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From prehistoric teeth marks preserved in ancient birch bark tar to billion-dollar global enterprises—the history of chewing gum is one of humanity’s longest-running oral fixations. No pun intended.
Stone Age: The first proto-like chewing gum made out of birch bark tar was discovered in Finland, where scientists carbon dated its age to 9,000 years ago. And the teeth marks were still visible!
Ancient Greece: Mastic gum, used for both teeth cleaning and breath freshening, appears in Ancient Greece—where the island of Chios was known as the main production center.
LATAM: Even the Mayans and Aztecs chewed gum. The Mayans chewed a type of gum for the same reason as the Greeks, for fresh brush and teeth. Whereas the Aztecs only chewed a type of gum called chicle, it was not acceptable for adults to chew it in public, and women chewed the gum throughout the day “in order not to be detested.”
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Modern-day chewing gum: John B. Curtis created the first commercial chewing gum in Maine, USA, in 1845. He named the brand “The State of Maine Pure Spruce Gum.” Though slow to start. It eventually became a huge hit.
First patent: Years later, in 1869, the first chewing gum patent was filed by a local dentist, William F. Semple.
Black Jack: New flavored gums like licorice would hit the markets in the 1870s, with the introduction of the brand, “Black Jack,” created by the entrepreneur Thomas Adams.
Chiclets: Commercial chewing gum would go mainstream in 1899, with the introduction of Chiclets. These were the first candy-coated gum, still loved by children today.
Gum Lockets: A gross fad that happened in the Victorian age. Chewing gum became popular among upper-middle-class Victorian women. Who wore gum lockets around their necks in order to store their chewed-up gum for later use.
Gum parties: As chewing gum became mainstream, weird things started to happen in society. The emergence of “chewing gum parties” emerged in 1904, where guests would take chewed-up gum out of their mouths and model it like clay.
Space contraband: In the early days of the space race, chewing gum was not approved for orbit. However, during the Gemini IV space mission, astronauts smuggled chewing gum into space without permission.
eBay: The most expensive piece of chewed gum that ever sold was for $14,000 on eBay when somebody found a piece of Britney Spears’s chewed-up gum and put it up for an audition.
Sapodilla trees: Before World War II, chewing gum came mainly from the sapodilla trees of Mexico and Central America. Where each sapodilla tree could only be harvested once every 3-4 years, these trees only produced one kilogram of gum per tapping.
In vogue: Chewing gum became so popular that by the 1920s, the average American was chewing 105 sticks of gum annually.
Rainforest devastation: It became such an in-demand product that eventually, by the 1930s, poor harvesting methods led to the loss of approximately 25% of Mexico’s sapodilla trees.
Chicle decline: Due to the deterioration of the sapodilla trees/chicle, chewing gum manufacturers needed a new source of material. This led to the development of synthetic gum bases from petrochemicals.
After WWII, manufacturers switched to these new synthetic rubber bases.
Global appeal: Chewing gum would also go on to become a worldwide phenomenon when American GIs traded it with the locals during WWII.
Mainstream: Today, North American kids spend about a half a billion dollars on gum each year! With more than 1,000 varieties of brands and flavors manufactured and sold in the USA alone.
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