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eligious nature manifested itself early; and he joined the Congregational Church when he was sixteen。 It was at first his intention to enter the ministry; which seemed to him to offer the most useful career of service; but; changing his mind; he went to Philadelphia to learn the hardware business and on coming of age was admitted to partnership in a firm established there by his father。 The firm prospered for a time; but an injudicious extension of credit led to its suspension。 So it happened that Goodyear in 1834; when he became interested in rubber; was an insolvent debtor; liable; under the laws of the time; to imprisonment。 Soon afterward; indeed; he was lodged in the Debtor's Prison in Philadelphia。
It would seem an inauspicious hour to begin a search which might lead him on in poverty for years and end nowhere。 But; having seen the need for perfect rubber; the thought had come to him; with the force of a religious conviction; that 〃an object so desirable and so important; and so necessary to man's comfort; as the making of gum…elastic available to his use; was most certainly placed within his reach。〃 Thereafter he never doubted that God had called him to this task and that his efforts would be crowned with success。 Concerning his prison experiences; of which the first was not to be the last; he says that 〃notwithstanding the mortification attending such a trial;〃 if the prisoner has a real aim 〃for which to live and hope over he may add firmness to hope; and derive lasting advantage by having proved to himself that; with a clear conscience and a high purpose; a man may be as happy within prison walls as in any other (even the most fortunate) circumstances in life。〃 With this spirit he met every reverse throughout the ten hard years that followed。
Luckily; as he says; his first experiments required no expensive equipment。 Fingers were the best tools for working the gum。 The prison officials allowed him a bench and a marble slab; a friend procured him a few dollars' worth of gum; which sold then at five cents a pound; and his wife contributed her rolling pin。 That was the beginning。
For a time he believed that; by mixing the raw gum with magnesia and boiling it in lime; he had overcome the stickiness which was the inherent difficulty。 He made some sheets of white rubber which were exhibited; and also some articles for sale。 His hopes were dashed when he found that weak acid; such as apple juice or vinegar; destroyed his new product。 Then in 1836 he found that the application of aqua fortis; or nitric acid; produced a 〃curing〃 effect on the rubber and thought that he had discovered the secret。 Finding a partner with capital; he leased an abandoned rubber factory on Staten Island。 But his partner's fortune was swept away in the panic of 1837; leaving Goodyear again an insolvent debtor。 Later he found another partner and went to manufacturing in the deserted plant at Roxbury; with an order from the Government for a large number of mail bags。 This order was given wide publicity and it aroused the interest of manufacturers throughout the country。 But by the time the goods were ready for delivery the first bags made had rotted from their handles。 Only the surface of the rubber had been 〃cured。〃
This failure was the last straw; as far as Goodyear's friends were concerned。 Only his patient and devoted wife stood by him; she had labored; known want; seen her children go hungry to school; but she seems never to have reproached her husband nor to have doubted his ultimate success。 The gentleness and tenderness of his deportment in the home made his family cling to him with deep affection and bear willingly any sacrifice for his sake; though his successive failures generally meant a return of the inventor to the debtor's prison and the casting of his family upon charity。
The nitric acid process had not solved the problem but it had been a real step forward。 It was in the year 1839; by an accident; that he discovered the true process of vulcanization which cured not the surface alone but the whole mass。 He was trying to harden the gum by boiling it with sulphur on his wife's cookstove when he let fall a lump of it on the red hot iron top。 It vulcanized instantly。 This was an accident which only Goodyear could have interpreted。 And it was the last。 The strange substance from the jungles of the tropics had been mastered。 It remained; however; to perfect the process; to ascertain the accurate formula and the exact degree of heat。 The Goodyears were so poor during these years that they received at any time a barrel of flour from a neighbor thankfully。 There is a tradition that on one occasion; when Goodyear desired to cross between Staten Island and New York; he had to give his umbrella to the ferry master as security for his fare; and that the name of the ferry master was Cornelius Vanderbilt; 〃a man who made much money because he took few chances。〃 The incident may easily have occurred; though the ferry master could hardly have been Vanderbilt himself; unless it had been at an earlier date。 Another tradition says that one of Goodyear's neighbors described him to an inquisitive stranger thus: 〃You will know him when you see him; he has on an India rubber cap; stock; coat; vest; and shoes; and an India rubber purse WITHOUT A CENT IN IT!〃
Goodyear's trials were only beginning。 He had the secret at last; but nobody would believe him。 He had worn out even the most sanguine of his friends。 〃That such indifference to this discovery; and many incidents attending it; could have existed in an intelligent and benevolent community;〃 wrote Goodyear later; 〃can only be accounted for by existing circumstances in that community The great losses that had been sustained in the manufacture of gum…elastic: the length of time the inventor had spent in what appeared to them to be entirely fruitless efforts to accomplish anything with it; added to his recent misfortunes and disappointments; all conspired; with his utter destitution; to produce a state of things as unfavorable to the promulgation of the discovery as can well be imagined。 He; however; felt in duty bound to beg in earnest; if need be; sooner than that the discovery should be lost to the world and to himself。 。 。 。 How he subsisted at this period charity alone can tell; for it is as well to call things by their right names; and it is little else than charity when the lender looks upon what he parts with as a gift。 The pawning or selling some relic of better days or some article of necessity was a frequent expedient。 His library had long since disappeared; but shortly after the discovery of this process; he collected and sold at auction the schoolbooks of his children; which brought him the trifling sum of five dollars; small as the amount was; it enabled him to proceed。 At this step he did not hesitate。 The occasion; and the certainty of success; warranted the measure which; in other circumstances; would have been sacrilege。〃
His itinerary during those years is eloquent。 Wherever there was a man; who had either a grain of faith in rubber or a little charity for a frail and penniless monomaniac; thither Goodyear made his way。 The goal might be an attic room or shed to live in rent free; or a few dollars for a barrel of flour for the family and a barrel of rubber for himself; or permission to use a factory's ovens after hours and to hang his rubber over the steam valves while work went on。 From Woburn in 1839; the year of his great discovery; he went to Lynn; from Lynn back to the deserted factory at Roxbury。 Again to Woburn; to Boston; to Northampton; to Springfield; to Naugatuck; in five years as many removes。 When he lacked boat or railway fare; and he generally did; he walked through winds and rains and drifting snow; begging shelter at some cottage or farm where a window lamp gleamed kindly。
Goodyear took out his patent in 1844。 The process he invented has been changed little; if at all; from that day to this。 He also invented the perfect India rubber cloth by mixing fiber with the gum a discovery he considered rightly as secondary in importance only to vulcanization。 When he died in 1860 he had taken out sixty patents on rubber manufactures。 He had seen his invention applied to several hundred uses; giving employment to sixty thousand persons; producing annually eight million dollars' worth of merchandisenumbers which would form but a fraction of the rubber statistics of today。
Everybody; the whole civilized world round; uses rubber in one form or another。 And rubber makes a belt around the world in its natural as well as in its manufactured form。 The rubber…bearing zone winds north and south of the equator through both hemispheres。 In South America rubber is the latex of certain trees; in Africa of trees and vines。 The best 〃wild〃 rubber still comes from Para in Brazil。 It is gathered and prepared for shipment there today by the same methods the natives used four hundred years ago。 The natives in their canoes follow the watercourses into the jungles。 They cut V…shaped or spiral incisions in the trunks of the trees that grow sheer to sixty feet before spreading their shade。 At the base of the incisions they affix small clay cups; like swallows' nests。 Over the route they return