Thomas Adams (* 1818 in New York; † 1905) is known as the father of chewing gum. The inventor sold gum made of chicle from the Sapotilla tree instead of gum-balls made of bee wax. Helpful was his good contact to Antonio López de Santa Anna, who was a General and several times president of Mexico.

During the 1860’s, when Adams switched from photography to a number of trades that brought him little money but served as an outlet for his inventive streak, Santa Anna went into exile from Mexico and boarded with Adams on Staten Island. One day Santa Anna mentioned chicle, the same gummy substance that people in his native Mexico had been extracting from tall sapota trees and munching on for thousands of years. Santa Anna said he thought the inventive Adams might be able to blend the chicle with rubber and come up with a considerably cheaper combination product for carriage tires. Adams bought some chicle from Santa Anna, and began his experiments.

Adams believed that he could find a new possibility to improve the production of artificial gum. He attempted to make toys, masks, rain boots, and bicycle tires out of the chicle from Mexican sapodilla trees, but every experiment failed. Consequently Adams intended to throw the remaining lot into the East River. But it happened that before this was done, Thomas Adams went into a drugstore at the corner. While he was there, a little girl came into the shop and asked for a chewing gum for one penny.

The idea struck him that the best of chicle was –as Santa Anna had told him- the chewing. He put a piece in his mouth and liked it. It was easy to chew. Adams decided to use his gum as a substitute of paraffin wax which gave the gum balls their taste. Adams used the rest of his entity and made pure chicle gum in little penny sticks and wrapped in various colored tissue papers. The first substance was too hard for the American taste. Consequently, he invented softer gum.

In February 1871, people from NY bought his pure chicle gum without any flavor en mass. Adams New York No. 1. was available for one penny. Adams went on in experimenting with gum .He added sugar, vanillin, peppermint oil and other ingredients till he reached the right mixture. Together with his sons he built up a chewing gum manufacturing company. In the same year he got his chewing gum manufacturing machine patented.

Adams added licorice flavoring and called the new gum “Black Jack.” It was the first flavored chicle gum on the market and the first gum to be offered as sticks. Black Jack was manufactured well into the 1970s.

In 1888 Adams´ gum „Tutti-Frutti“ was available by vending machines. They were installed at New York City Subway stations.

The Adams company became the most successful chewing gum company in the United States and in 1899, it created a monopoly by merging the six largest chewing gum manufacturers into the American Chicle Company.Adams became Chairman of the Board. His sons ran the business until the American Chicle Company was acquired by Warner Lambert in 1960. After that Cadbury Schweppes took it over.