7 Charles Goodyear 7victory did not come until 1852. That year he went to
England, where articles made under his patents had been
displayed at the International Exhibition of 1851; while
there he unsuccessfully attempted to establish factories.
He also lost his patent rights there and in France because
of technical and legal problems. In France a company
that manufactured vulcanized rubber by his process failed,
and in December 1855 Goodyear was imprisoned for debt
in Paris. Meanwhile, in the United States, his patents
continued to be infringed upon. Although his invention
made millions for others, at his death he left debts of some
$200,000. He wrote an account of his discovery entitled
Gum-Elastic and Its Varieties (2 vol.; 1853–55).
John Deere
(b. Feb. 7, 1804, Rutland, Vt., U.S.—d. May 17, 1886, Moline, Ill.)
J
ohn Deere was a pioneer American inventor and manu-
facturer of agricultural implements.
Apprenticed to a blacksmith at age 17, Deere set up his
own smithy trade four years later and, for 12 years, did
work in various towns of his native Vermont. In 1837, when
33 years old, he headed west and eventually settled in
Grand Detour, Ill., where he set up a blacksmith’s shop,
and sent for his wife and children the following year. He
joined in a partnership with Major Leonard Andrus.
In his work, Deere found, through the frequent repairs
that he had to make, that the wood and cast-iron plow,
used in the sandy soils of the eastern United States from
the 1820s, was not suited to the heavy, sticky soils of the
prairies. Calculating that an answer lay in an all-steel one-
piece share and moldboard, he began experimenting, and
by 1838 he and his partner had sold three newly fashioned
plows. He kept experimenting, producing 10 improved plows
in 1839 and 40 new plows in 1840. By 1846 the annual