GOODYEAR'S METALLIC RUBBER SHOE Stock 1878. Naugatuck, CT. Chas. Goodyear Patent

Description

The Goodyear's Metallic Rubber Shoe Company. Stock issued October 1, 1878 at Naugatuck, Connecticut.
Certificate
No. 351
was issued to James S. Elton trustee for Mary C. Rosencrantz for 12 shares of capital stock ( per share). Company capital was
0,000
. Hand signed by company
president James E. English
and
secretary George A. Davies
. Certificate is about 6” x 9.5”. Black print on
pale-blue paper
. Vignettes of an eagle perched on a branch with railroad and town behind (top right), Indian woman (bottom left), and dog next to chest (bottom center).
The Goodyear’s Metallic Rubber Shoe Company produced rubber boots using a vulcanization process developed and patented by Charles Goodyear. The company was founded in 1843 by Charles’ brother Henry Goodyear and partner Samuel L. Lewis in Naugatuck, Connecticut, and was the first licensee granted by Charles Goodyear.
The vulcanization process was perfected and patented in the 1830s-1840s by Charles Goodyear
, who labored for many years in his attempt to find the
correct process to perfect the treatment of natural rubber to withstand the elements
.
Vulcanization
uses heat to meld rubber to cloth or other rubber components for a sturdier, more permanent bond.
Before vulcanization, glue or cement was used
in a cold sealing process to bind rubber. From the beginning, rubber soled shoes with canvas uppers filled a strong consumer need and were highly popular.
By 1892, nine small rubber manufacturing companies consolidated to form the U. S. Rubber Company
.
Among them was The Goodyear’s Metallic Rubber Shoe Company.
Four years later, the massive company was
one of the original 12 company stocks making up the Dow Jones Industrial Average
. Another one of the nine merged companies,
Goodyear's India Rubber Glove Manufacturing Company
(named Litchfield Rubber Company until 1847), manufactured rubber gloves for telegraph linemen (this was the only company in which
Charles Goodyear, inventor of the rubber vulcanization process, is known to have owned stock
).
Charles Goodyear (1800 – 1860) discovered the vulcanization of rubber—a process that allows rubber to withstand heat and cold—revolutionized the rubber industry in the mid-1800s.
Automotive tires, pencil erasers, life jackets, balls, gloves, and more are all in commercial use because of
Goodyear’s relentless experimentation to unlock the molecular structure of rubber—and to solve what has been called the greatest industrial puzzle of the 19th century
. Part scientist, part dreamer, part entrepreneur, Goodyear devoted his life, and sacrificed his family’s wealth and his own health, to the commercial improvement of rubber. Born in 1800 in New Haven and raised in Naugatuck,
Goodyear was 33 years old when he decided to venture into rubber products in the 1830s after his father’s New Haven hardware business went bankrupt
. At that time, rubber appeared to be a “miracle material.” The gooey, milky sap, bled from trees in Brazil, was waterproof and easy to stretch. Called latex in its fluid form and rubber when it hardened, the substance could be formed to fit a variety of uses.
But India rubber, as it was called at the time, had a flaw, and it was a fatal one: it melted in the summer and cracked in the winter
. By the mid-19th century, the rubber industry was on the verge of collapse due to rubber products that sagged and melted in extreme temperatures.
Charles Goodyear spent his life and all of his money to finance experiments to make the material suitable for industrial use.
He moved several times—to New York, Massachusetts, Philadelphia, and Connecticut. In short, he went anywhere he could find investors and places to conduct his experiments. Goodyear mixed chemicals into raw rubber in pots and pans in makeshift laboratories that he set up in his wife’s kitchen. He inhaled the fumes of toxic concoctions, including nitric acid, lime, and turpentine, that he mixed together and kneaded into the rubber to make it stable. While working at the Eagle India Rubber Company, Goodyear accidentally combined rubber and sulfur upon a hot stove. Much to Goodyear’s surprise, the rubber didn’t melt. And, when he raised the heat, it actually hardened.
It would take Goodyear several more years to recreate the chemical formula and perfect the process of mixing sulfur and rubber at a high temperature; he patented the process in 1844, the year after establishing the Naugatuck India-Rubber Company in Naugatuck.
Goodyear named his discovery vulcanization
, after Vulcan, the Roman god of fire. He licensed his patent on June 15, 1844 and sold to manufacturers and showcased his invention at exhibitions.
After competing with British inventors for a patent in Britain, Charles Goodyear struggled to have his patent approved for many years, and finally died at the age of 59 in 1860.
Naugatuck
was settled in 1701 as a farming community in rural Western Connecticut.
As the Industrial Revolution commenced, Naugatuck was transformed into a mill-town like other cities in the Naugatuck Valley. Rubber was the major product made there.
The
United States Rubber Company
, renamed Uniroyal Inc. in 1961, was
founded in Naugatuck in 1892
and maintained its corporate headquarters there until the 1980s. The Footwear Division manufactured Keds “sneakers” in Naugatuck from 1917 until the 1980s. U. S. Rubber also produced Naugahyde fabric in a Naugatuck factory, but it is no longer produced there. The company founders recognized that chemistry was the key to make rubber more serviceable.
A group of Eastern footwear makers united in 1892 to share research and lower costs. One of the companies was the Goodyear’s Metallic Rubber Shoe Company of Naugatuck, founded in 1843 by Samuel L. Lewis under the first license granted by Charles Goodyear, who discovered the rubber vulcanization process in 1839.
Due to an increase in the price of sulfuric acid, which was needed to reclaim used rubber at the time, the United States Rubber Company formed the Naugatuck Chemical Company subsidiary on June 1, 1904.
Condition:  Very Fine
, light folds, minor-moderate creasing, no tears, moderate signs of wear/handling/toning (see photos),
uncancelled.
Printer:
Arthur & Burnst, New York City.
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