Uses of rubber date all the way back to the
1600’s when the Mesoamericans used it for small things such as balls for
entertainment, and a type of temporary rubber shoe that was made by dipping
their feet into a latex mixture. However, the year that is better known for the
discovery of rubber is 1735 when the French scientist Charles de la Condamine
discovered it during an expedition to Peru. After he discovered it he
sent back the remarkable new rubber samples to the Académie Royale des Sciences
in France.
He spent the next ten years exploring Peru and
the rest of the Amazon. In 1745, he returned to Paris and in 1751
Charles's ''Journal du voyage fait par ordre du roi'' was published with all
his adventures and discoveries from Peru which included the uses, properties,
and importance of his newly found substance of rubber.
Condamine’s paper is known as the first
scientific paper on rubber. Rubber got its name, rubber, in 1770 when in England a man named
Joseph Priestly discovered it could be used to rub off pencil marks on paper. In 1764 François
Fresnau discovered that
turpentine was a rubber solvent.
The recognition for the many uses of the
newly discovered commodity exploded from a great number of scientists
and inventors who began discovering new ways to utilize the material, and
improving ways of production of the rubber. South America was a
major source of the rubber that was used in much of the 19th century.
Rubber soon spread all over the world, starting
its large spread with a man named Henry Wickham when he gathered the seeds from
the rubber producing trees in Brazil and germinated them in England. The seeds
germinated in England were then traded and exported all over the world to
places like India, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Indonesia, and Malaysia.
During this time Congo, Africa was also a large
producer of the trees used to make rubber therefore made them large producers
of the rubber as well.
Thomas
Hancock 1786-1865 British inventor of vulcanized rubber using raw rubber from
rubber trees and invented the machinery and processes to blend rubber with
other materials to give fabrics elasticity and water proofing. He also invented
a machine to recycle rubber. He began
experimenting with rubber in 1819.
Charles
Goodyear 1800-1860,
Charles Goodyear was born on December 29, 1800
in New Haven, Connecticut. In 1834, he began experimenting with natural rubber. In 1839, he accidentally
discovered the process of vulcanization. He struggled to patent it, as Thomas
Hancock had recently patented vulcanized rubber
Harvey
Firestone 1868-1938 grew up on his father’s farm in Ohio. After high school, he
worked at Columbus Buggy Co and started his own company in 1890. He patented inflatable
tires.
Norb
Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader
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