In the winter of 1839, Charles Goodyear accidentally discovers that the addition of heat and sulphur alters the consistency of rubber, later to be known as the vulcanization process. Goodyear saw rubber as what we know it is today: the first and most versatile of the modern “plastics.” He perceived in it a “vegetable leather” that defied the elements, an “elastic metal,” a wood substitute that could be shaped in molds. When he died, in 1860, he was $200,000 in debt. Adjusted for inflation that is about 6 Million US Dollars in 2020.
Goodyear Rubber Flooring
Eventually, however, accumulated royalties made his family comfortable. Neither Goodyear nor his family was ever connected with the company named in his honor, today’s billion-dollar Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., the world’s largest rubber business. Goodyear’s only direct descendant among modern companies is United States Rubber, which years ago absorbed a small company he once served as director.
“Life,” Charles Goodyear wrote, “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.” Modern humanity has reaped the benefits of his genius and experimentations. Rubber products act as tires, hoses, flooring, doormats, nonslip surfaces, wires covering, phone protectors, door stops, jar-lid gaskets and many more modern products.
Today’s Goodyear Rubber is an agile modern firm that excels in technological innovations. In the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company’s Eagle-360 concept tire has been named one of Time magazine’s “Best Inventions of the Year 2016.” The Goodyear Eagle-360 is a spherical-shaped design concept tire that would provide self-driving cars ultimate maneuverability, connectivity and biomimicry to increase safety. The tire's tread pattern mimics brain coral and is designed with multidirectional blocks and groves that work to work to ensure safe contact with the ground. Goodyear tire has 15 Billion Dollars in sales and a family of brands that include Goodyear, Sava, Kelly, Dunlap and Fulda. Goodyear manufactures its products in 47 facilities in 21 countries. It has marketing operations in almost every country around the world.
The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company in 1898 seems especially remarkable, for the beginning was anything but auspicious. The 38-year-old founder, Frank A. Seiberling, purchased the company’s first plant with a $3,500 down payment — using money he borrowed from his brother-in-law, Lucius C. Miles. With just 13 employees, Goodyear production began on November 21, 1898, with a product line of bicycle and carriage tires, horseshoe pads, and — fitting the gamble Seiberling was making — poker chips. Today, Goodyear measures sales of more than $20 billion, although it took 53 years before the company reached the first billion-dollar-year milestone. In 1916 Goodyear becomes world's largest tire company, initiates slogan "More people ride on Goodyear tires than on any other kind."
Today’s Goodyear Rubber is an agile modern firm that excels in technological innovations. In the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company’s Eagle-360 concept tire has been named one of Time magazine’s “Best Inventions of the Year 2016.” The Goodyear Eagle-360 is a spherical-shaped design concept tire that would provide self-driving cars ultimate maneuverability, connectivity and biomimicry to increase safety. The tire's tread pattern mimics brain coral and is designed with multidirectional blocks and groves that work to work to ensure safe contact with the ground. Goodyear tire has 15 Billion Dollars in sales and a family of brands that include Goodyear, Sava, Kelly, Dunlap and Fulda. Goodyear manufactures its products in 47 facilities in 21 countries. It has marketing operations in almost every country around the world.