Charles Goodyear patented vulcanized rubber
On this day · 15 June 1844
After years of debt and ridicule, Charles Goodyear patented the heat-and-sulfur process that finally tamed rubber.
On 15 June 1844, Charles Goodyear received U.S. patent No. 3,633 for vulcanizing rubber — a process that cured the material’s two fatal flaws: it turned brittle in the cold and melted into glue in the heat.
Goodyear’s breakthrough was almost an accident. Around 1839 he dropped a mix of rubber and sulfur onto a hot stove and noticed it charred rather than melted, emerging tough, elastic, and stable across temperatures. He named the process vulcanization, after Vulcan, the Roman god of fire.
The discovery launched a vast industry — waterproof boots, tires, hoses, insulation — and reshaped manufacturing in Connecticut’s Naugatuck Valley.
The man who made rubber profitable barely profited himself.
Goodyear earned around $163,000 from the patent yet died in 1860 owing far more, dogged by lawsuits and ill health. The tire company that bears his name was founded decades after his death, by men who simply admired him.
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