THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



339 



Charles Goodyear Nominated for the Hall of Fame. 



AN EKFOKT 10 secure a place in the Hall of Fame for Charles 

 CiDodyear will be made this year by leading figures in the 

 rubber world. Elections take place every five years and 1920 

 is one of the years for making selections. Colonel Samuel P. Colt 

 has already inaugurated a movement to bring the qualitications of 

 Charles Goodyear to the attention of the one hundred electors 

 who will vote on candidates, and as a tirst step, has written a 

 letter of formal nomination to Robert Underwood Johnson, di- 

 rector of the Hall of Fame. In his letter Colonel Colt says: 



"I wish to strongly urge the name of Charles Goodyear, the 

 inventor of vulcanization nt rtibber. When wc tliink uf 

 the many uses to 

 which rubber is now 

 put, adding greatly to 

 the comfort of man- 

 kind, the alleviation 

 of suffering, and the 

 advancement of civili- 

 zation, we are im- 

 pressed with the fact 

 that the world owes 

 Charles Goodyear a 

 debt of gratitude that 

 can never be paid. 



"All the improve- 

 ments in the manu- 

 facture of rubber 

 goods in general are 

 based wholly upon 

 Charles Goodyear's 

 discovery of vulcani- 

 zation—without air- 

 brake hose, railway 

 trains could not be 

 properly run, without 

 rubber tires we could 

 not have automobiles 

 or auto, trucks and 

 without rubber ap- 

 pliances we could not 

 have the telephone, 

 electric lights, air- 

 planes nor the thou- 

 sand and one other 

 things in which rub- 

 ber plays an impor- 

 tant part. 



"Of the cinht ru1>- 

 ber companies orig- 

 inally licensed under 

 the patents of Charles 

 Goodyear, three have gone out of business and the other live 

 are now owned by the United States Rubber Co., which gives 

 us a special interest in the great inventor." 



The claims of Charles Goodyear have been brought to the 

 attention of electors at past elections in an unostentatious way, 

 but rubber had not attained, even so late as the last election 

 in 1915, the place of importance in American business it holds 

 to-day. In 1914 the total production of rubber goods in the 

 United States amounted to only $320,000,000. In 1918 the out- 

 put was $1,122,000,000, nearly four times as great. 



Goodyear's discovery of the vulcanization process is one of 

 the romances of the history of invention. One of the reasons 

 why he is especially entitled to recognition is that he under- 

 stood clearly the importance nf the results he was seeking to 



■re accident he linally discovered the 

 vas not accidental that it was he who 

 had devoted his entire energy to the 



:ittain, and though by a i 

 solution of his problem, it 

 found the solution, for h 

 subject for years. 



With a prescience that was uncanny, he forecast for rubber a 

 future that even the development of the rubber industry in the 

 past few years has not surpassed. He knew little about the 

 electrical field, it is true, and nothing whatever about automo- 

 biles, yet his claims for patents made in the early forties show 

 a vision for the future of rubber that was startlingly clear. 



of strong religious tendencies. 



(Fr„ 



Charles Goodveak. 



he felt himself under 

 a divine impulse to 

 carry to success ex- 

 peri m e n t s which 

 would confer so great 

 a boon on humanity. 

 It was this feeling 

 that led him, in spite 

 of most precarious 

 health and dire pov- 

 erty, to continue for 

 ten years his search 

 for the elusive secret 

 of how rubber might 

 be made suitable for 

 use. 



As his experiments 

 progressed, he not 

 only manufactured 

 rubber goods but even 

 dressed in clothes 

 made of rubber, wear- 

 ing them for the pur- 

 pose of testing their 

 durability. He was 

 certainly an odd fig- 

 ure and his appear- 

 ance led one of his 

 friends, who was 

 asked how Mr. Good- 

 year inight be recog- 

 nized, to reply : "If 

 you see a man with 

 an india rubber coat 

 on, india rubber 

 shoes, an india rubber 

 cap, and in his pocket 

 an india rubber purse 

 with not a cent in 

 it, that is Good- 



His poverty was so extreme that many times only the kind- 

 ness of friends and neighbors kept his large family from 

 starvation. At that period imprisonment for debt was in vogue 

 and on many occasions Goodyear found himself locked up for 

 debt. He was regarded as a "crazy inventor," and, as time 

 after time his hope that he had finally hit upon a solution of 

 his problem proved illusory, his friends and relatives did not 

 hesitate to tell him with inuch harshness that he should give 

 up his experiments and find some means of supporting his 

 family. But he persisted until he won complete success and 

 then, instead of settling back- and reaping a harvest from his 

 discoveries, continued to spend the money that came to him, 

 in adapting his discoveries to practical uses. 



Though born in New TIaven, Connecticut, Goodyear spent 



