Who Came Up With Chewing Gum? (2024)

FAQs

Who Came Up With Chewing Gum? ›

The American Indians chewed resin made from the sap of spruce trees. The New England settlers picked up this practice, and in 1848, John B. Curtis developed and sold the first commercial chewing gum called The State of Maine Pure Spruce Gum.

The first patent for chewing gum was issued in 1869 to William F. Semple of Mount Vernon, Ohio. His occupation? Dentist!

Walter Diemer, working for the Frank H. Fleer Gum Company, discovered bubblegum by accident while experimenting in the lab during his breaks.

Usually the phrase is used when referring to someone who can't “walk and chew gum at the same time”, implying that they are incompetent, uncoordinated, or only able to manage one task at a time. If someone can “walk and chew gum at the same time” they have the mental capability to manage two tasks simultaneously.

Coel based the show off her more serious play Chewing Gum Dreams, a semi-autobiographical riff on her own experience growing up in a Ghanaian family in the Tower Hamlets in London (like Tracey, Coel was once a Pentecostal Christian, though she has since left the church).

The chewing gum ban was implemented to eradicate problems created by chewing-gum litter in public places like cinemas, parks and common areas of housing estates such as lifts, staircases and corridors, as well as the high costs involved to clean up the litter.

Gum Beginnings

Chewing gum history begins thousands of years ago. Some of the first examples of chewing gum actually originated in the Americas. The ancient Mayans chewed chicle, which is the sap from the sapodilla tree, while North American Indians chewed the sap from spruce trees.

Chewing gum used to be considered rude, but it has now become quite common place. However, there are ways and whens to chew gum appropriately. It's OK to chew gum with friends or on the job, just long as you do it quietly. But bubble-popping, smacking sounds are rude and gross.

Experts don't fully understand how chewing gum improves memory. One theory is that this improvement is due to increased blood flow to the brain caused by chewing gum. Studies have also found that chewing gum may reduce stress and increase feelings of alertness ( 22 , 29 , 30 ).

Lynn Dornblaser, the director of innovation and insight at market research firm Mintel, said a growing number of consumers are trying to limit sugar in their diets and to eat foods with more natural ingredients. That limits the appeal of gum, since even sugar-free varieties often contain artificial sweeteners.

Why was gum banned in schools? ›

For decades, it has been a standard school rule that no gum is allowed. These adults have argued that students don't dispose of gum properly and chewing can be a distraction. Recently, however, studies have shown that gum chewing can help improve attention and focus, and when allowed, students properly dispose of gum.

In the late 1860s, Thomas Adams carried out a series of experiments with chicle, which is extracted from Mexican Sapota trees, hoping he could make the rubber-like substance into toys, boots or bicycle tires.

By all accounts, William Wrigley (1861-1932) is the "father of chewing gum." He transformed a small business selling soap into the top chewing gum manufacturer in the world.

and President Antonio López de Santa Anna did inadvertently contribute to the development and popularization of chewing gum in the United States late in life, bringing a tree-based product known as chicle from Mexico to Staten Island, N.Y.

In the United States, European settlers picked up the habit of chewing spruce from Native Americans as far back as the 1600s. But it wasn't until 1848 that a New Englander named John B. Curtis started selling it commercially. His Maine Pure Spruce Gum, and its natural spruce taste, became enormously popular.

Thomas Adams

Adams conceived the idea while working as a secretary to former Mexican leader Antonio López de Santa Anna, who chewed a natural gum called chicle. Adams first tried to formulate the gum into a rubber which was suitable for making tires.

After several unsuccessful attempts to vulcanize the chicle, Santa Anna gave up and returned to Mexico City, where he died in poverty in 1876. By adding flavors to the chicle, Thomas Adams eventually invented the first kind of modern chewing gum.