Friday, August 15, 2008

The History of Bubble Gum

In 1928, bubble gum was invented by a man named Walter E. Diemer. Here's what Walter Diemer, the inventor himself, said about it just a year or two before he died: "It was an accident." "I was doing something else," Mr. Diemer explained, "and ended up with something with bubbles." And history took one giant pop forward. What Mr. Diemer was supposed to be doing, back in 1928, was working as an accountant for the Fleer Chewing Gum Company in Philadelphia; what he wound up doing in his spare time was playing around with new gum recipes. But this latest brew of Walter Diemer's was -- unexpectedly, crucially -- different. It was less sticky than regular chewing gum. It also stretched more easily. Walter Diemer, 23 years old, saw the bubbles. He saw the possibilities. One day he carried a five-pound glop of the stuff to a grocery store; it sold out in a single afternoon. Get the rest of this article HERE...

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