Heroes Of Progress Author:Eva March Tappan Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHARLES GOODYEAR A MAN WHO PERSEVERED 1800-1860 1844, first patented the vulcanization of rubber In the early part of the nineteenth century rubber was... more » used in this country for little else than erasing pencil marks. People were beginning to be interested in it, however, because it had such remarkable qualities. It was elastic and it was waterproof; it could be baked, soaked in lye or oil or turpentine without injury; neither mouse nor moth would touch it. The natives of the lands where it was produced made rough clay lasts, dipped them into the rubber juice many times, smoking them after each dipping, then broke up the lasts, and they had waterproof shoes. Why could not this be done in the United States? People went wild over the possibilities of rubber. It cost only five cents a pound, and a pair of rubbers — gums, or galoshes, they were called — would sell for two or three dollars. Here was a chance to make a fortune, if a man was only wide-awake enough to seize the opportunity and invest. In 1833 six or eight factories were opened, and the manufacture of overshoes and wagon-covers, overcoats, caps, and life-preservers flourished. These articles were sold as fast as they could be made; but when warm weather came, 'they werereturned as fast as their purchasers could bring them back. This rubber had one great fault; it proved to be hard as a rock in the winter and soft as chewing gum in the summer; and the overshoes made in the factories were not nearly so good as the clumsy ones made by the natives of the rubber countries. A pair of rubbers left by the fire would quietly melt away with a very, very bad odor. The only way to use such articles seemed to be to make one's home where there was neither heat nor cold. Now in Connecticut there lived a man who was tryin...« less