use of sulphur by
impregnating the solvent with it. It was through him that the
writer (Charles Goodyear, who makes use all through his book of
the third person) received the first knowledge of the use of
sulphur as a drier of gum elastic.
"Mr. Hayward was left in possession of the factory which was
abandoned by the Eagle Company. Soon after this it was occupied by
the writer, who employed him for the purpose of manufacturing life
preservers and other articles by the acid gas process. At this
period he made many novel and useful applications of this
substance. Among other fancy articles he had newspapers printed on
the gum elastic drapery, and the improvement began to be highly
appreciated. He therefore now entered, as he thought, upon a
successful career for the future. A far different result awaited
him.
"It was supposed by others as well as himself that a change was
wrought through the mass of the goods acted upon by the acid gas,
and that the whole body of the article was made better than the
native gum. The surface of the goods really was so, but owing to
the eventual decomposition of the goods beneath the surface, the
process was pronounced by the public a complete failure. Thus
instead of realizing the large fortune which by all acquainted
with his prospects was considered certain, his whole invention
would not bring him a week's living.
"He was obliged for the want of means to discontinue
manufacturing, and Mr. Hayward left his employment. The inventor
now applied himself alone, with unabated ardor and diligence, to
detect the cause of his misfortune and if possible to retrieve the
lost reputation of his invention. On one occasion he made some
experiments to ascertain the effect of heat upon the same compound
that had decomposed in the articles previously manufactured, and
was surprised to find that the specimen, being carelessly brought
in contact with a hot stove, charred like leather. He endeavored
to call the attention of his brother as well as some other
individuals who were present, and who were acquainted with the
manufacture of gum elastic, to this effect as remarkable and
unlike any before known, since gum elastic always melted when
exposed to a high degree of heat. The occurrence did not at the
time appear to them to be worthy of notice. It was considered as
one of the frequent appeals that he was in the habit of making in
behalf of some new experiment. He, however, directly inferred that
if the process of charring could be stopped at the right point, it
might divest the gum of its native adhesiveness throughout, which
would make it better than the native gum.
"He made another trial of heating a similar fabric, before an open
fire. The same effect, that of charring the gum, followed, but
there were further and very satisfactory indications of ultimate
success in producing the desired result, as upon the edge of the
charred portions of the fabric there appeared a line, or border,
that was not charred, but perfectly cured.
"These facts have been stated precisely as they occurred in
reference to the acid gas, as well as the vulcanizing process.
"The incidents attending the discovery of both have a strong
resemblance, so much so they may be considered parallel cases. It
being now known that the results of the vulcanizing process are
produced by means and in a manner which would not have been
anticipated from any reasoning on the subject, and that they have
not yet been satisfactorily accounted for, it has been sometimes
asked, how the inventor came to make the discovery? The answer has
already been given. It may be added that he was many years seeking
to accomplish this object, and that he allowed nothing to escape
his notice that related to the subject. Like the falling of an
apple, it was suggestive of an important fact to one whose mind
was previously prepared to draw an inference from any occurrence
which might favor the object of his research. While the inventor
admits that these discoveries were not the results of scientific
chemical investigations, _he is not willing to admit that they
were the result of what is commonly termed accident_; he claims
them to be the result of the closest application and observation.
"The discoloring and charring of the specimens proved nothing and
discovered nothing of value, but quite the contrary, for in the
first instance, as stated in the acid gas improvement, the
specimen acted upon was thrown away as worthless and left for some
time; in the latter instance, the specimen that was charred was in
like manner disregarded by others.
"It may, therefore, be considered as one of those cases where the
leading of the Creator providentially aids his creatures, by what
are termed 'accidents,' to attain those things which are not
attainable by the powers of reasoning he has conferred on them."
Now that Goodyear was sure that he had the key to the intricate puzzle
that he had worked over for so many years, he began at once to tell
his friends about it and to try to secure capital, but they had
listened to their sorrow so many times that his efforts were futile.
For a number of years be struggled and experimented and worked along
in a small way, his family suffering with himself the pangs of the
extremest poverty. At last he went to New York and showed some of his
samples to William Ryder, who, with his brother Emory, at once
appreciated the value of the discovery and started in to
manufacturing. Even here Goodyear's bad luck seemed to follow him, for
the Ryder Bros. failed and it was impossible to continue the business.
He had, however, started a small factory at Springfield, Mass., and
his brother-in-law, Mr. De Forest, who was a wealthy woolen
manufacturer, took Ryder's place, and the work of making the invention
practical was continued. In 1844 it was so far perfected that Goodyear
felt it safe to take out a patent. The factory at Springfield was run
by his brothers, Nelson and Henry.
In 1843 Henry started one in Naugatuck, and in 1844 introduced
mechanical mixing in place of the mixture by the use of solvents.
In the year 1852 Goodyear went to Europe, a trip that he had long
planned, and saw Hancock, then in the employ of Charles Macintosh &
Co. Hancock admitted in evidence that the first piece of vulcanized
rubber he ever saw came from America, but claimed to have reinvented
vulcanization and secured patents in Great Britain, but it is _a
remarkable fact_ that Charles Goodyear's French patent was the first
publication in Europe of this discovery.
In 1852 a French company were licensed by Mr. Goodyear to make shoes,
and a great deal of interest was felt in the new business. In 1855 the
French emperor gave to Charles Goodyear the grand medal of honor and
decorated him with the cross of the legion of honor in recognition of
his services as a public benefactor, but the French courts
subsequently set aside his French patents on the ground of the
importation of vulcanized goods from America by licenses under the
United States patents. He died July 1, 1860, at the Fifth Avenue
Hotel, New York City.--_India Rubber World_.
* * * * *
[Continued from SUPPLEMENT, No. 786, page 12558.]