Their efforts were unavailing,
however. No better process was found, and the disgust of the public with
their goods was soon general and unmitigable. India-rubber stock fell
rapidly, and by the end of the year 1836 there was not a solvent company
in the Union. The loss of the stockholders was complete, and amounted in
the aggregate to two millions of dollars. People came to detest the
very name of India-rubber, since it reminded them only of blighted hopes
and heavy losses.
Before the final disaster, however, it chanced that a bankrupt merchant
of Philadelphia, being one day in New York on business, was led by
curiosity to visit the salesroom of the agency of the Roxbury Company in
that city. His visit resulted in the purchase of a life-preserver, which
he took home with him for the purpose of examining it. Subjecting it to
a careful investigation, he discovered a defect in the valve used for
inflating it, and promptly devised a simpler and better apparatus.
This man, afterward so famous in the history of India-rubber
manufacture, was CHARLES GOODYEAR. He was born at New Haven,
Connecticut, on the 29th of December, 1800.
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