The Evolution Of Chewing Gum From Tree Sap To Hubba Bubba

Humans have a fondness for chewing on things they don't actually eat, a habit that literally goes back thousands of years. Today, you're more likely to be chomping on gum made from some sort of synthetic polymer mixed with artificial sweeteners and flavorings. For our ancient ancestors, gum was made from resin or natural latex. 

Nearly 10,000 years ago, Neolithic people in Northern Europe chewed on birch bark tar. Why they did this is debatable. Scientists have theorized that it was for perceived medicinal purposes or, as today, just for sheer enjoyment.Ancient Mayans and then Aztecs in Central America and Mexico chewed on chicle — a natural latex made from the secretions of the sapodilla tree — to stave off thirst and hunger as well as clean their teeth. 

Indeed, it was chicle that helped spur on our modern fixation with chewing gum. Sometime in the 1870s, inventor Thomas Adams partnered with General Antonio López de Santa Anna, the long-ruling president of Mexico who led the attack on the Alamo. While in exile in the U.S., Santa Anna hoped to turn chicle into a rubber substitute with Adams' aide. Instead, Adams invented the first truly modern gum.

Before Thomas Adams' breakthrough invention, there had been other U.S. gum makers. John Curtis created the first commercially manufactured chewing gum, which he launched in the late 1840s. He originally made his gum from spruce tree resin, a substance that Native Americans had been chewing on for centuries. But Adams' gum offered a better chewing experience, and his product quickly came to dominate the market. The Adams company, which owns Chiclets among other well-known brands, is still around today.

The next big name in the gum game is one you're probably very familiar with: Wrigley. William Wrigley Jr. launched his company in Chicago in the early 1890s and eventually began selling Juicy Fruit gum. Yes, Juicy Fruit was first launched during the Gilded Age. It wasn't until the 1920s that the world got its first taste (and chew) of bubblegum, the unique flavor of which comes from compounds called esters, chemicals that replicate the smell rather than flavor of different fruits. Walter Diemer, who worked for a Philadelphia gum maker, the Fleer Corporation, invented what would become Dubble Bubble. Then, in 1979, the Wrigley Company broke into the bubblegum business with Hubba Bubba, that soft and relatively non-sticky gum. So, the next time you pop a piece of gum in your mouth, you can thank Adams, Wrigley, Diemer, and many other innovators that you're not chewing on birch bark tar.