Charles Goodyear left school at age 12 to work in his father’s hardware store in Connecticut.
Charles Goodyear left school at age 12 to work in his father’s hardware store in Connecticut. At age 23 he married Clarissa Beecher and soon afterwards the couple moved to Philadelphia, where Goodyear opened a hardware store of his own. Goodyear was a competent merchant, but his passions were chemistry, materials science, and invention. In the late 1820s he became particularly fascinated with finding and improving practical applications for natural rubber (called India rubber). His experimentation would change the world, but Goodyear’s path to success would be challenging. In 1830, at age 29, Goodyear was suffering from health issues and his rubber experiments (which he had funded by borrowing) had not been successful. By the end of the year his business was bankrupt and he was thrown into debtor’s prison. It was an inauspicious beginning to his career as a scientist and inventor. The principal troubles with finding commercial applications for natural rubber was that the mat...