Goodyear, Charles

Goodyear, Charles (1800-60), American inventor.

Charles Goodyear was a poor man. At the age of thirty, with five children to feed, he was sent to prison for owing money. But Goodyear was full of ideas and he kept trying to sell them.

In 1834 he became interested in rubber and began working for a firm making rubber-coated raincoats.

At this time rubber was just beginning to be used. Yet it had certain disadvantages. In hot weather it became sticky. In cold weather it became hard and cracked. During a heatwave the rubber-coated raincoats became sticky and the firm making them lost all its money.

Goodyear was out of work and once more went into prison for debt. Afterwards he worked for years to try to find a way of improving rubber.

At times he was penniless and his family had little to eat, but in the end he found the secret by accident. He was mixing sulphur with rubber and he put it on the kitchen stove. What he produced was afterwards called vulcanised rubber and vulcanised rubber could be used for all kinds of things. It was not affected by hot or cold weather.

Today thousands of everyday things, from motor car tyres to elastic bands, are made of vulcanised rubber, The third largest tire company in the world, Goodyear, was named after him.

See Richard Korman The Goodyear Story