Chewing Gum: The Fortunes of Taste
Author: Michael Redclift
Not long after the Civil War, three-time Mexican president and Alamo victor General Santa Ana introduced chicle--a rare ingredient from Mexico that was the basis for what would become chewing gum--to a Staten Island inventor. Both were down on their luck, and little did they know that their chance meeting would help create an icon of the modern age. A functionally useless product that simply makes us happy, gum popped onto the American scene with a bang, quickly becoming an icon for baseball, movie stars, adolescent rebellion, and "attitude." A barometer of modernity, it was one of the first products to be advertised on billboards--a scheme hatched by the Wrigley brothers of Chicago.
But there was another side to the story as well. For not only was gum a mass culture archetype, it helped fuel a long indigenous revolution in the jungles of the Yucatan. And ironically enough, it was gum manufacturers like Wrigley who ultimately funded the Mayan Indians who collected the chicle as they fought for autonomy from the Mexican government.
In Chewing Gum, Michael Redclift deftly chronicles the growing popularity of gum in the U.S. alongside a fascinating history of peasant revolution led by charismatic Indians in the jungles of southern Mexico. Until the 1950s, the production of gum relied on the chicle harvested by Mayans. For seventy-five years, demand had steadily grown across the world. After World War II, however, synthetic gum replaced chicle, putting many of the "chicleros" out of work and ending a colorful epoch. Today, due to the current rage for "natural" products, chicle has made a comeback in a new role as natural chewing gum.
Vivid and absorbing,Chewing Gum is at once an American cultural history and an emblematic cautionary tale about the how the resources that fuel modern pleasures often come from scenes of violence, chaos, and oppression.
Library Journal
Ecologist and social theorist Redclift (geography, King's Coll., London) draws on research and his travels to present an in-depth look at a complex commodity. In the 1800s, a chance meeting started a mass consumer culture when General Santa Anna, former president of Mexico, introduced chicle (the raw material for chewing gum) to inventor Thomas Adams. Redclift examines the conditions under which chicle was collected in the jungles of Central America, revealing the social, economic, and political implications of chicle for the Mayan Indians and the Mexican government. He also recounts how chewing gum gained popularity as new experiments improved its taste, leading several companies to develop their own brands. Here, William Wrigley stepped in. He went on to dominate the manufacture of gum and was the first to advertise his product gum on billboards. "The history of chewing gum," states Redclift, "is, at one level an example of the globalization of taste; at another level it can be explained as the outcome of Americanization." There are other books on this topic written for young readers, but this book is unique in that the subject is rarely explored in a scholarly manner. Recommended for academic libraries.-Bellinda Wise, Nassau Community Coll. Lib., Garden City, NY Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Table of Contents:
(1) Introduction(2) The 'American Invention'
(3) Chicle and Social Revolution in Yucatan
(4) A Way of Life
(5) Bubblegum Cultures
(6) Mass Consumption and Popular Taste
(7) What it left behindEL
Interesting book: The Frog Run or Biscuits Pancakes and Quick Breads
Spider-Man Party Book
Author: Carol Field Dahlstrom
A complete guide for parents to plan birthdays and other special occasions around their child's favorite Marvel superhero
Chapters focus on individual Marvel comic book heroes, including Spider-Man, Hulk, X-Men, and Daredevil
Ideas and instructions for everything from invitations, decorations, and craft activities to games and party food—even decorated cakes—for each theme
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