Édouard Michelin (industrialist, 1859)

Édouard Michelin

Édouard Michelin (born June 23, 1859 in Clermont-Ferrand , † August 25, 1940 in Orcines , Department Puy-de-Dôme ) was a French industrialist. He invented a pneumatic tire and is the founder of the Michelin company together with his brother André Michelin . Before that, John Boyd Dunlop had invented the first pneumatic tire in 1888 .

Life

Édouard Michelin initially studied law, followed by a degree in painting at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Michelin then opened a studio in the Parisian district of Montparnasse. Together with his brother, he inherited a rubber factory in Clermont-Ferrand in 1888, which their grandfather had founded. The brothers returned to their hometown that year and continued the business. In 1891 Édouard developed the pneumatic tire for bicycles, an exchangeable rubber tire with an air tube, the concept of which he adapted for car tires in 1894. Édouard Michelin is also the inventor of Bibendum , the famous Michelin man.

The success of the invention was enormous, and the small company rose to become the market leader in the bicycle tire business in just three years. By 1895, the Michelins also developed pneumatic tires for cars; by 1896, around 300 Parisian taxis were driving with Michelin tires.

After the brothers' death, the company, which had 25,000 employees at the time of Édouard's death in 1940, was initially continued by younger family members and converted into a holding company in the early 1950s .