Chicle, imported to the United States from Mexico and Central America, served as the main ingredient in chewing gum until most manufacturers replaced it with synthetic ingredients by the mid s. In the 20th century, chewing gum made William Wrigley Jr. Wrigley started out as a soap salesman in his native Philadelphia.
After moving to Chicago in , he began offering store owners incentives to stock his products, such as free cans of baking powder with every order.
When the baking powder proved a bigger hit than the soap, Wrigley sold that instead, and added in free packs of chewing gum as a promotion. In , the Wrigley Company kicked off a campaign in which it sent free samples of its gum to millions of Americans listed in phone books.
Another promotion entailed sending sticks of gum to U. Competition also played a role in the development of bubble gum. Frank Fleer, whose company had made chewing gum since around , wanted something different from his rivals and spent years working on a product that could be blown into bubbles. In , he concocted a bubble gum he called Blibber-Blubber, but it proved to be too sticky.
It took several false starts and a massive advertising campaign before the William Wrigley Jr. Company really took off, but by the time he died in , Wrigley was one of the richest men in the nation. The average American chewed sticks of gum a year by the s, creating a massive demand for chicle. As the fortunes of Adams, Wrigley and other chewing gum magnates surged, many Latin American communities would soon pay the price:. As is often the case, human appetites outmatched nature's resources.
Unsustainable harvesting methods used to increase yields killed at least a quarter of Mexico's sapodilla trees by the mids, and scientists predicted total forest depletion within four decades.
Fortunately for the trees but unfortunately for Latin American economies , chewing gum manufacturers soon began switching to cheaper, synthetic bases made from petroleum, wax and other substances. By , the United States was no longer importing any chicle from Mexico. But chicle may be staging a small comeback. In Britain this year , a small Mexican company called Chicza just launched what it is marketing as "the world's first biodegradable chewing gum.
If not, I expect to see it soon. Amanda Fiegl is a former assistant editor at Smithsonian and is now a senior editor at the Nature Conservancy. Chewing gum has been around for centuries. Fleer brothers made cubes of the chicle substance and overlayed the cubes with sweet material. They called their invention "Chiclets". However, that gum was too sticky to enjoy, and never sold well. The very first chewing gum vending machine was located in one of the New York City subway stations.
One day in , Mr. Wrigley got the idea of offering two packages of chewing gum with each can of baking powder. This offer was a huge success!
His first two brands were Lotta and Vassar. Juicy Fruit gum came next in , and Wrigley's Spearmint was introduced later that same year. By the early s, with all aspects of manufacturing, packaging and marketing modern chewing gum was well on its way to its current popularity. Gum with chicle soon got favor of spruce gum and paraffin gum, and it held flavors longer and better.
In William Wrigley and Henry Fleer added mint and fruit extracts to a chewing gum with chicle. The Wrigley Company was rapidly becoming an international success. Wrigley brands became known the world over. The first factories were established in United States and soon. In , an accountant for the Fleer gum company Walter Diemer attempted to make a new rubber product, but he accidentally founded bubble gum, that was not sticky.
He called it Double Bubble. Double Bubble this gum was based on original Frank Fleer formula.
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