Although, in 1813 a patent was granted to Jacob Hummel, of Philadelphia, for a nab. elastic varnish, there seems to be no further mention of his product so evidently it was never put into use. Crude rubber and native rubber articles, such as shoes, water bottles etc., were, however, brought to the seaports of New England in large quantities as early as 1823 and formed the inspiration for exper• imentation by a great many Americans who also had ideas for manufacturing rubber into various items of commerce. About 1831, McIntosh and Hancock, in England, began to manufacture a varnish by dissolving rubber and lamp black ict spirits of turpentine. This was supposed to provide a waterproofing material suitable for use in the manufacture of footwear and coats. The Roxbury India Rubber Company, of Connecticut was chartered in 1833 for the manufacture of footwear and clothing under this patent, Following this, small rubber factories sprung up all over New England but none attained success because they failed to take into consideration the nature of the material with which they were working, viz., its tendency to soften and stick in warm temperatures and become hard and brittle under the influence of cold. Among the prominent factories which had failed about 1838 was one its Woburn, Mass., which shut its doors early in the summer of this year leaving Nathaniel Hayward as caretaker. Hayward, having little to do and being of an investigating turn of mind, used the materials at hand for toper. imentation. During his experintents he Inv! pened upon the idea of mixing a small amount of sulphur with rubber and treating the mixture with acid gas fumes, the latter idea having previously been worked out by Charles Good year. Hayward patented this process. acknowl edging in his application the use of the Good? year acid gas treatment Charles Goodyear was a native of Connecticut and son of an importer and manufacturer of buttons, hardware and farm implements. At the time Goodyear's in terests were aroused in rubber, he was engaged at Philadelphia in operating the first retail hardware store in the United States and had amassed from this business a considerable fortune. Hearing of Hayward's invention, he promptly purchased from him the patent rights. Thus began the trials of the man whose devotion to an idea has-made the great rubber industry possible.
The sulphur and acid gas treatment did not work well as he supposed it would and it was not until the winter of this same year that Goodyear made the final discovery of the proc ess of vulcanization. Although an educated man, he was not versed in analytical chemistry and his discovery was made by asploratioa into the field of the unknown rather than by experiment. He had mixed sulphur with rub ber and while discoursing on the subject •so dear to his heart one cold night, so the story goes, a piece which he had in his hand ac cidentally touched the red hot door of the kitelo en stove. To the astonishment of Goodyear, an ounce, or two which stuck on the stove hardened without melting. He rushed to the other side of the room, seized a knife and scraped the residue from the stove while his relatives and neighbors looked on with the conviction that he had finally gone insane. Scraping the resi due from the stove and washing it he found evulcanized rubber,* Thus, by chance, Good year discovered the •vital link which now makes possible the use of automobiles and thousands of other machines.
= was entirely out of funds through bad isby the hardware business and his devotion to rubber experimenting. It was not until 1844 that he finally applied for and was granted a patent on his discovery. Even then be had great difficulty in convincing others that this was not a with, the same as they hadfound his add gas process to be.
verett Candee is said to have been the first to take practical advantage of Goodyear's dis covery. He, at least, bought a license from
Goodyear to manufacture footwear the same year the patent was granted. From the start rub ber shoes were found to be well adapted for bard service and sales made a slow but substan tial growth. The success of Candee caused many others to enter the business of rubber manufacture and within a comparatively few years there were several concerns turning out a variety of products. Among the first were, Ford and Company of New Brunswick, N. T.
The path of the American rubber manu facturer, in spite of the assured success of rub ber goods through the discovery of vulcaniza tion, was not, however, one of ease and affluence. Many difficulties attended the estab lishment of rubber factories that were not of a mechanical nature. Tariff reforms were needed badly. Our monetary system was in a state of flux; other industry as a consequence was at a low ebb. Accordingly, the demand for rubber goods did not exist. In fact it was not until after the close of the Civil War that rubber manufacture, through the improved in dustrial condition of the United States and the development of railroads, began to come into hs own.
Goodyear died financially discredited, leav ing no legacy to his heirs in the way of partic ipation in the fruits of his efforts, although credited with having made a great fortune from his discovery. He spent money lavishly in advertising; m fact, during the year 1851 he made an impressive exhibit of American made rubber goods at the Crystal Palate (London) exhibition where he contracted more debts than he could conveniently meet and was thrown into prison. Many infringements were made and he was called upon reoeatedlY to sus tain his patent claims in court. This took a great deal of money.
The Civil War had furnished the impulse to ward a general industrial expansion in the United States and development of transporta tion carried manufacturing further West . Rubber manufacture was established west of the Allegheny Mountains and thus we have 'what is known as the beginning of the Rubber Era. As Hancock had shed light upon the possibilities of rubber as an every-day com modity; as Goodyear had discovered the means for making these ideas realities; so Dr. Benja min Franklin Goodrich developed the channels through which dreams and discoveries of his predecessors were able to be enjoyed by men in all walks of life. It was he who blazed the trail of practical manufacture and first demon strated the real scope of rubber manufacture in the central west, which resulted in opening up one of the leading industrial cities in the United States. Dr. Benjamin Franklin Goodrich be came involved through a real estate transaction in the Hudson River Rubber Company of Hast ings, N. Y. a concern which had made a failure. ''Like Goodyear he became in tensely interested in the future of rubber; so much, in fact, that he gave up his real estate interests to make rubber manufacturing his life profession. He came west seeking capital and landing in Akron sold himself and his defunct New York Rubber Company to the prominent members of the Akron Chamber In 1870 the machinery was moved to Akron, the original company being incorporated 31 December. The building occupied was a two story brick structure, 50 by 100 feet and 20 people constituted the entire pay-roll. The first products consisting of hose, billiard cushions and belting were placed upon the market in May 1871. Thus, from a 20-man beginning, Akron, Ohio, has developed into the rubber manufacturing centre of the world. In normal times something like 65,000 workmen are em ployed in turning out about $300,000,000 worth of rubber goods — over one-third of the pro duction of the whole United States.