Charles Goodyear's work is important to so many things we have in the 21st century. But his life and his work to create a stable rubber was full of problems -- many of them caused by Goodyear himself.

Research:

• Britannica Editors. "Charles Goodyear". Encyclopedia Britannica, 25 Dec. 2025, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Charles-Goodyear
• “Charles Goodyear.” Who Made America? PBS. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/theymadeamerica/whomade/goodyear_hi.html
• “Charles Goodyear - Vulcanization of Rubber.” National Inventors Hall of Fame. https://www.invent.org/inductees/charles-goodyear
• “Charles Goodyear - Vulcanized Rubber.” Lemelson-MIT. https://lemelson.mit.edu/resources/charles-goodyear
• “Charles Goodyear and the Vulcanization of Rubber.” ConnecticutHistory.org. https://connecticuthistory.org/charles-goodyear-and-the-vulcanization-of-rubber/
• “Charles Goodyear’s Machine for Making Rubber Fabrics.” ConnecticutHistory.org. https://connecticuthistory.org/charles-goodyears-machine-for-making-rubber-fabrics/
• “Death of Charles Goodyear.” Carbondale Advantage. July 21, 1860. https://www.newspapers.com/image/638799032/?match=2&terms=%22charles%20goodyear%22
• Goodyear, Charles. “Gum-elastic and its varieties : with a detailed account of its applications and uses, and of the discovery of vulcanization.” New Haven. Published for the Author. 1853. https://archive.org/details/gumelasticitsva121853good/
• Goodyear, Charles. “IMPROVEMENT IN INDIA-RUBBER FABRICS.” United States Patent Office. June 15, 1844. https://web.archive.org/web/20150714081931/http://www.dpma.de/docs/service/klassifikationen/ipc/auto_ipc/us3633a.pdf
• “Goodyear’s Gum Elastic Drapery and Parchment.” The Washington Union. May 4, 1837. https://www.newspapers.com/image/1038143941/?match=3&terms=%22charles%20goodyear%22%20mail
• Iles, George. “Leading American Inventors.” H. Holt 1912. Accessed online: https://books.google.com/books?id=Hn0_AAAAIAAJ&source=gbs_navlinks_s
• “India Rubber Fabric.” Daily Cleveland herald. October 10, 1835. https://www.newspapers.com/image/1073496245/?match=1&terms=%22Charles%20Goodyear%22
• Slack, Charles. “Noble Obsession: Charles Goodyear, Thomas Hancock, and the Race to Unlock the Greatest Industrial Secret of the Nineteenth Century.” Hyperion. 2003.
• Snow, Richard F. “Charles Goodyear.” American Heritage. April/May 1978. Vol. 29, Issue 3. https://www.americanheritage.com/charles-goodyear

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This 2022 episode covers the development of penicillin, which started – but definitely did not end – with the chance discovery of some mold in a petri dish.

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Tracy shares stories of her time in London. There is also a discussion of Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin’s marriage.

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After earning her first-class degree in chemistry from Oxford, Dorothy embarked on an impressive career in the new field of X-ray crystallography. She would ultimately earn many, many accolades for her work.

Research:

• "Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin." Encyclopedia of World Biography Online, Gale, 1998. Gale In Context: Opposing Viewpoints,
• Biophysical Society. “Profiles in Biophysics: Dorothy Hodgkin.” 2016. https://www.biophysics.org/profiles/dorothy-hodgkin
• Boon, Rachel. “Curator Rachel Boon celebrates the work of Dorothy Hodgkin.” Science Museum. 12/10/2014. https://blog.sciencemuseum.org.uk/celebrating-dorothy-hodgkin-britains-first-female-winner-of-a-nobel-science-prize/
• Bragg, Sir William. “Concerning The Nature Of Things.” London. Bell & Sons. 1932. https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.222386/
• Bud, Robert. "Discoverers and developers of penicillin (act. 1928–1950)." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. May 21, 2009. Oxford University Press. Date of access 22 Jun. 2026, https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-97279
• Dodson, Guy. “Dorothy Mary Crowfoot Hodgkin, O.M. 12 May 1910--29 July 1994.” Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society , Dec., 2002, Vol. 48 (Dec., 2002). Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3650256
• DOROTHY CROWFOOT HODGKIN. NobelPrize.org. Nobel Prize Outreach 2026. Wed. 24 Jun 2026. https://www.nobelprize.org/stories/women-who-changed-science/dorothy-hodgkin/
• Ferry, Georgina. "Dorothy Hodgkin". Encyclopedia Britannica, 8 May. 2026, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Dorothy-Hodgkin. Accessed 24 June 2026.
• Ferry, Georgina. "Hodgkin, Dorothy Mary Crowfoot (1910–1994), chemist and crystallographer." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. May 21, 2009. Oxford University Press. Date of access 22 Jun. 2026, https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-55028
• Ferry, Georgina. “Dorothy Hodgkin: A Life.” Bloomsbury. 1998, 2014.
• Ferry, Georgina. “Dorothy Hodgkin: on proteins and patterns.” The Lancet, 384, 1496-1497. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(14)61912-7/fulltext
• Ferry, Georgina. “The making of an exceptional scientist.” Nature. Vol. 464. April 29, 2010.
• Gamble, Jessa. “When Hodgkin met Thatcher.” Nature. Vol. 514. October 16, 2014.
• Hodgkin, Dorothy Crowfoot. “The X-ray analysis of complicated molecules.” Nobel Lecture, December 11, 1964. https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2018/06/hodgkin-lecture-1.pdf
• Hodgkin, Dorothy. “The Pugwash Movement.” India International Centre Quarterly. Vol. 13, No. 2. June 1986. Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23001474
• Howard, Judith A.K. “Dorothy Hodgkin and her contributions to biochemistry.” Nature Reviews. Vol. 4. November 2003.
• gale.com/apps/doc/K1631003072/GPS?u=mlin_n_melpub&sid=bookmark-GPS&xid=8d7c4045. Accessed 23 June 2026.
• Pearce, JMS. “Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin OM, FRS (1910-1994).” Hektoen International. https://hekint.org/2020/11/04/dorothy-crowfoot-hodgkin-om-frs-1910-1994/
• Perutz, Max. “Dorothy Crowfoot ” The Independent. Via The Crystallographic Community. https://www.iucr.org/people/crystallographers/dorothy-crowfoot-hodgkin-by-m.f.-perutz
• Pietzsch, Jochim. “Perspectives: Enhancing X-ray vision.” Nobel Prize. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/1964/perspectives/
• Ramaseshan, S. “Dorothy Hodgkin and the Indian Connection.” Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London , Jan., 1996. http://www.jstor.com/stable/531845
• Root-Bernstein, Robert. “Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin: Structure as Art.” Leonardo , 2007, Vol. 40, No. 3 (2007). Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/20206415
• Science History Institute Museum and Library. “Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin.” https://www.sciencehistory.org/education/scientific-biographies/dorothy-crowfoot-hodgkin/
• The Royal Society. “Dorothy Hodgkin FRS.” https://royalsociety.org/about-us/who-we-are/diversity-inclusion/case-studies/scientists-with-disabilities/dorothy-hodgkin/
• “Science for peace Building cultures of cooperation and non-violence through scientific collaboration.” 2025. Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep73183.6
• University of Oxford History of Science Museum. “Modelling the Structure of Penicillin.” https://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/backfromthedead/exhibition/the-structure-of-penicillin/index.html
• Vijayan, M. “An outstanding scientist and great humanist: An obituary of Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin.” Current Science, 10 August 1994, Vol. 67, No. 3 (10 August 1994). Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/24095820
• Wallace, Rob. “Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin: Captured by Crystals.” National World War II 3/16/2022. https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/dorothy-hodgkin-penicillin-insulin

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