U.S. Rubber & Uniroyal in Middlebury – Part I

#Middlebury #USRubber #Uniroyal

This aerial view shows the Goodyear India Rubber Glove Manufacturing Company in Naugatuck, one of many rubber companies there in the mid-1800s. At that time, Naugatuck was the hub of the rubber industry in the U.S. (Robert Rafford scan)

By DR. ROBERT L. RAFFORD

When chemist Lisa Quint began her career at Uniroyal Chemical Company in 1961, the company was flourishing. During her years there, she garnered at least six patents for Uniroyal. But by the time she retired in 2002, Uniroyal was virtually gone, and the rubber industry, which had dominated Naugatuck for over a century, was a fraction of its former glory.

The company she had become a part of had a heritage stretching far back in the Naugatuck Valley. It all began 220 years ago last December, when Charles Goodyear was born in New Haven, Connecticut. He was raised in the Salem Society of Waterbury (now Naugatuck), and Quint’s work was intricately interwoven with Goodyear’s inventive contributions to commerce and industry, along with that of thousands of others.

In the 1830s, Charles Goodyear worked for five years trying to perfect a way to make caoutchouc (pronounced “kow-chook”), the old name for rubber, usable. In its natural state, rubber, or “India rubber,” as it was usually called, did not perform well in many conditions, such as hot or cold weather. Supported by friends and his wife, Clarissa Beecher, whom he married in Waterbury in 1824, he worked for a rubber company in Woburn, Massachusetts, developing rubber products and experimenting with perfecting rubber’s usefulness.

Soon he and his associates, including Nathaniel Hayward (1808-1865), a native of Easton, Massachusetts, discovered a special method of treating rubber with sulfur, a pivotal process that would become known as vulcanization. It transformed the rubber industry forever. Hayward and Goodyear were awarded patent No. 1090 for vulcanization on February 24, 1839. Goodyear clarified his method with patent No. 3,633, dated June 15, 1844, and two successive patents in 1847 and 1860, the year that he died, $200,000 in debt.

Charles and his brother, Henry, formed the Goodyear Metallic Rubber Shoe Company in Naugatuck in 1843-4, and subsequently licensed companies to sell their products. Rubber companies and dealers functioned successfully, but in 1892 the United States Rubber Company was formed in Naugatuck, ultimately controlling 12 of the 15 largest rubber manufacturing companies in the United States. Naugatuck subsequently became the hub of the rubber industry in this country. The Goodyear Metallic Rubber Shoe Company and the Goodyear India Rubber Glove Manufacturing Company, derivatives of Goodyear’s early company, continued to function into the 20th century as subsidiaries of U.S. Rubber.

In 1904, the U.S. Rubber Company formed the Naugatuck Chemical Company, which would later become the Uniroyal Chemical Company. Twelve years later, the footwear division founded U.S. Keds, which, 105 years later, are still manufactured. The company’s advertising says Yoko Ono wore them when she married John Lennon, Jennifer Grey danced to stardom in them in the film “Dirty Dancing,” and Taylor Swift became their global brand ambassador. In some ways, they, and numerous other rubber products, have been part of the lives of Naugatuck and Middlebury citizens for well over 100 years.

The United States Rubber Company adopted a new trademark, “Uniroyal,” in 1961, the year Quint joined the company, and in 1966, stockholders officially changed the corporate name to “Uniroyal, Inc.” By the next year, U.S. Rubber had unified all their trademarks and subsidiaries under the name “Uniroyal, Inc.”

You are urged to join the Middlebury Historical Society by going online at MiddleburyHistoricalSociety.org or visiting them on Facebook. Questions about membership can be sent to Bob at robraff@comcast.net.