Page 332 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol IV

rubber 1633

the powers of the federal government. In the face of the ing any significance. It was the French scientist Charles de
potential collapse of the capitalist system, Roosevelt ush- la Condamine, who came across rubber during an expe-
ered in the welfare state, in part by managing the econ- dition to Peru in the 1730s, who first suggested the
omy in order to achieve publicly determined ends. By potential uses of rubber such as waterproofed cloth. He
aiding Britain in World War II, he helped preserve West- called it caoutchouc from the native name cahuchu,
ern liberal democracy and created a bulwark against meaning “weeping wood.” François Fresneau, a French
later Soviet aggression. In the process, he converted the engineer who had lived in Cayenne, French Guiana, also
Democratic Party to majority status through its appeal to promoted the use of rubber and discovered the value of
urbanites, minorities, and working-class voters, and made turpentine as a solvent for rubber in 1763. The first
it the party of liberal reform in the twentieth century. important use of rubber (dating from 1769) was the
removal of pencil marks, hence its English name “india
James G. Lewis
rubber,” which first appeared in the late 1780s. (Contrary
See also World War II to popular myth, the chemist Joseph Priestley was not the
inventor of the rubber eraser, and he was not the first per-
son to call the substance rubber.) Rubber-coated cloth
Further Reading was crucial to the development of balloons in the 1780s
Dallek, R. (1979). Franklin D. Roosevelt and American foreign policy, and 1790s, and suspenders (braces) were being made by
1932 –1945. New York: Oxford University Press.
Hamby, A. L. (2004). For the survival of democracy: Franklin Roosevelt 1803. There were two important breakthroughs in the
and the world crisis of the 1930s. New York: Free Press. 1820s. The English businessman Thomas Hancock
Hoopes,T., & Brinkley, D. (1997). FDR and the creation of the UN. New
Haven, CT: Yale University Press. invented the masticator, which allowed better processing
Leuchtenburg, W. E. (1963). Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, of rubber, in 1820, and he continued to revolutionize the
1932–1940 . New York: Harper and Row. industry for over two decades. Meanwhile the Scottish
McJimsy, G. (2000). The Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Lawrence: The University of Kansas Press. chemist Charles Macintosh replaced Fresneau’s turpen-
tine with a hydrocarbon solvent obtained from coal tar
in 1823 and used the rubber solution as glue between
two layers of cloth.This waterproof material produced a
superior raincoat that soon became known as a mackin-
Rubber tosh. In 1834, Hancock and Macintosh joined forces to
form Charles Macintosh & Co. in Manchester; it became
etween 1760 and 1940 rubber was converted from the leading rubber company in the world.
Ba trivial curiosity into a major international industry.
It has become central to modern living and crucial to the The Vulcanization
waging of war.This transformation was not the result of of Rubber
a single breakthrough or even efforts in one country, but Despite the efforts of Hancock and Macintosh, rubber
was the outcome of a gradual accumulation of technical was still a problematic material in the 1830s. In cold
advances and commercial developments across the weather rubber (and rubberized cloth) became rigid,
world. Rubber latex, obtained by cutting the bark of cer- and in very hot weather it was sticky and could even melt.
tain trees, was used in Central and South America for The American inventor Charles Goodyear (1800–1860)
some fifteen centuries before the arrival of Christopher found the answer to these problems in 1839. He heated
Columbus. It was made into balls and rubber shoes. rubber with sulfur and white lead (which accelerated the
Although Columbus and subsequent explorers saw these reaction) to produce a harder material which could
rubber balls, they did not see this strange material as hav- withstand changes in temperature. The process, which