1 00:00:01,320 --> 00:00:04,240 Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production 2 00:00:04,400 --> 00:00:13,760 Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly 3 00:00:13,800 --> 00:00:16,840 Speaker 1: Frye and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. And this is not 4 00:00:16,960 --> 00:00:21,120 Speaker 1: the episode I set out to write. So funny, I 5 00:00:21,200 --> 00:00:23,919 Speaker 1: was going to do an episode on sneaker history. Listen, 6 00:00:24,000 --> 00:00:27,400 Speaker 1: I probably still will. I still love shoes. But one 7 00:00:27,440 --> 00:00:29,680 Speaker 1: of the things that I wanted to do in setting 8 00:00:29,760 --> 00:00:35,080 Speaker 1: up that episode was to talk about Charles Goodyear because 9 00:00:35,920 --> 00:00:40,959 Speaker 1: his work really led to the development of the sneaker industry, 10 00:00:41,000 --> 00:00:46,040 Speaker 1: because they need those souls, like that's the distinguishing characteristic 11 00:00:46,080 --> 00:00:49,480 Speaker 1: of sneakers. And he had come up on our episode 12 00:00:49,640 --> 00:00:52,560 Speaker 1: on raincoat History, but we didn't go very deep into 13 00:00:52,600 --> 00:00:56,920 Speaker 1: his life story, and his work is really very important 14 00:00:56,960 --> 00:00:59,280 Speaker 1: to a lot of the things that we have in 15 00:00:59,320 --> 00:01:02,440 Speaker 1: the twenty first century. It was, as I said, very 16 00:01:02,440 --> 00:01:05,039 Speaker 1: pivotal to the development of the sneaker. But in the 17 00:01:05,080 --> 00:01:08,160 Speaker 1: process of trying to give him some time for a 18 00:01:08,160 --> 00:01:11,240 Speaker 1: little mini biography at the front end of that episode, 19 00:01:11,680 --> 00:01:13,679 Speaker 1: I just realized he had to end up being the 20 00:01:13,680 --> 00:01:18,200 Speaker 1: whole episode. Because I was intrigued, not in always a 21 00:01:18,200 --> 00:01:20,760 Speaker 1: great way. I was also really frustrated you're going to 22 00:01:20,840 --> 00:01:25,320 Speaker 1: see you also will be frustrated with this man. Charles 23 00:01:25,319 --> 00:01:28,840 Speaker 1: Goodyear is often described as a chemist, and I guess 24 00:01:28,880 --> 00:01:31,160 Speaker 1: you could say that it doesn't seem quite accurate to 25 00:01:31,200 --> 00:01:33,880 Speaker 1: me because he was not the kind of chemist who 26 00:01:33,959 --> 00:01:38,080 Speaker 1: was seeking to understand molecular science. He wasn't developing formulas. 27 00:01:39,200 --> 00:01:42,040 Speaker 1: We talked about so many people in that Raincode episode 28 00:01:42,040 --> 00:01:44,360 Speaker 1: who were also trying to figure these things out, like 29 00:01:44,680 --> 00:01:47,520 Speaker 1: how to make a stable, non sticky rubber, but they 30 00:01:47,560 --> 00:01:50,800 Speaker 1: operated so differently from Goodyear because he was just kind 31 00:01:50,840 --> 00:01:54,560 Speaker 1: of trying stuff out, seeing what worked, sometimes having an 32 00:01:54,600 --> 00:01:57,440 Speaker 1: accident and going can I replicate that, which sometimes happens 33 00:01:57,440 --> 00:01:59,960 Speaker 1: in science. But he really was kind of just like 34 00:02:00,320 --> 00:02:04,440 Speaker 1: trying things in the lab. He was not like a 35 00:02:04,560 --> 00:02:09,040 Speaker 1: heavy science dude and spoiler A learned. I feel like 36 00:02:09,080 --> 00:02:11,080 Speaker 1: I should also tell people this is not the most 37 00:02:11,160 --> 00:02:15,560 Speaker 1: upbeat story. There are some great moments where Goodyear gets 38 00:02:15,600 --> 00:02:19,400 Speaker 1: really excited about his work. You too, will likely become 39 00:02:19,440 --> 00:02:22,000 Speaker 1: frustrated with him in the course of this episode because 40 00:02:22,000 --> 00:02:25,240 Speaker 1: he made a lot of really dodgy decisions, and those 41 00:02:25,240 --> 00:02:27,800 Speaker 1: decisions often caused the people that he loved a whole 42 00:02:27,800 --> 00:02:30,840 Speaker 1: lot of suffering. In the process. So that's who we're 43 00:02:30,840 --> 00:02:37,720 Speaker 1: talking about today. So Charles Goodyear was born on December 44 00:02:37,720 --> 00:02:41,639 Speaker 1: twenty ninth, eighteen hundred, in New Haven, Connecticut, to Amasa 45 00:02:41,639 --> 00:02:46,240 Speaker 1: Goodyear and Cynthia Bateman Goodyear. Goodyear's family traced all the 46 00:02:46,240 --> 00:02:48,919 Speaker 1: way back to the founding of the New Haven colony. 47 00:02:49,600 --> 00:02:53,640 Speaker 1: Amasa was a merchant and owned a hardware store. The 48 00:02:53,919 --> 00:02:57,880 Speaker 1: family moved north to Naugatuck, Connecticut when Charles was very young, 49 00:02:57,960 --> 00:03:01,400 Speaker 1: and he spent his early life there. For some portion 50 00:03:01,520 --> 00:03:05,040 Speaker 1: of his youth, Charles, who was deeply religious, considered a 51 00:03:05,080 --> 00:03:08,880 Speaker 1: life in the clergy, although he did abandon that idea. 52 00:03:09,160 --> 00:03:12,640 Speaker 1: At seventeen, he moved to Philadelphia and he lived there 53 00:03:12,680 --> 00:03:14,960 Speaker 1: for four years and he worked as an apprentice in 54 00:03:15,040 --> 00:03:18,280 Speaker 1: another hardware store, and then at the end of that 55 00:03:18,320 --> 00:03:21,040 Speaker 1: four years, when he returned home to Connecticut, he became 56 00:03:21,160 --> 00:03:25,240 Speaker 1: business partners with his father, and their business became a Masa, 57 00:03:25,240 --> 00:03:29,080 Speaker 1: Goodyear and Son. The early work of this career that 58 00:03:29,240 --> 00:03:32,720 Speaker 1: Charles Goodyear was doing with his father's company gave very 59 00:03:32,760 --> 00:03:36,120 Speaker 1: little indication of the invention that would make Charles famous. Eventually, 60 00:03:36,840 --> 00:03:39,160 Speaker 1: they were known for their metal goods that A Masa 61 00:03:39,240 --> 00:03:43,200 Speaker 1: designed and manufactured, including everything from buttons to farm equipment. 62 00:03:43,440 --> 00:03:46,680 Speaker 1: So I guess in terms of ingenuity and inventiveness, maybe 63 00:03:46,720 --> 00:03:50,800 Speaker 1: it's a hint. A nineteen twelve book titled Leading American 64 00:03:50,880 --> 00:03:54,520 Speaker 1: Inventors claims that the Good Years were known especially for 65 00:03:54,680 --> 00:03:59,920 Speaker 1: making really good forks. That cracks me up, specifically forks. 66 00:04:01,400 --> 00:04:02,760 Speaker 1: You want to know where to get the best? Four 67 00:04:02,840 --> 00:04:07,920 Speaker 1: can down these guys Good Years. Several years into this work, 68 00:04:08,000 --> 00:04:11,840 Speaker 1: Charles got married to a woman named Clarissa Beecher. This 69 00:04:11,960 --> 00:04:14,760 Speaker 1: appears to have been a good match and a happy marriage, 70 00:04:14,920 --> 00:04:16,919 Speaker 1: despite the two of them having to get through a 71 00:04:16,960 --> 00:04:22,160 Speaker 1: lot of difficult times. They had seven children together. Yeah, 72 00:04:22,200 --> 00:04:25,119 Speaker 1: and I actually should say I had written that note 73 00:04:25,160 --> 00:04:27,279 Speaker 1: that Tracy just read about the number of children, that 74 00:04:28,440 --> 00:04:32,200 Speaker 1: there were a lot of children that Goodyear had and 75 00:04:32,240 --> 00:04:35,240 Speaker 1: they didn't all live. And I actually had a hard 76 00:04:35,240 --> 00:04:40,120 Speaker 1: time kind of untangling how many he had with Clarissa. 77 00:04:40,160 --> 00:04:42,200 Speaker 1: There's also a second wife that's going to come up 78 00:04:42,279 --> 00:04:46,719 Speaker 1: later on. So the seven. Take it with a grain 79 00:04:46,760 --> 00:04:49,640 Speaker 1: of salt, because I'm not one hundred percent the biography 80 00:04:49,640 --> 00:04:53,120 Speaker 1: that I read that said seven. I did not untangle 81 00:04:53,160 --> 00:04:56,719 Speaker 1: how they landed at that number, but they did have 82 00:04:56,800 --> 00:05:00,360 Speaker 1: many kids together, but before they went through the tough 83 00:05:00,400 --> 00:05:03,240 Speaker 1: times that Tracy just alluded to, there was actually a 84 00:05:03,279 --> 00:05:08,159 Speaker 1: period of prosperity. Charles and Clarissa moved to Philadelphia in 85 00:05:08,240 --> 00:05:10,919 Speaker 1: eighteen twenty six so that Charles could start his own 86 00:05:10,960 --> 00:05:15,120 Speaker 1: hardware store, and initially they did really well, but Charles 87 00:05:15,200 --> 00:05:19,000 Speaker 1: ran into financial problems. This will set the stage for 88 00:05:19,040 --> 00:05:22,719 Speaker 1: his entire life story. He often sold things on credit, 89 00:05:22,760 --> 00:05:25,400 Speaker 1: which a lot of merchants did, but it seems like 90 00:05:25,880 --> 00:05:28,640 Speaker 1: he was not very good at collecting payments. He also 91 00:05:28,839 --> 00:05:33,040 Speaker 1: gave credit to people who maybe didn't really have anything 92 00:05:33,080 --> 00:05:35,400 Speaker 1: to back that up, and he soon found out that 93 00:05:35,440 --> 00:05:37,719 Speaker 1: he could not keep up with his own debts, and 94 00:05:37,760 --> 00:05:41,240 Speaker 1: the business closed in eighteen thirty. This is one of 95 00:05:41,279 --> 00:05:43,359 Speaker 1: those things that's a little bit weird because in a 96 00:05:43,400 --> 00:05:46,600 Speaker 1: lot of write ups you will see about Goodyear, they 97 00:05:46,680 --> 00:05:51,120 Speaker 1: describe it as his father's business failing, and that confusion 98 00:05:51,200 --> 00:05:53,560 Speaker 1: may come from the fact that much of the stock 99 00:05:53,680 --> 00:05:57,359 Speaker 1: in Charles's store had actually come from his father, so 100 00:05:57,440 --> 00:05:59,920 Speaker 1: there was a connection between the two stores, but it 101 00:06:00,200 --> 00:06:04,279 Speaker 1: was Charles's own store that collapsed. According to that same 102 00:06:04,360 --> 00:06:08,320 Speaker 1: nineteen twelve book we just mentioned, Goodyear refused to declare 103 00:06:08,360 --> 00:06:11,799 Speaker 1: bankruptcy because he knew it would lead to the seizure 104 00:06:11,880 --> 00:06:15,919 Speaker 1: of all of his assets, including any intellectual property, and 105 00:06:15,960 --> 00:06:18,400 Speaker 1: because he and his father had come up with a 106 00:06:18,480 --> 00:06:21,000 Speaker 1: variety of metal things, he didn't want to lose his 107 00:06:21,080 --> 00:06:25,800 Speaker 1: rights to those. And the consequence is that he apparently 108 00:06:25,880 --> 00:06:28,839 Speaker 1: was in and out of debtors prison a lot throughout 109 00:06:28,839 --> 00:06:32,800 Speaker 1: his whole life. I was not able to confirm this 110 00:06:32,920 --> 00:06:37,440 Speaker 1: next bit to find hard documentation, although I did find 111 00:06:37,440 --> 00:06:40,680 Speaker 1: a nineteen thirty three notice in the United States Gazette 112 00:06:40,720 --> 00:06:43,920 Speaker 1: of Philadelphia that his home was being auctioned off by 113 00:06:43,960 --> 00:06:48,000 Speaker 1: the Sheriff's office, presumably as part of a default issue 114 00:06:48,000 --> 00:06:51,200 Speaker 1: with a loan. For a while the family was really 115 00:06:51,200 --> 00:06:55,680 Speaker 1: scraping by Clarissa was bringing in some money looming. Linen 116 00:06:57,000 --> 00:07:00,160 Speaker 1: and Charles also notes in his own writing that there 117 00:07:00,320 --> 00:07:03,520 Speaker 1: was a time during this period when their possessions were 118 00:07:03,520 --> 00:07:07,240 Speaker 1: sold at auction to meet their rental costs, and this 119 00:07:07,320 --> 00:07:11,240 Speaker 1: is something that would happen throughout his life. Goodyear later 120 00:07:11,320 --> 00:07:14,280 Speaker 1: explained how he came to view rubber as a potential 121 00:07:14,360 --> 00:07:18,800 Speaker 1: way out of his financial problems. He described in writing 122 00:07:18,960 --> 00:07:21,960 Speaker 1: how he visited the Roxbury, India Rubber Company in New 123 00:07:22,000 --> 00:07:26,480 Speaker 1: York to purchase a life preserver, but when he examined it, 124 00:07:26,560 --> 00:07:29,360 Speaker 1: he thought the rubber tube that was used to inflate 125 00:07:29,400 --> 00:07:32,400 Speaker 1: it could be improved. So he went home and he 126 00:07:32,440 --> 00:07:34,400 Speaker 1: worked on a new tube, and then he brought that 127 00:07:34,520 --> 00:07:37,920 Speaker 1: to the showroom. The person he spoke with thought that 128 00:07:37,960 --> 00:07:41,480 Speaker 1: the new tube was indeed an improvement, and that Goodyear 129 00:07:41,600 --> 00:07:45,360 Speaker 1: might be able to solve another bigger problem. He told 130 00:07:45,440 --> 00:07:49,040 Speaker 1: Goodyear that he should work on improving India rubber, and 131 00:07:49,080 --> 00:07:51,280 Speaker 1: that if he could, he would make a lot of money. 132 00:07:51,960 --> 00:07:54,280 Speaker 1: He also mentioned that a lot of other people had 133 00:07:54,320 --> 00:07:57,560 Speaker 1: tried and failed and lost a lot of money in 134 00:07:57,640 --> 00:08:02,040 Speaker 1: the process, and Goodyear later wrote of this moment when 135 00:08:02,040 --> 00:08:05,480 Speaker 1: he had this conversation in the third person, stating quote, 136 00:08:06,200 --> 00:08:09,320 Speaker 1: he was not before aware that the manufacturer was so 137 00:08:09,400 --> 00:08:14,320 Speaker 1: imperfectly understood. He was blessed with ignorance of the obstacles 138 00:08:14,360 --> 00:08:18,280 Speaker 1: which he had subsequently to encounter, but soon learned this much, 139 00:08:18,400 --> 00:08:22,480 Speaker 1: at least, that the difficulties which attended experiments with the substance, 140 00:08:22,760 --> 00:08:26,680 Speaker 1: if not unparalleled, were of an uncommon character. From the 141 00:08:26,800 --> 00:08:30,240 Speaker 1: fact that the experimenter as well as the manufacturer, was 142 00:08:30,280 --> 00:08:33,280 Speaker 1: obliged to wait the return of both warm and cold 143 00:08:33,320 --> 00:08:36,840 Speaker 1: weather at least twelve months and often longer before he 144 00:08:36,840 --> 00:08:39,680 Speaker 1: could know with any certainty that his articles would not 145 00:08:39,800 --> 00:08:44,720 Speaker 1: decompose or what were the results of his labors. So, yes, 146 00:08:44,800 --> 00:08:48,400 Speaker 1: there was this huge opportunity to turn his finances around, 147 00:08:49,280 --> 00:08:52,360 Speaker 1: but it was also going to require a significant investment 148 00:08:52,400 --> 00:08:56,720 Speaker 1: of time before any benefit would even be possible. But 149 00:08:57,120 --> 00:09:00,240 Speaker 1: Charles Goodyear also realized that quote that which which is 150 00:09:00,280 --> 00:09:04,240 Speaker 1: hidden and unknown and cannot be discovered by scientific research, 151 00:09:04,640 --> 00:09:07,720 Speaker 1: will most likely be discovered by accident, if at all, 152 00:09:08,000 --> 00:09:11,080 Speaker 1: and by the man who applies himself most perseveringly to 153 00:09:11,160 --> 00:09:15,160 Speaker 1: the subject and is most observing of everything relating there too. 154 00:09:15,920 --> 00:09:19,360 Speaker 1: Basically like, okay, science people can't do it, but I'm 155 00:09:19,360 --> 00:09:23,239 Speaker 1: just gonna keep trying. So he took on this challenge, 156 00:09:23,760 --> 00:09:27,360 Speaker 1: and the biggest initial challenge with India rubber was heat. 157 00:09:28,120 --> 00:09:31,520 Speaker 1: So natural rubber, which was called India rubber, had a 158 00:09:31,520 --> 00:09:36,360 Speaker 1: lot of problems and practical applications, like indigenous people who 159 00:09:36,400 --> 00:09:39,160 Speaker 1: live in places where these plants grow have been using 160 00:09:39,240 --> 00:09:41,840 Speaker 1: natural rubber for millennia, but when we're talking about like 161 00:09:42,800 --> 00:09:50,080 Speaker 1: manufactured products, there were issues. It could waterproof things, but 162 00:09:50,200 --> 00:09:52,720 Speaker 1: it also melted when it got hot, and it would 163 00:09:52,720 --> 00:09:56,280 Speaker 1: stick to other things, potentially making a huge mess. When 164 00:09:56,280 --> 00:09:58,559 Speaker 1: it melted, it would lose its shape and it didn't 165 00:09:58,600 --> 00:10:02,200 Speaker 1: snap back, and environments that were hotter than one hundred 166 00:10:02,240 --> 00:10:05,880 Speaker 1: degrees fahrenheit, rubber quickly broke down completely. And it also 167 00:10:05,960 --> 00:10:09,240 Speaker 1: cracked in the cold, So something that was coated with 168 00:10:09,280 --> 00:10:14,080 Speaker 1: it for waterproofing would no longer be waterproof if it 169 00:10:14,120 --> 00:10:19,800 Speaker 1: got too cold. Problems with snowboots, for example, have cracked 170 00:10:19,920 --> 00:10:23,040 Speaker 1: rubber and wet feet. So if you had something coated 171 00:10:23,040 --> 00:10:26,200 Speaker 1: in India rubber, it had to have this ongoing upkeep 172 00:10:26,320 --> 00:10:29,400 Speaker 1: and re application to try to retain the benefits of 173 00:10:29,440 --> 00:10:33,400 Speaker 1: the rubber coating. Yeah, and as Tracy said, indigenous people 174 00:10:33,480 --> 00:10:35,880 Speaker 1: used it, but they kind of understood this and it 175 00:10:35,920 --> 00:10:38,840 Speaker 1: was part of their annual cycles to maintain their stuff 176 00:10:38,880 --> 00:10:43,000 Speaker 1: with it. Whereas to make things for manufacture, nobody wanted 177 00:10:43,040 --> 00:10:44,480 Speaker 1: to buy into a thing that you can not be 178 00:10:44,480 --> 00:10:50,600 Speaker 1: reach what a consumer product is about. We are going 179 00:10:50,640 --> 00:10:54,040 Speaker 1: to talk about what Charles Goodyear did right in his 180 00:10:54,120 --> 00:11:05,080 Speaker 1: early years of experimenting. After we paused for a sponsor break. 181 00:11:07,280 --> 00:11:10,280 Speaker 1: The start of Goodyear's success with rubber was in eighteen 182 00:11:10,360 --> 00:11:13,760 Speaker 1: thirty five, when he figured out how to manufacture gum 183 00:11:13,760 --> 00:11:17,120 Speaker 1: elastic that's just another name for natural rubber India rubber 184 00:11:17,559 --> 00:11:21,640 Speaker 1: into sheets. He added magnesium to gum rubber at a 185 00:11:21,679 --> 00:11:25,320 Speaker 1: one to one ratio, then added turpentine to liquefy it, 186 00:11:25,360 --> 00:11:28,199 Speaker 1: and then he spread that out onto marble with a 187 00:11:28,280 --> 00:11:31,000 Speaker 1: rolling pin. One account said he borrowed his wife's rolling 188 00:11:31,040 --> 00:11:34,480 Speaker 1: pin for the first batch. I don't know if that's true. Then, 189 00:11:34,640 --> 00:11:38,040 Speaker 1: according to his own account, he quote also commenced the 190 00:11:38,200 --> 00:11:42,440 Speaker 1: art of embossing on glazed cambrics, and he used these 191 00:11:42,480 --> 00:11:46,400 Speaker 1: sheets of rubber fabric to start making shoes, and these 192 00:11:46,400 --> 00:11:48,439 Speaker 1: were to be used for testing. These were not shoes 193 00:11:48,480 --> 00:11:51,760 Speaker 1: that were going right to consumers. And that's good because they, 194 00:11:51,960 --> 00:11:56,600 Speaker 1: like other rubber products, melted and stuck together in warm temperatures. 195 00:11:57,080 --> 00:12:00,800 Speaker 1: He eventually arrived at quote boiling. The article compounded with 196 00:12:00,880 --> 00:12:04,560 Speaker 1: magnesia in quicklime and water, which appeared to have the 197 00:12:04,600 --> 00:12:08,520 Speaker 1: effect of tanning the gum and destroying its viscous property. 198 00:12:09,120 --> 00:12:13,840 Speaker 1: So he thought he had managed to solve that melting problem. 199 00:12:14,200 --> 00:12:17,240 Speaker 1: By the end of eighteen thirty five, newspapers ran this 200 00:12:17,440 --> 00:12:21,400 Speaker 1: story quote, A discovery has been recently made by mister 201 00:12:21,520 --> 00:12:25,520 Speaker 1: Charles Goodyear, by which indiear rubber, after having been dissolved, 202 00:12:25,600 --> 00:12:29,720 Speaker 1: can be restored by a cheap process to its original whiteness, 203 00:12:30,120 --> 00:12:33,320 Speaker 1: and the pure gum be formed into a fabric that 204 00:12:33,360 --> 00:12:36,640 Speaker 1: can be used instead of cloth, leather, or parchment, and 205 00:12:36,679 --> 00:12:40,199 Speaker 1: can be molded into almost any form, and can also 206 00:12:40,240 --> 00:12:43,559 Speaker 1: be combined in a variety of ways with cloth, cordage, 207 00:12:43,600 --> 00:12:48,000 Speaker 1: and leather. Good Year won metals from the Mechanics Institute 208 00:12:48,080 --> 00:12:51,280 Speaker 1: and the American Institute that year for his rubber sheets. 209 00:12:51,880 --> 00:12:55,480 Speaker 1: But if those sheets were washed with anything acidic, like 210 00:12:55,600 --> 00:12:58,600 Speaker 1: even if someone put a little lemon juice in water 211 00:12:58,720 --> 00:13:02,319 Speaker 1: to wipe them down, the lime in them was neutralized 212 00:13:02,360 --> 00:13:06,280 Speaker 1: and they became sticky again. So in eighteen thirty six 213 00:13:06,600 --> 00:13:09,080 Speaker 1: he was back at work trying to figure out improvements, 214 00:13:09,600 --> 00:13:12,240 Speaker 1: and the solution was a little bit of an accident. 215 00:13:12,960 --> 00:13:15,240 Speaker 1: He had tried a number of things which were not working, 216 00:13:15,280 --> 00:13:17,560 Speaker 1: and then one day he boiled a piece of his 217 00:13:17,640 --> 00:13:23,040 Speaker 1: rubber fabric in lime with liquid bronze like the metal bronze, 218 00:13:23,480 --> 00:13:26,160 Speaker 1: and he was trying to coat this thing, but it 219 00:13:26,240 --> 00:13:29,320 Speaker 1: didn't coat the entire fabric in metal as he had hoped. 220 00:13:29,720 --> 00:13:31,640 Speaker 1: Some of it stuck, but some of it had just 221 00:13:31,679 --> 00:13:35,520 Speaker 1: slid off, and so then he tried to get the 222 00:13:35,559 --> 00:13:38,840 Speaker 1: bronze that had it here to the fabric off using 223 00:13:38,960 --> 00:13:42,319 Speaker 1: nitric acid, but that just made this ugly mess. There 224 00:13:42,360 --> 00:13:45,680 Speaker 1: was discoloration, and he threw that sample out, thinking that 225 00:13:45,760 --> 00:13:49,040 Speaker 1: whole plan was trashed. But then a few days later 226 00:13:49,400 --> 00:13:52,160 Speaker 1: he pulled it out of the garbage and examined it, 227 00:13:52,200 --> 00:13:55,080 Speaker 1: and he found that while it was still pliant in 228 00:13:55,120 --> 00:13:57,839 Speaker 1: the areas where he had used nitric acid, it wasn't 229 00:13:57,920 --> 00:14:02,880 Speaker 1: sticky at all. He recreated this accidental treatment with good results, 230 00:14:02,960 --> 00:14:05,280 Speaker 1: and then he developed a process for it, which he 231 00:14:05,320 --> 00:14:08,800 Speaker 1: called the acid gas process, and he patented his new 232 00:14:08,840 --> 00:14:12,080 Speaker 1: rubber sheets that were made this way. He also designed 233 00:14:12,080 --> 00:14:14,160 Speaker 1: a number of products using the sheets, and he was 234 00:14:14,200 --> 00:14:17,800 Speaker 1: soon manufacturing those things thanks to a friend, William Ballard, 235 00:14:18,080 --> 00:14:21,160 Speaker 1: who was willing to invest in Charles Goodyear. Feel like 236 00:14:21,200 --> 00:14:24,680 Speaker 1: he's the first of many friends who foolishly invested in 237 00:14:24,760 --> 00:14:29,360 Speaker 1: Charles Goods. Here In fact, all of his work had 238 00:14:29,360 --> 00:14:33,640 Speaker 1: been possible due to Goodyear's friends being really generous with him, 239 00:14:33,760 --> 00:14:38,520 Speaker 1: from loaning him workspace to actually giving him money. And 240 00:14:38,600 --> 00:14:42,120 Speaker 1: it soured some of those friendships as Goodyear worked through 241 00:14:42,400 --> 00:14:48,120 Speaker 1: multiple expensive failures, but Goodyear and Ballard also failed, and 242 00:14:48,320 --> 00:14:51,280 Speaker 1: this time it was by no fault of Goodyear. Ballard 243 00:14:51,360 --> 00:14:53,880 Speaker 1: ran into his own financial hardships in the events that 244 00:14:54,000 --> 00:14:56,040 Speaker 1: led up to the Panic of eighteen thirty seven, and 245 00:14:56,080 --> 00:15:01,000 Speaker 1: he declared bankruptcy the company folded. Through all of his 246 00:15:01,120 --> 00:15:05,760 Speaker 1: ups and downs, Goodyear remained fairly upbeat, and he even 247 00:15:05,800 --> 00:15:09,800 Speaker 1: made fun of himself. He included an anecdote in his 248 00:15:09,880 --> 00:15:13,160 Speaker 1: writing about the development of rubber that he wrote decades 249 00:15:13,240 --> 00:15:16,680 Speaker 1: later about how he was always wearing things that were 250 00:15:16,680 --> 00:15:20,560 Speaker 1: made from rubber sheeting. These were often made by his wife, Clarissa. 251 00:15:20,760 --> 00:15:22,440 Speaker 1: This was in part to show what it could do, 252 00:15:22,520 --> 00:15:25,400 Speaker 1: and also because they didn't have other things to make 253 00:15:25,400 --> 00:15:28,200 Speaker 1: clothes out of. And when someone asked one of his 254 00:15:28,200 --> 00:15:31,240 Speaker 1: friends how he would recognize Charles Goodyear if he met him, 255 00:15:31,320 --> 00:15:33,720 Speaker 1: the reply was, quote, if you meet a man who 256 00:15:33,800 --> 00:15:37,120 Speaker 1: has on an India rubber cap, stock, coat, vest, and 257 00:15:37,200 --> 00:15:40,240 Speaker 1: shoes with an India rubber money purse without a cent 258 00:15:40,280 --> 00:15:44,880 Speaker 1: of money in it, that is he. Goodyear continued on 259 00:15:44,920 --> 00:15:48,720 Speaker 1: his own making rubber shoes and housewares as almost the 260 00:15:48,760 --> 00:15:52,760 Speaker 1: cottage industry, but he wasn't able to sell much. One 261 00:15:52,840 --> 00:15:55,960 Speaker 1: of the problems was that rubber had developed a bad reputation, 262 00:15:56,640 --> 00:16:00,120 Speaker 1: as Goodyear and other innovators had put rubber items to 263 00:16:00,200 --> 00:16:03,480 Speaker 1: market in eighteen thirty five and eighteen thirty six. A 264 00:16:03,560 --> 00:16:06,800 Speaker 1: rubber craze had driven a lot of people to purchase 265 00:16:06,960 --> 00:16:11,640 Speaker 1: rubberized items, only to discover that those items had problems, 266 00:16:12,320 --> 00:16:14,600 Speaker 1: So people were not as keen to buy stuff made 267 00:16:14,600 --> 00:16:17,920 Speaker 1: out of rubber, and retailers were also not that interested 268 00:16:17,960 --> 00:16:25,200 Speaker 1: in stocking rubber products honestly understandably, Goodyear regrouped, moved the 269 00:16:25,280 --> 00:16:27,760 Speaker 1: family back to New Haven, Connecticut, where they lived with 270 00:16:27,760 --> 00:16:31,520 Speaker 1: his parents, and he focused exclusively on waterproof shoes, and 271 00:16:31,560 --> 00:16:35,120 Speaker 1: he actually did okay for a while. He wasn't flush 272 00:16:35,200 --> 00:16:38,200 Speaker 1: with cash, but he was able to support his family. 273 00:16:39,000 --> 00:16:42,440 Speaker 1: Goodyear also met another man who worked in rubber named 274 00:16:42,520 --> 00:16:46,440 Speaker 1: Nathaniel Hayward during this period, and Hayward had figured out 275 00:16:46,440 --> 00:16:49,920 Speaker 1: a method of combining India rubber with sulfur and curing 276 00:16:49,920 --> 00:16:52,720 Speaker 1: it in the sun, and the result was a non 277 00:16:52,800 --> 00:16:57,880 Speaker 1: sticky rubber. Goodyear purchased Hayward's patent in eighteen thirty nine, 278 00:16:57,960 --> 00:17:00,360 Speaker 1: and he also hired Hayward to work with him Hayward 279 00:17:00,400 --> 00:17:04,600 Speaker 1: became his assistant. The sulfur treated rubber had the complete 280 00:17:04,640 --> 00:17:08,320 Speaker 1: nonstick finish that goodyear was after, but it came with 281 00:17:08,359 --> 00:17:12,040 Speaker 1: other problems. He started making all kinds of things with 282 00:17:12,119 --> 00:17:15,560 Speaker 1: this sun cured sulfur method, and he got a massive 283 00:17:15,640 --> 00:17:19,320 Speaker 1: and important order when the US Postal Service commissioned him 284 00:17:19,359 --> 00:17:22,000 Speaker 1: to make mail bags. And he made those bags and 285 00:17:22,040 --> 00:17:25,200 Speaker 1: he turned out really, really well. He had treated them 286 00:17:25,240 --> 00:17:28,960 Speaker 1: with chrome, lead and vermilion to make a faux leather finish. 287 00:17:29,080 --> 00:17:31,439 Speaker 1: This was something he was experimenting with a lot at 288 00:17:31,480 --> 00:17:34,600 Speaker 1: the time, and in his writing he stated quote being 289 00:17:34,640 --> 00:17:37,840 Speaker 1: desirous to beautify the fabrics with a variety of colors. 290 00:17:38,160 --> 00:17:42,400 Speaker 1: The writer used metallic and other colors indiscriminately for this purpose. 291 00:17:44,040 --> 00:17:46,400 Speaker 1: He treated the mail bags and then he hung them 292 00:17:46,440 --> 00:17:49,399 Speaker 1: in his workshop while he went away on vacation, And 293 00:17:49,440 --> 00:17:52,119 Speaker 1: when he got home, those bags were in piles on 294 00:17:52,200 --> 00:17:55,359 Speaker 1: the floor. The material was breaking down, and it also 295 00:17:55,600 --> 00:17:59,800 Speaker 1: smelled horrible. The rubber was rotting. He had not just 296 00:17:59,840 --> 00:18:03,440 Speaker 1: been making the mail bags this way. He'd also made 297 00:18:03,480 --> 00:18:06,960 Speaker 1: home goods and life preservers, and they had been selling. 298 00:18:07,680 --> 00:18:09,359 Speaker 1: And he had also been crowing to all of his 299 00:18:09,480 --> 00:18:14,080 Speaker 1: friends about his big government contract, and now people's stuff 300 00:18:14,160 --> 00:18:17,120 Speaker 1: was falling apart. He had a lot of angry consumers 301 00:18:17,240 --> 00:18:21,359 Speaker 1: and no mail bags to deliver on that contract. He wrote, 302 00:18:21,440 --> 00:18:24,439 Speaker 1: quote again, he saw those dear to him, together with 303 00:18:24,520 --> 00:18:28,040 Speaker 1: his aged parents, stripped of the comforts with which they 304 00:18:28,040 --> 00:18:31,800 Speaker 1: were surrounded. Everything that he possessed was brought to the 305 00:18:31,840 --> 00:18:36,280 Speaker 1: hammer for the discharge of private bills. Goodyear described this 306 00:18:36,359 --> 00:18:39,439 Speaker 1: as a time of serious misfortune in his life. He 307 00:18:39,520 --> 00:18:42,800 Speaker 1: was completely broke. He knew that he had alienated people, 308 00:18:43,200 --> 00:18:48,040 Speaker 1: describing himself as quote being justly debarred the sympathy of others. 309 00:18:49,320 --> 00:18:51,520 Speaker 1: A lot of people told him that he should give 310 00:18:51,680 --> 00:18:54,520 Speaker 1: up on rubber and go back to the hardware business. 311 00:18:54,960 --> 00:18:57,760 Speaker 1: She did not do that. Instead, he tried to figure 312 00:18:57,800 --> 00:19:00,719 Speaker 1: out exactly what had gone wrong with the process, and 313 00:19:01,000 --> 00:19:04,440 Speaker 1: he believed it was the colorants. His process had been 314 00:19:04,440 --> 00:19:08,000 Speaker 1: working perfectly on sheets of rubber, but these mail bags 315 00:19:08,000 --> 00:19:11,840 Speaker 1: and other new products that had failed were thicker, and 316 00:19:11,920 --> 00:19:14,760 Speaker 1: it seemed that the sun curing process just couldn't reach 317 00:19:14,840 --> 00:19:18,280 Speaker 1: the deeper layers of thicker items, so they weren't curing 318 00:19:18,400 --> 00:19:22,720 Speaker 1: all the way through. But though this whole ordeal would 319 00:19:22,720 --> 00:19:25,639 Speaker 1: probably destroy most people and he did seem to have 320 00:19:25,720 --> 00:19:29,120 Speaker 1: been in a downward spiral briefly, she bounced back kind 321 00:19:29,119 --> 00:19:31,960 Speaker 1: of quickly when something else caught his attention. He wrote 322 00:19:31,960 --> 00:19:35,040 Speaker 1: that he quote had hardly time enough to realize the 323 00:19:35,119 --> 00:19:39,000 Speaker 1: extent of his embarrassment before he became intently engaged with 324 00:19:39,080 --> 00:19:44,119 Speaker 1: another experiment and his mind buoyant with new hopes and expectations, which, 325 00:19:44,240 --> 00:19:47,040 Speaker 1: as it afterwards proved, were to be for the time 326 00:19:47,080 --> 00:19:51,199 Speaker 1: at least more than realized. In our episode about the 327 00:19:51,240 --> 00:19:54,560 Speaker 1: invention of the raincoat, we mentioned that it's often said 328 00:19:54,560 --> 00:19:57,520 Speaker 1: that the discovery of vulcanization was kind of an accident, 329 00:19:57,560 --> 00:20:00,040 Speaker 1: and that's true, although not in quite the way that 330 00:20:00,080 --> 00:20:02,040 Speaker 1: we said In that episode, that was sort of a 331 00:20:02,040 --> 00:20:04,600 Speaker 1: brief mention. It didn't get the kind of deeper dive 332 00:20:04,720 --> 00:20:09,760 Speaker 1: that today's episode is getting. So we know now how 333 00:20:09,800 --> 00:20:14,000 Speaker 1: things played out, at least according to Goodyear's account. He 334 00:20:14,280 --> 00:20:17,919 Speaker 1: stated that he was visiting a factory in Wourren and 335 00:20:18,160 --> 00:20:21,000 Speaker 1: he brought a sample of some of the compound that 336 00:20:21,080 --> 00:20:25,040 Speaker 1: had failed in the mailbags. According to him, the sample quote, 337 00:20:25,080 --> 00:20:28,560 Speaker 1: being carelessly brought in contact with a hot stove charred 338 00:20:28,800 --> 00:20:33,520 Speaker 1: like leather, so it didn't melt Goodyear described calling out 339 00:20:33,560 --> 00:20:35,840 Speaker 1: to his brother and some of the other people around 340 00:20:35,880 --> 00:20:38,959 Speaker 1: to point out how interesting this was, but it sounds 341 00:20:39,000 --> 00:20:41,680 Speaker 1: like they had kind of had enough of him getting 342 00:20:41,760 --> 00:20:45,199 Speaker 1: excited about things and then having them fall apart, so 343 00:20:45,359 --> 00:20:49,240 Speaker 1: nobody really paid much attention. But Goodyear really felt like 344 00:20:49,400 --> 00:20:54,399 Speaker 1: he had identified something important. His accident made him believe 345 00:20:54,440 --> 00:20:57,639 Speaker 1: that high temperature applied to a treated piece of rubber 346 00:20:57,680 --> 00:21:01,720 Speaker 1: cloth could potentially remove all of its stickiness if he 347 00:21:01,760 --> 00:21:04,840 Speaker 1: could just get the temperature and the exposure to it right. 348 00:21:05,560 --> 00:21:09,359 Speaker 1: So he started a series of experiments. He found that 349 00:21:09,440 --> 00:21:12,960 Speaker 1: if he heated sulfur to boiling, which is like hundreds 350 00:21:13,000 --> 00:21:16,520 Speaker 1: and hundreds and hundreds of degrees that you have to reach, 351 00:21:17,040 --> 00:21:20,159 Speaker 1: he could put India rubber in it and the rubber 352 00:21:20,160 --> 00:21:23,960 Speaker 1: would not melt and it would emerge intact, soft and pliable. 353 00:21:24,760 --> 00:21:28,200 Speaker 1: He also tried exposing treated fabric to fire and found 354 00:21:28,200 --> 00:21:30,439 Speaker 1: that it did not melt, but it charred as it 355 00:21:30,480 --> 00:21:33,880 Speaker 1: had done it in his accident at the factory. Once 356 00:21:33,880 --> 00:21:36,439 Speaker 1: he had proof of concept, he was all in on 357 00:21:36,480 --> 00:21:39,280 Speaker 1: his new process, and he spent several months testing it. 358 00:21:40,080 --> 00:21:43,200 Speaker 1: He tested a variety of different heat sources, and as 359 00:21:43,200 --> 00:21:46,720 Speaker 1: he refined he ran processes over and over to ensure 360 00:21:46,760 --> 00:21:50,280 Speaker 1: the results were consistent. The rubber he produced did not 361 00:21:50,480 --> 00:21:54,080 Speaker 1: break down in high temperatures, and as for cold One 362 00:21:54,119 --> 00:21:56,919 Speaker 1: of his daughters described seeing him nail a piece of 363 00:21:56,960 --> 00:21:59,959 Speaker 1: his treated rubber outside one evening before a cold night, 364 00:22:00,760 --> 00:22:02,879 Speaker 1: and then retrieved it in the morning, and he was 365 00:22:02,920 --> 00:22:05,679 Speaker 1: elated to find that it was still flexible and it 366 00:22:05,760 --> 00:22:10,320 Speaker 1: had not cracked, so he had figured out vulcanization. He 367 00:22:10,440 --> 00:22:13,440 Speaker 1: also gave the process that name after the Roman god 368 00:22:13,440 --> 00:22:16,320 Speaker 1: of fire. So at this point, after all of that, 369 00:22:16,520 --> 00:22:20,080 Speaker 1: this was a thoroughly tested process that addressed the problems 370 00:22:20,119 --> 00:22:23,199 Speaker 1: that everybody was having with the production of rubber, and 371 00:22:23,280 --> 00:22:26,040 Speaker 1: it addressed all of the problems that Goodyear had had 372 00:22:26,119 --> 00:22:29,760 Speaker 1: with his own mail bags and other products. But just 373 00:22:29,800 --> 00:22:32,800 Speaker 1: as his brother and colleagues had really not wanted to 374 00:22:32,800 --> 00:22:37,439 Speaker 1: hear it when Charles noticed his sample not melting in 375 00:22:37,520 --> 00:22:41,960 Speaker 1: that earlier incident, the consumer market was really not interested 376 00:22:42,000 --> 00:22:46,560 Speaker 1: in vulcanized rubber. In addition to the problems with reliability 377 00:22:46,640 --> 00:22:51,040 Speaker 1: of rubber products in general, Goodyear's failures were well known. 378 00:22:51,880 --> 00:22:54,960 Speaker 1: On top of those two problems, the idea of home 379 00:22:55,040 --> 00:22:57,919 Speaker 1: wayer Goods was seen as a novelty. He needed to 380 00:22:57,960 --> 00:23:00,480 Speaker 1: produce something bigger if he was going to really get 381 00:23:00,480 --> 00:23:03,199 Speaker 1: a large scale buy in from a company or a 382 00:23:03,240 --> 00:23:07,560 Speaker 1: government contract. And then there was the really big obstacle. 383 00:23:07,920 --> 00:23:10,919 Speaker 1: All of the items he had vulcanized were processed in 384 00:23:11,119 --> 00:23:14,920 Speaker 1: very small setups in Goodyear's home or in workshops where 385 00:23:14,920 --> 00:23:19,320 Speaker 1: he was borrowing time. He just couldn't produce anything at 386 00:23:19,440 --> 00:23:22,840 Speaker 1: scale to show that he had really figured things out 387 00:23:22,880 --> 00:23:26,600 Speaker 1: this time. The rest of Goodyear's life was like an 388 00:23:26,720 --> 00:23:29,800 Speaker 1: unending roller coaster ride, and not in a good way. 389 00:23:30,320 --> 00:23:32,760 Speaker 1: We'll get into it after we hear from the sponsors. 390 00:23:32,760 --> 00:23:45,240 Speaker 1: They keep the show going. During this time in Charles 391 00:23:45,280 --> 00:23:49,679 Speaker 1: Goodyear's life, when he was perfecting vulcanization, his family was 392 00:23:49,760 --> 00:23:53,119 Speaker 1: really struggling. In the winter of eighteen thirty nine to 393 00:23:53,160 --> 00:23:56,439 Speaker 1: eighteen forty, there was a very heavy snowstorm and the 394 00:23:56,480 --> 00:23:59,679 Speaker 1: Goodyears were trapped in their home with no fuel to 395 00:23:59,760 --> 00:24:03,160 Speaker 1: war and no food to eat. And remember he had 396 00:24:03,320 --> 00:24:06,960 Speaker 1: quite a few kids. Charles said that he was sick, 397 00:24:07,000 --> 00:24:09,240 Speaker 1: but that he walked through the storm to the house 398 00:24:09,240 --> 00:24:12,280 Speaker 1: of a man named Obie Coolidge looking for help. This 399 00:24:12,400 --> 00:24:14,240 Speaker 1: was a person who's kind of like a neighbor. They 400 00:24:14,280 --> 00:24:17,080 Speaker 1: had said high on the street once or twice, but 401 00:24:17,280 --> 00:24:20,440 Speaker 1: they didn't really know each other, and according to Goodyear, 402 00:24:20,640 --> 00:24:24,240 Speaker 1: he explained to Coolidge the situation he was in, including 403 00:24:24,320 --> 00:24:26,359 Speaker 1: the work he had been doing in the previous years, 404 00:24:26,920 --> 00:24:29,600 Speaker 1: and Coolidge not only gave him help with the family's 405 00:24:29,680 --> 00:24:34,479 Speaker 1: immediate needs to get them warmed and fed, he also 406 00:24:34,720 --> 00:24:39,320 Speaker 1: backed Goodyear financially for continued work, giving him additional funds 407 00:24:39,359 --> 00:24:43,640 Speaker 1: to sustain his efforts. Goodyear was working at the time 408 00:24:43,720 --> 00:24:46,560 Speaker 1: to create what he described as quote a set of 409 00:24:46,600 --> 00:24:51,440 Speaker 1: military equipments for specimens, with the intention of vulcanizing them 410 00:24:51,520 --> 00:24:54,400 Speaker 1: as soon as an apparatus could be obtained for the purpose. 411 00:24:55,480 --> 00:24:59,080 Speaker 1: But once again his luck tanked because before he could 412 00:24:59,160 --> 00:25:02,960 Speaker 1: vulcanize these items, the rubber fermented and they fell apart. 413 00:25:03,920 --> 00:25:07,600 Speaker 1: He had lost an entire winter's worth of work. He 414 00:25:07,680 --> 00:25:11,199 Speaker 1: talked the experience up to a learning opportunity, recognizing that 415 00:25:11,240 --> 00:25:14,159 Speaker 1: he could not mix natural rubber with a solvent and 416 00:25:14,200 --> 00:25:17,199 Speaker 1: then compound it with lead and sulfur unless he was 417 00:25:17,359 --> 00:25:22,320 Speaker 1: ready to vulcanize that right away. Finally, there was a 418 00:25:22,359 --> 00:25:26,320 Speaker 1: potential breakthrough, but it wasn't in the way that Goodyear anticipated. 419 00:25:27,160 --> 00:25:30,000 Speaker 1: He was approached by a French firm called Ratier in 420 00:25:30,080 --> 00:25:34,800 Speaker 1: Gibas to license his acid gas process, but he didn't 421 00:25:34,840 --> 00:25:36,960 Speaker 1: want to give it to them because he felt like 422 00:25:37,000 --> 00:25:40,480 Speaker 1: he was so close to large scale vulcanization and that 423 00:25:40,720 --> 00:25:43,520 Speaker 1: it would be a far better process for them to license. 424 00:25:44,359 --> 00:25:47,840 Speaker 1: This is really frustrating to read about because he continued 425 00:25:47,880 --> 00:25:50,480 Speaker 1: to put his family in peril by saying no, no, 426 00:25:50,560 --> 00:25:54,000 Speaker 1: just wait a little longer. When his two year old 427 00:25:54,080 --> 00:25:58,240 Speaker 1: son was dangerously ill because he had not taken this contract, 428 00:25:58,280 --> 00:26:01,240 Speaker 1: Goodyear wrote to a friend for hell and he got 429 00:26:01,280 --> 00:26:05,560 Speaker 1: back seven dollars and a letter chastising him for not 430 00:26:05,680 --> 00:26:08,840 Speaker 1: taking some sort of stable work to support his family. 431 00:26:09,960 --> 00:26:13,359 Speaker 1: With money borrowed from relatives, Goodyear took some of his 432 00:26:13,520 --> 00:26:17,320 Speaker 1: small home vulcanized items to New York and then once 433 00:26:17,359 --> 00:26:20,959 Speaker 1: again got funding, this time from a man named William Ryder. 434 00:26:21,640 --> 00:26:24,480 Speaker 1: This enabled Goodyear to set up a large scale facility 435 00:26:24,560 --> 00:26:28,280 Speaker 1: in Springfield, Massachusetts, and he started to gain some momentum. 436 00:26:28,520 --> 00:26:31,399 Speaker 1: He started getting orders for goods and he was getting 437 00:26:31,400 --> 00:26:34,320 Speaker 1: the business in decent shape when he got hit with 438 00:26:34,359 --> 00:26:38,679 Speaker 1: another bit of bad fortune. He landed in debtors jail again. 439 00:26:38,960 --> 00:26:41,879 Speaker 1: He was thirty five thousand dollars in the hull, and 440 00:26:41,960 --> 00:26:46,040 Speaker 1: people were filing claims against him, but this time he 441 00:26:46,080 --> 00:26:48,600 Speaker 1: took the option of declaring bankruptcy to get out of 442 00:26:48,600 --> 00:26:51,919 Speaker 1: that situation. Even so, once he was free from prison, 443 00:26:51,960 --> 00:26:54,320 Speaker 1: he continued to work until the debts he had were 444 00:26:54,359 --> 00:26:58,440 Speaker 1: all paid off. Shockingly, that only took a few months. 445 00:26:58,920 --> 00:27:02,440 Speaker 1: Yeah that French company and others did start to get 446 00:27:02,480 --> 00:27:05,480 Speaker 1: licensed deals with him, and that helped him really get 447 00:27:05,520 --> 00:27:08,240 Speaker 1: to a much more stable financial footing for a while. 448 00:27:09,280 --> 00:27:12,439 Speaker 1: The eighteen forties started with great promise, although Goodyear was 449 00:27:12,480 --> 00:27:16,320 Speaker 1: not entirely satisfied with the vulcanization process when it came 450 00:27:16,359 --> 00:27:19,800 Speaker 1: to fabric, which was really one of the big applications 451 00:27:19,840 --> 00:27:22,239 Speaker 1: of it. And the problem was that the fabrics that 452 00:27:22,280 --> 00:27:25,800 Speaker 1: Goodyear was adhering his vulcanized rubber to just didn't always 453 00:27:25,840 --> 00:27:28,320 Speaker 1: stay at here. He tried a lot of different kinds 454 00:27:28,320 --> 00:27:31,160 Speaker 1: of fabrics and they all had this problem. He spent 455 00:27:31,240 --> 00:27:34,240 Speaker 1: a lot of time year solving this problem, and it 456 00:27:34,359 --> 00:27:38,760 Speaker 1: ultimately saw Goodyear abandoning this idea of adhering the rubber 457 00:27:38,800 --> 00:27:43,560 Speaker 1: to fabric and instead directly mixing cotton fibers into his 458 00:27:43,640 --> 00:27:46,800 Speaker 1: India rubber in its liquid form. Before he'd laid it 459 00:27:46,800 --> 00:27:50,040 Speaker 1: out flat and vulcanized it, and this basically created an 460 00:27:50,200 --> 00:27:54,439 Speaker 1: entirely new fabric. Additionally, Goodyear did not really want to 461 00:27:54,520 --> 00:27:58,720 Speaker 1: run a factory. He was intent on licenses serving as 462 00:27:58,720 --> 00:28:01,639 Speaker 1: his income. But it took kind of a weird path 463 00:28:01,760 --> 00:28:05,440 Speaker 1: to try to get there, because he kept inventing uses 464 00:28:05,520 --> 00:28:09,560 Speaker 1: for vulcanized rubber and then building prototypes not to put 465 00:28:09,560 --> 00:28:12,400 Speaker 1: these items into production, just to show that this could 466 00:28:12,400 --> 00:28:16,600 Speaker 1: be done. This was a very expensive way to do business, 467 00:28:17,359 --> 00:28:19,840 Speaker 1: and he had taken so much time trying to perfect 468 00:28:19,880 --> 00:28:23,000 Speaker 1: things that other chemists were now able to develop their 469 00:28:23,040 --> 00:28:26,760 Speaker 1: own processes before he finally got a patent for vulcanization 470 00:28:26,880 --> 00:28:30,440 Speaker 1: in eighteen forty four. That led to legal issues down 471 00:28:30,480 --> 00:28:33,520 Speaker 1: the road. Yeah, we will talk about another patent holder 472 00:28:33,560 --> 00:28:37,400 Speaker 1: in just a moment. His next goal was to showcase 473 00:28:37,520 --> 00:28:42,040 Speaker 1: his inventions at world expositions. He spent years preparing to 474 00:28:42,120 --> 00:28:45,000 Speaker 1: exhibit at the eighteen fifty one Great Exhibition in London, 475 00:28:45,080 --> 00:28:48,560 Speaker 1: where he showed off vulcanization at frequent flyer on our 476 00:28:48,600 --> 00:28:51,920 Speaker 1: show The Crystal Palace. He won a medal for his efforts. 477 00:28:51,960 --> 00:28:54,560 Speaker 1: People really did recognize he had figured out a pretty 478 00:28:54,560 --> 00:28:58,400 Speaker 1: cool thing. But even as he was still celebrating his triumph, 479 00:28:58,920 --> 00:29:02,400 Speaker 1: he found himself in broiled in one legal battle after another. 480 00:29:03,200 --> 00:29:07,240 Speaker 1: In eighteen fifty two, he sued Horace Day for patent infringement, 481 00:29:07,480 --> 00:29:10,960 Speaker 1: and he actually hired Daniel Webster to represent him. That 482 00:29:11,080 --> 00:29:13,880 Speaker 1: was apparently very expensive. I saw one thing that claimed 483 00:29:13,880 --> 00:29:16,400 Speaker 1: that he paid Daniel Webster ten thousand dollars for that. 484 00:29:17,200 --> 00:29:20,800 Speaker 1: In eighteen fifty one, he did win the suit, and 485 00:29:20,880 --> 00:29:25,080 Speaker 1: he celebrated by taking the entire family to Europe. There 486 00:29:25,200 --> 00:29:28,880 Speaker 1: was some business in hand on that trip. Charles McIntosh, 487 00:29:28,960 --> 00:29:32,000 Speaker 1: the inventor of the raincoat, had a business partner named 488 00:29:32,080 --> 00:29:37,160 Speaker 1: Thomas Hancock. Hancock had patented his method for vulcanization, which 489 00:29:37,240 --> 00:29:40,280 Speaker 1: also used sulfur in Britain, at the same time that 490 00:29:40,400 --> 00:29:45,280 Speaker 1: Goodyear was getting his patent. Goodyear, no doubt, feeling confident 491 00:29:45,360 --> 00:29:48,880 Speaker 1: after the whole Horace Day verdict, intended to sue on 492 00:29:48,960 --> 00:29:54,000 Speaker 1: the grounds that Hancock had copied him. McIntosh, undoubtedly wanting 493 00:29:54,040 --> 00:29:56,280 Speaker 1: to keep his company out of any kind of legal mess, 494 00:29:56,320 --> 00:29:59,320 Speaker 1: tried to smooth things over and offered to give Goodyear 495 00:29:59,800 --> 00:30:03,360 Speaker 1: one half of the patent that Hancock held if Charles 496 00:30:03,360 --> 00:30:08,080 Speaker 1: would just drop his legal action. Goodyear refused, and later 497 00:30:08,200 --> 00:30:10,960 Speaker 1: he must have regretted this because he lost his case. 498 00:30:11,880 --> 00:30:14,400 Speaker 1: He could have had half of the British rights, but 499 00:30:14,440 --> 00:30:17,480 Speaker 1: then he returned home with nothing other than a big 500 00:30:17,680 --> 00:30:22,000 Speaker 1: legal bill. Yeah, there are many versions of the good 501 00:30:22,080 --> 00:30:24,760 Speaker 1: Year story that kind of tell his life story in 502 00:30:24,840 --> 00:30:29,560 Speaker 1: parallel to Hancock. And there is the possibility that Hancock 503 00:30:29,640 --> 00:30:32,440 Speaker 1: had gotten there's like an apocryphal story that he got 504 00:30:32,480 --> 00:30:36,080 Speaker 1: a piece of rubber that Goodyear had worked on and 505 00:30:36,120 --> 00:30:38,400 Speaker 1: he smelled sulfur on it and that led him to 506 00:30:38,480 --> 00:30:41,880 Speaker 1: his version. But we don't know that for sure. But 507 00:30:42,000 --> 00:30:46,239 Speaker 1: Goodyear made one bad decision after another, including going no, no, 508 00:30:46,320 --> 00:30:48,040 Speaker 1: I don't need all the money that you're gonna make. 509 00:30:48,680 --> 00:30:50,800 Speaker 1: That's fine, I'll make it all. And he didn't make 510 00:30:50,840 --> 00:30:55,760 Speaker 1: any The bad luck also continued. Clarissa Goodyear's wife of 511 00:30:55,760 --> 00:30:58,560 Speaker 1: almost thirty years at that point, died in March of 512 00:30:58,560 --> 00:31:02,360 Speaker 1: eighteen fifty three. He did remarry a year later to 513 00:31:02,480 --> 00:31:06,360 Speaker 1: a woman from London named Fanny Wardell. In the months 514 00:31:06,400 --> 00:31:10,160 Speaker 1: after Clarissa's death, Goodyear wrote and published his own account 515 00:31:10,240 --> 00:31:13,800 Speaker 1: of his life and work, titled gum Elastic and Its Varieties, 516 00:31:14,040 --> 00:31:17,480 Speaker 1: with a detailed account of its applications and uses, and 517 00:31:17,600 --> 00:31:22,120 Speaker 1: of the discovery of vulcanization. This book definitely reads as 518 00:31:22,160 --> 00:31:25,240 Speaker 1: though one of its goals is to establish Goodyear as 519 00:31:25,280 --> 00:31:29,240 Speaker 1: the inventor of vulcanized rubber. He opens the book, which 520 00:31:29,280 --> 00:31:32,440 Speaker 1: is more than five hundred pages long, with quote. The 521 00:31:32,480 --> 00:31:36,760 Speaker 1: writer finds himself so identified with the subject that he 522 00:31:36,840 --> 00:31:39,920 Speaker 1: deems it impossible to give a correct history of the 523 00:31:39,960 --> 00:31:44,560 Speaker 1: recent inventions in gum elastic without alluding to himself oftener 524 00:31:44,600 --> 00:31:47,600 Speaker 1: than he could wish by speaking of the trials and 525 00:31:47,680 --> 00:31:51,240 Speaker 1: discouragements which he had to encounter during the first seven 526 00:31:51,400 --> 00:31:56,520 Speaker 1: years of his experiments. In this writing, Goodyear goes right 527 00:31:56,600 --> 00:31:59,560 Speaker 1: to the basics. He talks about the Ficus elastica and 528 00:31:59,560 --> 00:32:02,480 Speaker 1: the West world's access to it. That's the tree that 529 00:32:02,560 --> 00:32:06,280 Speaker 1: it comes from, noting that while it grows in numerous regions, 530 00:32:06,400 --> 00:32:09,520 Speaker 1: its accessibility and cheaper cost in India at the time 531 00:32:10,000 --> 00:32:13,360 Speaker 1: resulted in most of it being sourced from there. And 532 00:32:13,440 --> 00:32:17,320 Speaker 1: he describes the process of getting the milky rubbery kouchuk 533 00:32:17,880 --> 00:32:21,000 Speaker 1: from the plant and processing it for use in various 534 00:32:21,080 --> 00:32:25,440 Speaker 1: forms that happened from the seventeen hundreds on. He compares 535 00:32:25,480 --> 00:32:29,000 Speaker 1: it and its uses to other substances like bitumen and 536 00:32:29,080 --> 00:32:32,560 Speaker 1: gud apercha. He walks the reader through the problems of 537 00:32:32,640 --> 00:32:36,440 Speaker 1: early rubber, which he calls gum or gum elastic. Quote. 538 00:32:36,480 --> 00:32:38,960 Speaker 1: In the early attempts to manufacture the gum in the 539 00:32:39,080 --> 00:32:42,440 Speaker 1: United States, it was found that no kind except that 540 00:32:42,520 --> 00:32:45,280 Speaker 1: which had been cured could be manufactured in any way 541 00:32:45,840 --> 00:32:49,360 Speaker 1: into goods that would not in a very short time decompose. 542 00:32:50,360 --> 00:32:53,240 Speaker 1: He noted that the way India prepped it for export 543 00:32:53,360 --> 00:32:55,400 Speaker 1: was part of the problem, and he hoped that they 544 00:32:55,440 --> 00:32:58,920 Speaker 1: would shift their methods as the global rubber industry grew 545 00:32:59,040 --> 00:33:02,440 Speaker 1: and more countries started making their own rubber supply available. 546 00:33:03,200 --> 00:33:06,080 Speaker 1: He also recognizes in this writing that, due to his 547 00:33:06,160 --> 00:33:09,960 Speaker 1: own advancements as well as those of others, the applications 548 00:33:10,000 --> 00:33:13,800 Speaker 1: that were making use of rubber were rapidly expanding. He 549 00:33:13,840 --> 00:33:17,320 Speaker 1: wrote about this in a way which evidences a racist 550 00:33:17,360 --> 00:33:20,280 Speaker 1: bias as well. He wrote, quote, the certainty that there 551 00:33:20,320 --> 00:33:22,720 Speaker 1: will in future be a very great consumption of the 552 00:33:22,760 --> 00:33:26,600 Speaker 1: various kinds of India rubber and waterproof gums has caused 553 00:33:26,640 --> 00:33:29,400 Speaker 1: a good deal of apprehension with many as to the supply, 554 00:33:30,000 --> 00:33:32,240 Speaker 1: and it is asked, where is it to come from? 555 00:33:32,520 --> 00:33:35,680 Speaker 1: Will there not be a scarcity. It is true that, 556 00:33:35,760 --> 00:33:39,120 Speaker 1: owing to the sudden and rapid extension of the manufacture, 557 00:33:39,240 --> 00:33:43,040 Speaker 1: together with some commercial speculation in the article, the price 558 00:33:43,120 --> 00:33:46,760 Speaker 1: has for the present year eighteen fifty one been unusually high. 559 00:33:47,360 --> 00:33:50,400 Speaker 1: So he started writing this couple years before it came out, apparently, 560 00:33:51,080 --> 00:33:53,840 Speaker 1: but this is a state of things which will not continue. 561 00:33:54,320 --> 00:33:58,480 Speaker 1: The supply is literally inexhaustible. There is a belt of 562 00:33:58,560 --> 00:34:02,120 Speaker 1: forest trees extending ten degrees each side of the equator 563 00:34:02,240 --> 00:34:05,920 Speaker 1: around the globe, which yield these gums of various kinds, 564 00:34:06,600 --> 00:34:09,400 Speaker 1: and has been the case with turpentine and resin the 565 00:34:09,440 --> 00:34:13,239 Speaker 1: greater the demand, the cheaper. In all probability, these substances 566 00:34:13,280 --> 00:34:16,640 Speaker 1: will be when once the attention of mankind is turned 567 00:34:16,640 --> 00:34:19,480 Speaker 1: to the subject, and that which is already being done 568 00:34:19,960 --> 00:34:23,680 Speaker 1: enterprising civilized races engage in the business of collecting it, 569 00:34:24,080 --> 00:34:26,759 Speaker 1: instead of relying on one tribe of Indians on a 570 00:34:26,760 --> 00:34:30,160 Speaker 1: single river, there will no longer be any solicitude on 571 00:34:30,200 --> 00:34:34,160 Speaker 1: the score of supply. The year after his second wedding, 572 00:34:34,320 --> 00:34:37,600 Speaker 1: Goodyear was back in Europe for another world's fair, the 573 00:34:37,640 --> 00:34:42,359 Speaker 1: Exposition Universal of Paris of eighteen fifty five. He spent 574 00:34:42,560 --> 00:34:45,720 Speaker 1: a lot of money on this effort, and reported fifty 575 00:34:45,800 --> 00:34:49,120 Speaker 1: thousand dollars. He spent so much money over the course 576 00:34:49,160 --> 00:34:51,600 Speaker 1: of the fair. While he was in France, he once 577 00:34:51,760 --> 00:34:54,320 Speaker 1: ran into money issues and ended up in a French 578 00:34:54,400 --> 00:34:58,560 Speaker 1: debtors prison. It sometimes reported that he received the French 579 00:34:58,680 --> 00:35:01,799 Speaker 1: legion of Hotter Metal while in prison, but Holly could 580 00:35:01,800 --> 00:35:06,000 Speaker 1: not find him in the legion of Honor registry Nope. 581 00:35:07,000 --> 00:35:10,440 Speaker 1: Once he was released from Debtors prison in France, Goodyear, 582 00:35:10,920 --> 00:35:13,960 Speaker 1: who had a long history of dyspepsia, was quite sick. 583 00:35:14,280 --> 00:35:17,319 Speaker 1: He's often described as having a variety of ailments, but 584 00:35:17,440 --> 00:35:20,080 Speaker 1: what they are is a little bit unclear. But he 585 00:35:20,200 --> 00:35:22,200 Speaker 1: was sick enough at this point that he thought he 586 00:35:22,239 --> 00:35:25,040 Speaker 1: was dying, and he actually sent letters to his friends 587 00:35:25,080 --> 00:35:29,680 Speaker 1: and family saying so and basically telling them goodbye. He 588 00:35:29,920 --> 00:35:33,120 Speaker 1: and Fanny traveled from France to Bath, England, and he 589 00:35:33,200 --> 00:35:36,719 Speaker 1: stayed there until eighteen fifty eight, so several years, as 590 00:35:36,760 --> 00:35:39,799 Speaker 1: his wife took care of him. He returned to the 591 00:35:39,920 --> 00:35:43,440 Speaker 1: US in May eighteen fifty eight, having pawned his wife's 592 00:35:43,520 --> 00:35:47,960 Speaker 1: jewelry to pay for that voyage. His business was a mess, 593 00:35:48,600 --> 00:35:51,239 Speaker 1: but he was able to get his patent extended for 594 00:35:51,320 --> 00:35:56,080 Speaker 1: seven years and that offered a fairly decent income. Goodyear 595 00:35:56,280 --> 00:35:58,160 Speaker 1: used the money he was bringing in to set up 596 00:35:58,200 --> 00:36:02,240 Speaker 1: a new home in Washington, d c. In eighteen sixty, 597 00:36:02,320 --> 00:36:05,640 Speaker 1: he learned that his daughter Cynthia was dying in Connecticut, 598 00:36:05,680 --> 00:36:08,560 Speaker 1: and he immediately set off by steamer to see her, 599 00:36:09,200 --> 00:36:12,800 Speaker 1: leaving Fanny and their five day old new daughter at home. 600 00:36:13,680 --> 00:36:16,799 Speaker 1: When this ship docked in New York, Goodyear was exhausted 601 00:36:16,840 --> 00:36:19,680 Speaker 1: from days of seasickness, and he was also met with 602 00:36:19,719 --> 00:36:23,719 Speaker 1: the news that Cynthia had already died. Goodyear was so 603 00:36:23,920 --> 00:36:26,880 Speaker 1: stricken that he could not continue on to Connecticut, and 604 00:36:26,960 --> 00:36:30,800 Speaker 1: he was taken to the Fifth Avenue Hotel. Fanny hurried 605 00:36:30,840 --> 00:36:33,560 Speaker 1: to meet him there after being notified that he was 606 00:36:33,640 --> 00:36:37,279 Speaker 1: on his deathbed. He lived for several weeks after this 607 00:36:37,400 --> 00:36:39,960 Speaker 1: and died on July first, at the age of fifty nine. 608 00:36:40,800 --> 00:36:46,000 Speaker 1: Goodyear unsurprisingly left a massive debt behind, totaling right around 609 00:36:46,080 --> 00:36:50,880 Speaker 1: two hundred thousand dollars. His son, Charles Junior, much better 610 00:36:50,960 --> 00:36:54,439 Speaker 1: with money than his father, settled his outstanding debts and 611 00:36:54,760 --> 00:36:58,399 Speaker 1: using the remaining money due through patent licensing, was able 612 00:36:58,440 --> 00:37:01,440 Speaker 1: to set up a fund to take care of Goodyear's 613 00:37:01,480 --> 00:37:06,120 Speaker 1: remaining dependent family. When the patents expired in eighteen sixty five, 614 00:37:06,239 --> 00:37:10,240 Speaker 1: Charles Junior sold the rights to the Goodyear name. Charles 615 00:37:10,320 --> 00:37:13,520 Speaker 1: Goodyear's life was so full of ups and downs, and 616 00:37:13,600 --> 00:37:17,200 Speaker 1: he was obviously a driven man and even a visionary 617 00:37:17,239 --> 00:37:21,680 Speaker 1: of sorts, but the task of managing businesses related to 618 00:37:21,719 --> 00:37:24,480 Speaker 1: his ideas was something he never got the hang of. 619 00:37:25,239 --> 00:37:28,160 Speaker 1: He wrote of the hardship of being an inventor in 620 00:37:28,239 --> 00:37:32,120 Speaker 1: this way quote he takes the precaution to procure letters 621 00:37:32,160 --> 00:37:35,600 Speaker 1: patent for his invention, which he counts as property, but 622 00:37:35,680 --> 00:37:39,040 Speaker 1: which amounts chiefly to this that the government grants him 623 00:37:39,080 --> 00:37:43,879 Speaker 1: permission to fight his own battles. Next comes the herculean 624 00:37:43,960 --> 00:37:47,759 Speaker 1: task of convincing the public of the advantages of the improvement, 625 00:37:48,320 --> 00:37:51,280 Speaker 1: and yet the more difficult one of supplying the market 626 00:37:51,360 --> 00:37:55,040 Speaker 1: with the improvement himself, and of preventing others from doing 627 00:37:55,080 --> 00:37:59,480 Speaker 1: it by encroaching on his patent. If his object is 628 00:37:59,480 --> 00:38:01,920 Speaker 1: to derived I have a prophet by disposing of his 629 00:38:02,080 --> 00:38:05,719 Speaker 1: patents for his inventions. It is well known that patents 630 00:38:05,719 --> 00:38:08,839 Speaker 1: are so commonly evaded in some way, and that the 631 00:38:08,880 --> 00:38:12,799 Speaker 1: patent law is so ineffectual for their protection, that the 632 00:38:12,800 --> 00:38:17,840 Speaker 1: public will not value them highly, if at all. Incidentally, 633 00:38:18,000 --> 00:38:21,360 Speaker 1: if you're thinking, yeah, but there's a Goodyear company that 634 00:38:21,440 --> 00:38:25,040 Speaker 1: still exists today that was not started by Charles Goodyear 635 00:38:25,160 --> 00:38:28,320 Speaker 1: or any of his descendants, although the name is inspired 636 00:38:28,360 --> 00:38:32,000 Speaker 1: by his work. That company was founded in eighteen ninety eight, 637 00:38:32,200 --> 00:38:35,400 Speaker 1: so almost forty years after Charles Goodyear died by a 638 00:38:35,440 --> 00:38:42,040 Speaker 1: man named Frank Sieberling. Okay. Did not know that me 639 00:38:42,120 --> 00:38:46,360 Speaker 1: either until I was working on this. Do you have 640 00:38:46,400 --> 00:38:48,839 Speaker 1: some listener mail? I do. I have so many thoughts 641 00:38:48,840 --> 00:38:51,520 Speaker 1: about Charles Goodyear. Can't wait for Friday. I have a 642 00:38:51,560 --> 00:38:55,360 Speaker 1: listener mail from Teresa or Teresa who writes, Hello, ladies. 643 00:38:55,760 --> 00:38:58,160 Speaker 1: I just finished your episode on the UFITZI Gallery and 644 00:38:58,200 --> 00:39:02,120 Speaker 1: it had everything international travel, well art, history, restoration. Michael 645 00:39:02,160 --> 00:39:06,319 Speaker 1: Kiboman quotes labor protests. What prompted me to write was 646 00:39:06,360 --> 00:39:08,759 Speaker 1: the date of the event. An event that happened in 647 00:39:08,760 --> 00:39:11,799 Speaker 1: my own lifetime always makes me feel old, sure, but 648 00:39:11,880 --> 00:39:14,759 Speaker 1: also brings me back to some questions I liked discussing 649 00:39:14,800 --> 00:39:17,320 Speaker 1: with my high school students when I used to teach 650 00:39:17,320 --> 00:39:20,040 Speaker 1: the history unit for a class called Theory of Knowledge. 651 00:39:20,719 --> 00:39:24,359 Speaker 1: When does an event become history versus current events? What 652 00:39:24,440 --> 00:39:27,960 Speaker 1: is worth preserving, whether physically or through story. Is the 653 00:39:28,000 --> 00:39:31,080 Speaker 1: passage of time helpful or detrimental for creating a more 654 00:39:31,120 --> 00:39:35,040 Speaker 1: accurate understanding of the past. Theory of knowledge is a 655 00:39:35,040 --> 00:39:38,680 Speaker 1: required course for kids in the International Baccalaureate Program IB 656 00:39:38,880 --> 00:39:41,319 Speaker 1: for short, and for a student in IB to write 657 00:39:41,320 --> 00:39:44,280 Speaker 1: a history essay, they are required to write on something 658 00:39:44,320 --> 00:39:47,080 Speaker 1: at least ten years in the past. The election of 659 00:39:47,120 --> 00:39:50,200 Speaker 1: twenty sixteen could now be considered history, as if the 660 00:39:50,280 --> 00:39:53,319 Speaker 1: nineteen nineties being history isn't weird enough. I would love 661 00:39:53,360 --> 00:39:56,399 Speaker 1: to hear your discussion on this. I no longer teach, 662 00:39:56,440 --> 00:39:59,680 Speaker 1: but work in education policy, trying to make teaching better 663 00:39:59,680 --> 00:40:02,600 Speaker 1: for teas teachers. I appreciate every single time you give 664 00:40:02,640 --> 00:40:04,799 Speaker 1: a shout out to the teachers on your show. This 665 00:40:04,880 --> 00:40:08,680 Speaker 1: episode had that too. I'll do it again. Thank you educators. 666 00:40:09,400 --> 00:40:12,360 Speaker 1: Since I've included pet tax in previous emails and I 667 00:40:12,400 --> 00:40:14,840 Speaker 1: know you like art. Attached are some of my artworks 668 00:40:14,840 --> 00:40:18,319 Speaker 1: featuring my pets, Raku, the Great Pyrenees border Collie mix, 669 00:40:18,480 --> 00:40:21,520 Speaker 1: Ruby the super mutt are in the paper cutout Christmas card, 670 00:40:21,840 --> 00:40:24,680 Speaker 1: and Treyla, the very cute but often evil eldercat in 671 00:40:24,719 --> 00:40:27,319 Speaker 1: the form of a felted toy partially made with her 672 00:40:27,360 --> 00:40:29,840 Speaker 1: actual fur. Thank you for all your work and amazing 673 00:40:29,840 --> 00:40:33,799 Speaker 1: stories you share with us every week. I love this 674 00:40:33,840 --> 00:40:36,000 Speaker 1: email because it brings up a thing that we talk 675 00:40:36,040 --> 00:40:39,080 Speaker 1: about on the show sometimes. Yeah, but we haven't in 676 00:40:39,120 --> 00:40:42,400 Speaker 1: a minute, and I think it's worth looking at. We 677 00:40:42,480 --> 00:40:46,239 Speaker 1: don't have a hard rule. We have ruleish kind of like, 678 00:40:46,960 --> 00:40:51,360 Speaker 1: usually we don't do stuff that's like after I don't know, sixties, 679 00:40:51,360 --> 00:40:57,560 Speaker 1: seventies usually, Yeah. Occasionally we've done something that's been more 680 00:40:57,600 --> 00:41:01,120 Speaker 1: into the eighties, usually something that was not such big 681 00:41:01,200 --> 00:41:05,800 Speaker 1: news in the eighties that are listeners of a comparable 682 00:41:05,840 --> 00:41:10,560 Speaker 1: age to us would have huge memories of it. So 683 00:41:10,600 --> 00:41:13,919 Speaker 1: the bombing part of the UFC episode was like more 684 00:41:13,960 --> 00:41:18,720 Speaker 1: recent than we typically talk about. Yeah. And the logic 685 00:41:18,800 --> 00:41:21,839 Speaker 1: for me of that, and what often happens in anything 686 00:41:21,880 --> 00:41:23,920 Speaker 1: that we end up talking about that is more like 687 00:41:24,040 --> 00:41:27,360 Speaker 1: eighties or in this case nineties, is that it ties 688 00:41:27,440 --> 00:41:30,920 Speaker 1: to something much older. Yeah. And so for me, I 689 00:41:31,000 --> 00:41:32,839 Speaker 1: talked about at the beginning of that episode that what 690 00:41:32,880 --> 00:41:35,480 Speaker 1: got me was that picture of the or not that 691 00:41:35,520 --> 00:41:38,200 Speaker 1: picture that that impression left by a window that they 692 00:41:38,360 --> 00:41:40,720 Speaker 1: leave in one of the vaulted ceilings in the ufize, 693 00:41:41,360 --> 00:41:44,400 Speaker 1: but it really like what got me really excited was 694 00:41:44,440 --> 00:41:49,319 Speaker 1: looking at how they're trying to preserve history that was lost, right, 695 00:41:49,360 --> 00:41:52,920 Speaker 1: And so that gave us an opportunity to talk about art, 696 00:41:53,120 --> 00:41:55,799 Speaker 1: which I always wanted to do, and Bartolomeo Manfredi and 697 00:41:55,880 --> 00:41:58,320 Speaker 1: like a little Caravaggio in there, which is also something 698 00:41:58,560 --> 00:42:01,319 Speaker 1: I love talking about. So it's kind of like a 699 00:42:01,400 --> 00:42:04,400 Speaker 1: through line that brings us to that moment in the nineties, 700 00:42:04,440 --> 00:42:07,799 Speaker 1: which is very pivotal to the story and that you know, 701 00:42:07,840 --> 00:42:10,640 Speaker 1: I try to give as much information as possible within 702 00:42:10,680 --> 00:42:13,880 Speaker 1: the confines of our show, right, but it has to 703 00:42:13,960 --> 00:42:17,359 Speaker 1: connect usually to something that happened much earlier than that 704 00:42:17,480 --> 00:42:21,640 Speaker 1: for us to walk you through those decades. Yeah, there's 705 00:42:21,719 --> 00:42:24,200 Speaker 1: not a like, there's not a hard and fast rule 706 00:42:24,320 --> 00:42:28,600 Speaker 1: of when something becomes history. I'm a big fan of 707 00:42:28,640 --> 00:42:33,920 Speaker 1: the ask Historians subreddit, which is one of the best 708 00:42:33,960 --> 00:42:37,880 Speaker 1: moderated communities on Reddit. If you're like, ah, I read it. 709 00:42:38,120 --> 00:42:40,839 Speaker 1: They their mobs are on top of it, and they 710 00:42:40,840 --> 00:42:44,920 Speaker 1: have rules about what is appropriate to both post and comment. 711 00:42:45,920 --> 00:42:49,080 Speaker 1: And if I'm remembering correctly, their rule is a twenty 712 00:42:49,200 --> 00:42:51,319 Speaker 1: year rule, because that is sort of what they have 713 00:42:51,480 --> 00:42:54,440 Speaker 1: come to feel like is an appropriate amount, Like you 714 00:42:54,600 --> 00:42:58,800 Speaker 1: have enough remove from the thing happening after twenty years 715 00:42:58,840 --> 00:43:02,160 Speaker 1: to look back on it, and you could make arguments 716 00:43:02,200 --> 00:43:05,680 Speaker 1: for amounts of time longer or shorter than that, but 717 00:43:05,760 --> 00:43:08,640 Speaker 1: that's sort of where they have arrived. And that has 718 00:43:08,680 --> 00:43:12,200 Speaker 1: also meant that when a twentieth anniversary of big big 719 00:43:12,239 --> 00:43:14,080 Speaker 1: things are coming up, they have to kind of like 720 00:43:14,160 --> 00:43:17,200 Speaker 1: brace for all of the questions about that thing that 721 00:43:17,239 --> 00:43:22,040 Speaker 1: are likely to happen. Yeah. So yeah, I mean we 722 00:43:22,440 --> 00:43:24,480 Speaker 1: take it on a case by case basis, and there 723 00:43:24,480 --> 00:43:26,440 Speaker 1: are times where we'll check in with each other and go, 724 00:43:27,080 --> 00:43:28,800 Speaker 1: this is going to get into recent stuff. Do you 725 00:43:28,840 --> 00:43:31,160 Speaker 1: think that's okay, just as like a gut check. Right. 726 00:43:32,800 --> 00:43:35,680 Speaker 1: I have also heard I feel like I had a 727 00:43:35,719 --> 00:43:38,240 Speaker 1: professor in college who said that their rule of thumb 728 00:43:38,320 --> 00:43:42,239 Speaker 1: is its history. If it's the previous generations thing, like 729 00:43:42,320 --> 00:43:44,359 Speaker 1: you may have lived through part of it, but like 730 00:43:44,440 --> 00:43:48,080 Speaker 1: if it was really a thing that impacted your parents, 731 00:43:48,640 --> 00:43:51,440 Speaker 1: it's you could consider that history. And that's the thing. 732 00:43:52,040 --> 00:43:54,439 Speaker 1: There's no rule, not just for us, but I don't 733 00:43:54,440 --> 00:43:58,480 Speaker 1: think anywhere you can't you can make guidelines. Right. We 734 00:43:58,560 --> 00:44:01,040 Speaker 1: talked about it a little bit in the when we 735 00:44:01,080 --> 00:44:05,839 Speaker 1: did the episodes about the Vietnam draft board raids. When 736 00:44:05,920 --> 00:44:10,880 Speaker 1: we started working on this episode, I are not this 737 00:44:10,960 --> 00:44:16,719 Speaker 1: episode this podcast. When we joined as hosts, the Vietnam 738 00:44:16,760 --> 00:44:21,200 Speaker 1: War felt too recent to me, But that was now 739 00:44:21,239 --> 00:44:24,160 Speaker 1: more than ten years ago, and we are farther from 740 00:44:24,320 --> 00:44:30,640 Speaker 1: that now, so that felt less less too recent for me. 741 00:44:31,880 --> 00:44:34,360 Speaker 1: I have other reasons. Yeah, we're getting close to fifteen 742 00:44:34,400 --> 00:44:39,080 Speaker 1: years ago. Yeah, that's true a long time. I think 743 00:44:39,120 --> 00:44:42,520 Speaker 1: we're at thirteen right now, at least from when I 744 00:44:42,560 --> 00:44:44,960 Speaker 1: when I came on. Oh yeah, he came on a 745 00:44:44,960 --> 00:44:50,120 Speaker 1: little earlier than me, so yeah. Yeah. The other thing 746 00:44:51,080 --> 00:44:55,440 Speaker 1: that you asked about in your email about like do 747 00:44:55,560 --> 00:45:00,240 Speaker 1: we get more clarity or less the farther things go back. 748 00:45:00,840 --> 00:45:03,279 Speaker 1: This is something that like the show I used to 749 00:45:03,320 --> 00:45:06,279 Speaker 1: work on, Criminalia, was kind of entirely based on this, 750 00:45:06,480 --> 00:45:09,960 Speaker 1: Like if we look at crimes, historical true crime from 751 00:45:10,040 --> 00:45:14,080 Speaker 1: the past through a modern lens with more research, like, 752 00:45:14,440 --> 00:45:18,320 Speaker 1: are any of these criminals and villains actually kind of misunderstood? 753 00:45:18,360 --> 00:45:21,000 Speaker 1: Which is often the case, right, A lot of women 754 00:45:21,040 --> 00:45:25,520 Speaker 1: that were vilified throughout history. It's like, no, that's not 755 00:45:25,560 --> 00:45:28,000 Speaker 1: what's going on here. I mean, we had cases on 756 00:45:28,040 --> 00:45:30,360 Speaker 1: that show of women who were considered witches and it 757 00:45:30,400 --> 00:45:34,799 Speaker 1: turned out really they were dealing with, you know, some 758 00:45:34,920 --> 00:45:38,960 Speaker 1: kind of mental illness or even a physical infirmity that 759 00:45:39,040 --> 00:45:42,480 Speaker 1: made them other that they got you know, ostracized, or 760 00:45:42,560 --> 00:45:44,200 Speaker 1: like there were people that when you look at the 761 00:45:44,200 --> 00:45:47,840 Speaker 1: bigger picture, you understand, oh, they've kind of been the 762 00:45:48,600 --> 00:45:51,520 Speaker 1: victim of bad press throughout history because one person told 763 00:45:51,520 --> 00:45:54,400 Speaker 1: their story and that's what got repeated. We see that 764 00:45:54,440 --> 00:45:57,360 Speaker 1: all the time on this show as well. And so 765 00:45:58,160 --> 00:46:00,800 Speaker 1: that is another thing that's case by case. Right, Sometimes 766 00:46:00,840 --> 00:46:05,240 Speaker 1: you have better perspective from a distance, but you also 767 00:46:05,360 --> 00:46:09,680 Speaker 1: lose clarity in terms of like being able to say 768 00:46:09,680 --> 00:46:13,439 Speaker 1: with certainty what certain details were. This came up on 769 00:46:13,480 --> 00:46:17,040 Speaker 1: your Elizabeth Blackwell something so that you researched where it's 770 00:46:17,120 --> 00:46:19,680 Speaker 1: like people thought she was born at one point and 771 00:46:19,719 --> 00:46:22,800 Speaker 1: she was this Elizabeth, but really she's actually a different 772 00:46:22,840 --> 00:46:26,080 Speaker 1: Elizabeth than We only recently figured that out, yep. And 773 00:46:26,120 --> 00:46:28,239 Speaker 1: I say we meaning historians, Tracy and I did not 774 00:46:28,239 --> 00:46:32,880 Speaker 1: figure that out. She referenced the history who we cited 775 00:46:32,920 --> 00:46:35,680 Speaker 1: in the episode. But so that too is a little 776 00:46:35,680 --> 00:46:37,960 Speaker 1: bit case by case. I think there are sometimes where 777 00:46:37,960 --> 00:46:40,680 Speaker 1: you get a treasure trove of information kind of dropped 778 00:46:41,520 --> 00:46:44,440 Speaker 1: that nobody knew throughout history and only came to light 779 00:46:44,600 --> 00:46:51,200 Speaker 1: because modern you know, living technology, records access enabled somebody 780 00:46:51,239 --> 00:46:54,680 Speaker 1: to find it. And other times it gets farther, it 781 00:46:54,680 --> 00:46:58,800 Speaker 1: gets more and more lost, right, I mean. Thomas Harriet's 782 00:46:58,840 --> 00:47:01,120 Speaker 1: another one. We didn't know he was the first person 783 00:47:01,160 --> 00:47:03,200 Speaker 1: to look at the moon through a telescope because he 784 00:47:03,239 --> 00:47:05,080 Speaker 1: didn't publish about it. They found his notes in the 785 00:47:05,160 --> 00:47:08,160 Speaker 1: trash four hundred years later they get in a midden 786 00:47:08,200 --> 00:47:12,240 Speaker 1: heap on his family's property, so we don't know. Yeah, 787 00:47:12,280 --> 00:47:15,160 Speaker 1: we always love those surprises. That's why Onearthed is so popular. 788 00:47:15,200 --> 00:47:18,000 Speaker 1: I think it did shifts everybody's gears about what they think. 789 00:47:18,120 --> 00:47:20,040 Speaker 1: It's going to be. Time to work on that soon, 790 00:47:20,360 --> 00:47:26,960 Speaker 1: I know. Anyway, that's the long answer to you, and 791 00:47:27,000 --> 00:47:30,000 Speaker 1: I hope it was illuminating and not overwhelming. If you 792 00:47:30,040 --> 00:47:32,160 Speaker 1: would like to write to us and ask us a question, 793 00:47:32,320 --> 00:47:36,680 Speaker 1: or share pictures of art, animals, whatever, also thank you 794 00:47:36,680 --> 00:47:39,000 Speaker 1: for the art. We always love it. Listen, we love 795 00:47:39,000 --> 00:47:42,920 Speaker 1: a little felted activity that's made of cat for You 796 00:47:42,960 --> 00:47:46,640 Speaker 1: can do that at History Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com. 797 00:47:46,840 --> 00:47:48,520 Speaker 1: If you want to see the show notes and the 798 00:47:49,120 --> 00:47:51,800 Speaker 1: resources that we used to put together an episode. You 799 00:47:51,840 --> 00:47:54,959 Speaker 1: can do that at mistinhistory dot com. If you would 800 00:47:55,000 --> 00:47:56,719 Speaker 1: like to subscribe to the show and you haven't gotten 801 00:47:56,760 --> 00:47:59,480 Speaker 1: to that yet, easypsy race and Cheesy, you could do 802 00:47:59,480 --> 00:48:01,719 Speaker 1: it on the eye Heart Radio app, or anywhere you 803 00:48:01,800 --> 00:48:09,879 Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows. Stuff you Missed in History 804 00:48:09,880 --> 00:48:14,280 Speaker 1: Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, 805 00:48:14,440 --> 00:48:18,000 Speaker 1: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen 806 00:48:18,080 --> 00:48:19,040 Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.