Charles Goodyear and Vulcanized Rubber

Charles Goodyear's work is important to so many things we have in the 21st century. But his life and his work to create a stable rubber was full of problems -- many of them caused by Goodyear himself.

Research:

• Britannica Editors. "Charles Goodyear". Encyclopedia Britannica, 25 Dec. 2025, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Charles-Goodyear
• “Charles Goodyear.” Who Made America? PBS. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/theymadeamerica/whomade/goodyear_hi.html
• “Charles Goodyear - Vulcanization of Rubber.” National Inventors Hall of Fame. https://www.invent.org/inductees/charles-goodyear
• “Charles Goodyear - Vulcanized Rubber.” Lemelson-MIT. https://lemelson.mit.edu/resources/charles-goodyear
• “Charles Goodyear and the Vulcanization of Rubber.” ConnecticutHistory.org. https://connecticuthistory.org/charles-goodyear-and-the-vulcanization-of-rubber/
• “Charles Goodyear’s Machine for Making Rubber Fabrics.” ConnecticutHistory.org. https://connecticuthistory.org/charles-goodyears-machine-for-making-rubber-fabrics/
• “Death of Charles Goodyear.” Carbondale Advantage. July 21, 1860. https://www.newspapers.com/image/638799032/?match=2&terms=%22charles%20goodyear%22
• Goodyear, Charles. “Gum-elastic and its varieties : with a detailed account of its applications and uses, and of the discovery of vulcanization.” New Haven. Published for the Author. 1853. https://archive.org/details/gumelasticitsva121853good/
• Goodyear, Charles. “IMPROVEMENT IN INDIA-RUBBER FABRICS.” United States Patent Office. June 15, 1844. https://web.archive.org/web/20150714081931/http://www.dpma.de/docs/service/klassifikationen/ipc/auto_ipc/us3633a.pdf
• “Goodyear’s Gum Elastic Drapery and Parchment.” The Washington Union. May 4, 1837. https://www.newspapers.com/image/1038143941/?match=3&terms=%22charles%20goodyear%22%20mail
• Iles, George. “Leading American Inventors.” H. Holt 1912. Accessed online: https://books.google.com/books?id=Hn0_AAAAIAAJ&source=gbs_navlinks_s
• “India Rubber Fabric.” Daily Cleveland herald. October 10, 1835. https://www.newspapers.com/image/1073496245/?match=1&terms=%22Charles%20Goodyear%22
• Slack, Charles. “Noble Obsession: Charles Goodyear, Thomas Hancock, and the Race to Unlock the Greatest Industrial Secret of the Nineteenth Century.” Hyperion. 2003.
• Snow, Richard F. “Charles Goodyear.” American Heritage. April/May 1978. Vol. 29, Issue 3. https://www.americanheritage.com/charles-goodyear

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