If any inventor's story epitomizes dedication to a remarkable discovery that fails to bring any financial reward to its originator, it is the life of Charles Goodyear. An acquaintance once described the inventor in these words: "If you meet a man who has on an India-rubber cap, stock, coat, vest and shoes, with an India-rubber money purse, without a cent of money in it, it is he."

Goodyear was born in 1800 in New Haven, Connecticut, the son of a hardware manufacturer and inventor. The frail and sickly young man began his disastrous business career as a hardware salesman in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Ill health brought him back to Connecticut as his father's partner. In 1826 Goodyear and his bride, Clarissa, opened the first American hardware store as an outlet for the senior Goodyear's products. Both father and son went bankrupt in 1830.

For the next few years Goodyear struggled to support...