The Goodyear Story: An Inventor's Obession and the Struggle for a Rubber Monopoly

Richard Korman has written a fascinating biography of an inventor, Charles Goodyear, harnessing a new technology that also provides a panoramic view of America at the onset of its industrial revolution. Drawing on newly discovered archival records, Korman tells a suspenseful story of scientific experimentation and legal struggle in creating a portrait of an eminent American whose eccentricity anticipates the trials of new economy pioneers of today.

Goodyear was an entrepreneur who actually made good on the ever-popular claim that his company would change the world. Korman, senior editor of Engineering News-Record, dryly traces the life of the rubber pioneer and American industrial legend in this part scientific history lesson and part American business story. Goodyear (1800-1860) became an inventor not out of any great scientific thirst; he was self-taught and wanted to make money. He earned success, but endured continual patent monopoly battles and numerous trips to debtors' prison as he steadfastly and compulsively held onto his dream of using rubber to change just about every aspect of life. (According to Korman, Goodyear frequently wore a coat made of rubber in his early inventing days to underscore the versatility of his product.) Korman waxes scientific at times, offering in-depth descriptions of how Goodyear cooked rubber and sulfur compounds, yet his technical discourses are not so esoteric that they will turn away amateurs. His book is also valuable for its accurate portrayal of factory life in the 1830s and '40s; his accounts of the aproned men who chopped rubber with axes and knives and the machines that ground it are lively examples of industrial age America. Although Korman doesn't emphasize it often, his book serves as inspiration for entrepreneurs of any age.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.