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March 17, 2004
NY Gum No. 1
Well whaddya know?! It seems that Park Slope was once home to the one and only Thomas Adams, Jr.—inventor of the Chiclets, otherwise known as the first real (or should we say marketed) chewing gum. Of course, I had to investigate this. While my photo mission was halted by snow (or my depression surrounding yesterday’s snow), I did find some interesting tidbits about Chiclets, chicle, Front Street, General Antonio de Santa Ana.
According to The Encyclopedia of New York City, the first gum manufacturers were the Adams family—Thomas Adams and his two sons—who formed Adams Sons and Company in 1876. But let’s back up a bit.
Remember General Antonio de Santa Ana? I hope so. George W. would be angry if you didn’t. Somehow, the former Mexican president, exiled and shamed by his country for his failure to suppress the Texas revolution, wound up bunking with Adams Sr. at his home in Staten Island. (I can’t find a whole lot of information on how exactly that happened…I’ll give a cookie to anyone who can locate the details.)
During this time, Santa Ana suggested to Adams, a known inventor of sorts, that he might make a lot of money by combining chicle, extracted from the sapodilla tree (gum that Mexicans had been chewing for thousands of years) with rubber. For chewing gum, you might ask? No way—Santa Ana was talking about cheaper carriage tires. Ick. Chew on that. Actually, now we do.
Basically, a year of experimenting in their Front Street warehouse didn’t yield much. In fact, Adams was close to dumping the large quantity of chicle into the East River. Then, the idea came to him (it is rumored he’d had a conversation with a little girl at a penny candy store) to take the gum that he and his sons had been chewing while they worked on their fruitless rubber invention and market it.
And the rest is gum snappin’ history—Adams and sons created a thriving chewing gum company by the end of the 19th century. In 1899 it merged with SIX other manufacturers and was renamed the American Chicle Company. Of course, they made Chiclets.
American Chicle Company had its headquarters on 44th Street until the early 1920’s, whereupon they moved to Long Island City (Thompson Avenue). The LIC factory closed in 1981.
So, the next time you’re sitting on the F train listening to the biplet next to you obnoxiously snapping and cracking her gum, thank Thomas Adams and Sons. After all, their first slogan was:
"Adams' New York Gum No. 1 - Snapping and Stretching."
Resources
The Encyclopedia of New York City. Edited by Kenneth T. Jackson, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, the New-York Historical Society, New York.
The Neighborhoods of Brooklyn. Edited by Kenneth T. Jackson, Citizens Committee for new York City, Yale University Press, New Haven and London.
Posted by callalillie at March 17, 2004 6:37 AM | History
man, i used to love chiclets. there were times when i would put the whole box in my mouth. the crappy thing is that they lose flavor so fast. mmm. i could go for some chiclets right now.
Posted by: tien at March 17, 2004 9:01 AM
i love chiclets. can you get them anymore? i hadn't thought about them in a really long time. the gum gets hard too fast, though--- like bazooka. is it me or has the whole gum industry begun to move toward chiclet-size gum pieces? it used to be those giant hubba bubba pieces...now they've been whittled down to daintly little chews...
Posted by: corie at March 17, 2004 9:16 AM
not only that, but they are going to the chiclet packaging too. rather, the chiclet/nicarette packaging.
Posted by: tien at March 17, 2004 10:36 AM
I love going to Sahadi's and buying the cardamom and mastic Chiclets. Mmmm... mastic: essence of tree bark. (They also have peach-apricot flavor there occasionally, and lime.)
Great. Now I've got the craving for cardamom Chiclets, and I can't get to Atlantic Avenue for days. ARGH!
Posted by: Velma at March 17, 2004 11:15 AM
cardamom chiclets...i'd never heard of that. mmm.
Posted by: corie at March 17, 2004 11:19 AM
my husband told me that the house on the corner of 8th Avenue and Carroll was the home of the Chiclets gum family. (Mr. Adams, I assume.) There is some very bizarre haunted house story too. something else to research.
Posted by: sonnet at March 17, 2004 6:16 PM
WOO HOO! Sonnet posts after aeons of lurking :P
I want to know the haunted house story...Ken Jackson didn't cover that part in his book.
Posted by: corie at March 17, 2004 10:38 PM
I get a cookie!!! Well, maybe.
At the conference I just returned from I saw an advanced copy of "Chewing Gum" a history of chewing gum and the social and cultural impacts that gathering chicle had on the Mexicans who did the gathering. I tried to get a copy but they wouldn't give it up. The book is to be published in June.
Posted by: joe s at March 18, 2004 8:58 PM
Joe, you went to a chewing gum conforerence? :P I want your job.
Posted by: corie at March 19, 2004 6:54 AM
