inexpensive , dependable , and strong , the rubber band is one of the world ’s most omnipresent product . It holds newspaper together , prevents long hair from falling in a face , acts as a reminder around a wrist , is a playful weapon system in a pinch , and provides a way to easilycastrating baby male person stock … While rubber eraser itself has been around for centuries , rubber bands were only formally patented less than two one C ago . Here now is a brief history of the low , yet incredibly useful , India rubber band .
It has only recently been discovered that Mesoamerican people ( which includes Aztecs , Olmecs , and Mayans ) were make rubber ( though they did n’t call it this ) three thousand years ago . fuse milklike - white sap known as latex paint from the indigenous Hevea brasiliensis tree ( later call Para rubber Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree ) with juices from the morning aureole vines , they could create a hearty that was , surprisingly , quite sturdy . The civilizations used this ancient rubber for a mixture of intent , from sandals to balls to jewellery . In fact , while Charles Goodyear is more often than not credit with the design of vulcanized rubber ( a more lasting and non - sticky condom compound via the improver of sulphur and heating system ) , it seems that the Aztecs were simply vary the ingredient dimension ( between the latex and the morning time glory succus ) to create unlike variance in strength .
When Spanish explorers arrived in South America in the 16th hundred , they discovered for themselves the many uses of this elastic , malleable sap . When the Gallic explorer Charles de la Condamine “ discovered ” it in the 1740s , he call it “ caoutchouc ” , a French news , but a mutation on the South American Word of God for latex . In attempting to image out what it was exactly , Condamine add up to a wrong ending – he believe it was condensed resinous oil . The name “ rubber ” was only attributed to this rubber-base paint material when , in 1770 , the illustrious British pill pusher Joseph Priestley ( who also discovered O ) noted that the material rubbed pencil grade right off newspaper , thereby invent the eraser and generate the “ rubbing material ” a name . By the end of the eighteenth hundred , the fabric was forever bed as “ natural rubber . ”

In 1819 , Englishmen Thomas Hancock was in the stage business with his brothers when he endeavor to figure out effective ways to keep his customers dry while traveling . He become to rubber to develop flexible and waterproofed suspenders , mitt , shoe , and socks . He was so enamored with the material that he begin to pot produce it , but he before long realise he was generating monolithic amounts of wasted caoutchouc in the process . So , Hancock developed his “ Pickling machine ” ( later called a masticator ) to rip up the remnant rubber into shreds . He , then , mashed the malleable rubber together , creating a new substantial mass , and put it into molds to plan whatever he want . One of his first designs were bands made out of safe , though he never marketed or sell them , not realizing the practically of rubber dance orchestra . Plus , vulcanisation had n’t been fall upon yet ( which we will discuss in a moment ) , so the bands would moderate well on red-hot days and harden on cold days . In scant , these rubber bands simply were n’t very practical at this phase of the game , in term of many of the type of affair rubber bands would later be used for . Hancock did n’t patented his simple machine or the tittle of rubber it give rise , or else hoping to keep the manufacturing process completely secret . This would end up being a rather big mistake .
By 1821 , Hancock had perfected his machine , though he would keep it secret for about ten years , in an attempt to predominate the market . In fact , that is why he called it a “ pickle machine , ” to throw everyone off the scent . It worked . Hancock move around arctic into a commercially practical item and he dominated the market for the next twenty years .
In 1833 , while in jail for nonstarter to bear debts , Charles Goodyear began experimenting with India rubber . Within a few year , and after he got out of clink , Goodyear discovered his vulcanisation process . Teaming with druggist Nathaniel Hayward , who had been experiment with mixing natural rubber with sulfur , Goodyear developed a process of combining safety with a sure amount of sulfur and heating it up to a sealed peak ; the resulting material became voiceless , elastic , non - sticky , and comparatively impregnable . A few year later , in 1844 , he had perfected his process and was hire out patents in America for this process of vulcanization of rubber . He then traveled to England to patent his process oversees , but ran into a fairly large problem – Thomas Hancock had already patent the nearly selfsame cognitive process in 1843 .

There seems to be conflicting reputation on whether Hancock had developed the vulcanization unconscious process independently of Goodyear or if , as many claim , that he had acquired a sample of Goodyear vulcanise rubber and developed a slender mutation on the process . Either elbow room , Hancock ’s patent stop Goodyear from being able-bodied to patent his operation in England . The ensuing patent battle dragged on for about a decennium , with Goodyear finally coming to England and watch in person as a judge proclaim that , even if Hancock had acquired a sample prior to modernize his own unconscious process for this type of condom , as seems to have been the caseful , there was no way he could have figured out how to reproduce it simply by examining it . However , famed English inventor Alexander Parkes claimed that Hancock had once told him that running a series of experiments on the sample distribution from Goodyear had allowed him to deduce Goodyear ’s , at the metre , unpatented vulcanization process .
But in the end , in the 1850s the judicature sided with Hancock and granted him the patent , rather than Goodyear , quite literally cost Goodyear a fate ; had they decide otherwise , Goodyear would have been title to important royalty from Thomas Hancock and fellow India rubber pioneer Stephen Moulton .
Though he had a right wing to be bitter over the ruling , Goodyear take to search at it thusly , “ In reflecting upon the past , as relates to these subdivision of industriousness , the writer is not disposed to repine , and say that he has plant , and others have gathered the fruit . The advantages of a life history in life should not be estimated alone by the banner of one dollar bill and cent , as is too often done . Man has just get for regret when he sows and no one harvest . ”

Goodyear , though eventually receive the cite he deserved , choke in 1860 concisely after crock up upon learning of his daughter ’s dying , leaving his syndicate approximately two hundred thousand dollars in debt ( about $ 5 million today ) .
The patent dispute with Goodyear also had a unsounded , ultimately negative , impression on Hancock as well . As he was snarl in the time - consuming heap for years , others began to harvest the welfare on Hancock not patent his masticator process nor patent the apparently useless set that they created . Specifically , in 1845 , Stephen Perry , work for Messers Perry and Co , Rubber Manufacturers of London , filed a patent of invention for “ Improvements in Springs to be applied to Girths , bang , and Bandages , and Improvements in the Manufacture of Elastic band . ” He had discovered a role for those rubber ring – have paper together . In the patent itself , Perry outdistance himself and his invention from the ongoing vulcanized rubber dispute by tell ,
“ We make no title to the preparation of the india rubber herein mentioned , our invention consisting of leap of such planning of india rubber applied to the articles herein mentioned , and also of the peculiar kind of elastic dance orchestra made from such manufacture of india safe . ”

While the condom circle was invented and patented in the 19th century , at this period it was mostly used in factories and storage warehouse , rather than in the common house . This change thanks to William Spencer of Alliance , Ohio . The tarradiddle operate , according the Cincinnati Examiner , that in 1923 , Spencer observe the pages of the Akron Beacon Journal , his local newsprint , were perpetually being burn out across his and his neighbors ’ lawns . So , he came up with a solution for this . As an employee of the Pennsylvania Railroad , he knew where to acquire scanty gumshoe opus and discarded inner tube – The Goodyear Rubber Company also located in Akron . He cut these part into circular strips and begin to wrap up the newspaper with these bands . They worked so well that the Akron Beacon Journal bought Spencer ’s India rubber band to do the deed themselves . He then proceed to sell his rubber band to office supply , newspaper publisher good , and twine stores across the region , all the while continuing to work at Pennsylvania Railroad ( for more than a decade more ) while he built his business up .
Spencer also give the first pencil eraser dance orchestra factory in Alliance and , then , in 1944 the second one in Hot Springs , Arkansas . In 1957 , he designed and patented the Alliance rubber ring , which in the end set the world golosh band touchstone . Today , Alliance Rubber is the number one rubber set manufacturer in the world , churn out more than 14 million pounds of gumshoe bands per year .
So , next time you are shooting a protagonist with this little flexible equipment , you may give thanks the Mayans , Charles de la Condamine , Thomas Hancock , Charles Goodyear , and William Spencer for the simple , yet surprisingly utile rubber ring .

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This posthas been republished with permission fromTodayIFoundOut.com . range of a function byGrahamunder Creative Commons license .
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