Description:

Goodyear Charles 1800 - 1860 Charles Goodyear, inventor of vulcanized rubber, signs a note in 1854
Single page signed note on onion skin, scripted recto and docketed to verso, 9" x 5.5". Boldly signed by Charles Goodyear as "Charles Goodyear" with a large 4.5" signature and flourish, and dated "Paris Oct 1, 1854". Small one inch edge repair to upper left edge, not affecting text. Toned with faded handling marks.

Lovely signed note for payment to Goodyear, a name which we all know today associated with tires. Charles Goodyear was a manufacturing engineer who developed vulcanized rubber for which he received a patent (patent number 3633), from the US Patent Office in 1844. It was this invention which allowed the chemical process to manufacture pliable, waterproof, moldable rubber, one which took him five years to develop. He was seeking a more stable rubber and stumbled upon the effectiveness of heating which then initiated decades of successful rubber manufacturing as rubber became adopted to multiple applications including footwear and tires.

In the year 1852, Goodyear went to Europe, a trip that he had long planned, and saw Thomas Hancock, who claimed to have invented vulcanization independently, and received a British patent, initiated in 1843, but finalized in 1844. Hancock's patent was challenged with the claim that Hancock had copied Goodyear. Goodyear attended the trial. If Hancock lost, Goodyear stood to have his own British patent application granted, allowing him to claim royalties from both Hancock and Moulton. Both had examined Goodyear's vulcanized rubber in 1842, but several chemists testified that it would not have been possible to determine how it was made by studying it. Hancock prevailed. Despite his misfortune with patents, Goodyear wrote, "In reflecting upon the past, as relates to these branches of industry, the writer is not disposed to repine, and say that he has planted, and others have gathered the fruits. The advantages of a career in life should not be estimated exclusively by the standard of dollars and cents, as is too often done. Man has just cause for regret when he sows and no one reaps.

Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company named themselves after him in honor of his contribution.

A lovely early note which states:

"Paris Oct 1, 1854

To The New York Rubber Co

Please pay to H.B. Goodyear in order all Tariffs due me in the cuase manufacture by you +(illegible) ...

Charles Goodyear"

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