It was on June 17, 1837, that Charles Goodyear secured his first patent for processing rubber. Now, you might think landing a patent would be a ticket to wealth through industrial applications — and for most inventors, that's exactly how the story goes. But Charles Goodyear's journey took a very different turn. The year 1837 proved to be a terrible one financially for Goodyear, effectively preventing him from profiting off his hard-won patent.
Goodyear, however, refused to let this setback keep him down. Before long, he threw himself back into experimentation, driven by the goal of finding ways to make rubber withstand extreme temperatures — both hot and cold. Then came a stroke of accidental genius: Goodyear happened to spill a mixture of rubber and sulfur onto a hot stove, and just like that, he stumbled upon the process of vulcanization. This breakthrough earned him another patent, granted on June 15, 1844.
Fun facts about Charles Goodyear
- Charles Goodyear came into the world on December 29, 1800, in New Haven, Connecticut, born to parents Amasa Goodyear and Cynthia Bateman Goodyear.
- He wed Clarissa Beecher, and the couple went on to have six children together.
- His pioneering work in modern rubber production left such a lasting legacy that the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company bears his name.
- This self-made manufacturing engineer eventually passed away in New York on July 1, 1860.
- In 1976, Charles was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame alongside six others.