I started chatted Charles Goodyear yesterday and our
conversation on Facebook goes like this:
Me: Hi Mr. Goodyear good day!
Goodyear: Yes?
Me: Can I have a personal talk with you at J.co and
have some coffee and donut?
Goodyear: Yes sure. What time?
Me: 10:00 A.M
At J.co
Me: Hello Mr. Goodyear
Goodyear: Hi
Me: How are you?
Goodyear: I’m fine. Why did you send me in this
place?
Me: Uhm.. because I want to know more about you and
your stable rubber.
Goodyear: I made a stable rubber to produce tires.
Me: Before that, Where are you from Mr. Goodyear?
Goodyear: I’m from Springfield, Massachusetts and
during my time it was called the “City of Firsts”.
Me: Why is it called the “City of Firsts”.
Goodyear: The first vulcanization of rubber is
considered one of the major "firsts" that contributes to the City of
Springfield's nickname, "The City of Firsts".
Me: How was your life
before inventing the rubber?
Goodyear: I didn’t
actually invent the rubber.
Me: Ha? What did you
mean?
Goodyear: My life was
miserable. My family and I sold our house and our properties. It’s been many
years since I tested how to make a rubber that can’t be easily stretch out by
our bare hands.
Me: How did you discover
it?
Goodyear: I walked into the New York retail store of the Roxbury
India Rubber Co., America's first rubber manufacturer. This hardware is
totally bankrupt. The manager showed me the rubber they made.
Me: Did you mean
there were rubbers that time?
Goodyear: Yes.
Actually during ancient times in America there were rubbers made in rubber sap.
Me: What was the
problem that time?
Goodyear: I’ll tell
you later.
We went to the
Goodyear Vulcanizing Rubber Store. We continued talking about the problem
during his time.
Me: So Mr…. Let’s
continue your story.
Goodyear: The problem
that time was the durability of rubber in winter. The manufacturers of rubber
lost million dollars because all the rubbers they made were not standing up to extreme temperatures,
becoming brittle in winter.
Me: And you are the
one who tried to improve it?
Goodyear: Many of us
are inventors. Many of us tried to improve it.
Me: What did you do
to improve the rubber?
Goodyear: I tried
many experiments but none of them work. I put myself in debt and involved in
several patent lawsuits.
Me: You’re life is
really miserable.
Goodyear: But one day
our neighbor was boiling water in the pot.
Me: What is the
connection of the boiling water to the rubber you made?
Goodyear: I made
another experiments and the rubber that I made in that experiment accidentally
went inside the hot pot which is contained with boiling water.
Me: Accidentally?
Goodyear: This
experiment called serendipity.
Me: What did you
notice after?
Goodyear: The rubber
was better and good in quality as in very very good.
Me: What is your
concept behind it?
Goodyear: I
discovered that if you remove the sulphur in the rubber it will make the rubber
to retain its elasticity even if winter happens.
Me: Your genius! How
did you propose it?
Goodyear: I sent samples of heat-and-sulphur-treated gum to
British rubber companies without revealing my concepts.
Me: And then?
Goodyear: My samples
were seen by the English rubber pioneer.
Me: Who is he and what
happened before that?
Goodyear: He was
Thomas Hancock. Hancock noticed a yellowish sulphur "bloom" on the
Goodyear sample's surface. With that clue, he reinvented vulcanized rubber in
1843, four years after me.
Me: Do you mean……
Goodyear: Yes! I was
foolishly declined and lost but I installed great pavilions built entirely of
rubber, floor to roof during 1850 in London. There I received Legion of Honor
from Emperor Napoleon.
Me: What a wonderful
story! After that?
Goodyear: I was died
with a debt of $200,000.
Me: What happened to
your family?
Goodyear: Accumulated
royalties made my family comfortable. My son Charles Jr., inherited something
more precious inventive talent and later built a small fortune on shoemaking machinery.
After his last word “machinery”
his voice faded away and he was gone. I saw a piece of paper in his table and there’s
something written in that paper:
"Life should not
be estimated exclusively by the standard of dollars and cents. I am not
disposed to complain that I have planted and others have gathered the fruits. A
man has cause for regret only when he sows and no one reaps." -Goodyear