Chewing gum, as it is known today, was significantly developed and popularized by Thomas Adams Sr. in the late 19th century. Adams experimented with chicle, a natural gum from Mexico brought to him by former Mexican president General Antonio López de Santa Anna. After failing to use chicle as a rubber substitute, Adams created chewing gum and patented a machine to mass-produce chewing gum sticks, selling his product starting in 1871. Earlier, in 1869, a dentist named William Semple was the first to patent a chewing gum recipe, but it was Adams who made chewing gum widely popular and commercialized it as a product.
Bubble gum, a special type of chewing gum, was invented later in 1928 by an American accountant named Walter Diemer, who worked for a chewing gum company.
