William Henry Goodyear

William Henry Goodyear (1846–1923) was an American architectural historian, art historian, and museum curator. He was the son of Charles Goodyear (1800–1860), inventor of rubber vulcanization, and Clarissa Beecher Goodyear.

Goodyear was born in New Haven, Connecticut, spent much of his childhood in England and France, and graduated from Yale University in 1867 with a degree in history. He relocated to Italy, then Berlin (where he studied Roman law and history), and subsequently Heidelberg, where he studied art history under archaeologist Karl Friedrichs (1831-1871). In 1869 Goodyear traveled with Friedrichs to Syria and Cyprus, then spent 1870 in Venice and Pisa, where he studied the Leaning Tower of Pisa. In 1871 he married Sarah Sanford, his first of three wives.

He taught at Cooper Union until 1882, when he was hired as first curator of the new Metropolitan Museum of Art. In 1888 he published a popular survey of art history. From 1895-1914 he conducted a series of studies in which he photographed and measured European buildings.

In 1899 Goodyear was appointed curator of art at the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences (today the Brooklyn Museum), a position he held until 1923. He was a vital force in the early years of the Museum's fine arts department as well as doing extensive research in art history and architectural theory.

Goodyear died in 1923 of pneumonia and was buried in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn. Wilford S. Conrow, who had painted his portrait in 1916 [BMA, Department of Painting and Sculpture, 25.182], wrote a memorial to his life and work for the Brooklyn Museum Quarterly of July 1923. Conrow emphasizes the importance of the discovery of architectural refinements in Goodyear's life and the value of his work to the fields of architecture and art.