era sains, teknologi & inovasi - Portal Rasmi Akademi Sains Malaysia

Poster
35
Oktober
2012
Charles Goodyear
Oleh ASHRIQ FAHMY AHMAD
ashriq.ahmad@utusan.com.my
CHARLES Goodyear accidentally
discovered the rubber
vulcanization process.
Although Goodyear is often
credited with its invention, modern
evidence has proven that the Me soamericans
used stabilized rubber for balls
and other objects as early as 1600 BC.
Goodyear discovered the vulcanization
process accidentally after five years of
searching for a more stable rubber.
Charles Goodyear was born on 29 De -
cember 1800 in New Haven, Con necticut.
In 1834, he began experimenting with
natural rubber. In 1839, he accidentally
discovered the process of vulcanization.
He struggled to patent it, as Thomas
Hancock had recently patented vulcanized
rubber.
Goodyear died broke on 19 July 1860 in
New York City and the Goodyear Tire and
Rubber Company was founded in his name
in 1898.
Charles Goodyear was born in New
Haven, Connecticut, the son of Amasa
Goodyear, and the oldest of six children.
His father was a descendant of Stephen
Goodyear, one of the founders of the
colony of New Haven in 1638.
In 1814, Charles left his home and went
to Philadelphia to learn the hardware
business.
He worked industriously until he was
twenty-one years old, and then, returning
to Connecticut, entered into partnership
in his father’s business in Naugatuck,
where they manufactured not only ivory
and metal buttons, but a variety of
agricultural implements.
In the year 1852, Goodyear went to
Europe, a trip that he had long planned,
and saw Thomas Hancock, then in the
employ of Charles Macintosh &
Company.
Hancock claimed to have
invented vulcanization
independently, and
received a British
patent,
initiated in 1843, but finalized in 1844.
In 1855, in the last of three patent
disputes with fellow British rubber
pioneer, Stephen Moulton, Hancock’s
patent was challenged with the claim that
Hancock had copied Goodyear.
Goodyear attended the trial and if
Hancock lost, Goodyear stood to have his
own British patent application granted,
allowing him to claim royalties from both
Hancock and Moulton.
Both had examined Goodyear’s
vulcanized rubber in 1842, but several
chemists testified that it would not have
been possible to determine how it was
made by studying it.
Despite his misfortune with patents,
Goodyear wrote, “In reflecting upon the
past, as relates to these branches of
industry, the writer is not disposed to
repine, and say that he has planted, and
others have gathered the fruits.”
“The advantages of a career in life
should not be estimated exclusively by the
standard of dollars and cents, as is too
often done. Man has just cause for regret
when he sows and no one reaps.”
Goodyear died 1 July 1860, while
traveling to see his dying daughter.
After arriving in New York, he was
informed that she had already died and he
collapsed and was taken to the Fifth
Avenue Hotel in New York City.
Goodyear died at the age of 59 and
buried in New Haven at Grove Street
Cemetery.
In 1898, almost four decades after his
death, The Goodyear Tire & Rubber
Company was founded and named after
Goodyear by Frank Seiberling.
On 8 February 1976, Goodyear was
among six individuals selected for
induction into the National
Inventors Hall of Fame.