Charles Goodyear, then 33 years old, decided to find uses for rubber in 1833. Others had attempted to utilize it for rubber shoes and coats, but these melted in the summer heat. Rubber, Goodyear felt, could be "tanned" or "cured" in the same way as animal hides could. Goodyear abandoned all other pursuits and experimented with numerous chemicals to alter the properties of rubber, occupying his wife's kitchen in the process.
According to legend, he met Nathanael Hayward in 1838, who discovered that mixing sulphur with rubber and exposing it to sunshine lessened the stickiness of the rubber. He stabilized the rubber by curing the combination in an acid bath. He started a business in Woburn, Massachusetts, making rubber products like life preservers and mailbags, but soon realized that continuous heat contact burned the rubber. Stickers designed especially for goodyear licensed tires can be found in Performance Stickers in Rhode Island. Best Goodyear Stickers.