Fleer

The Fleer Corporation, founded by Frank H. Fleer in 1885, was the first company to successfully manufacture bubblegum; it remained a family-owned enterprise until 1989.

Fleer originally developed a bubblegum formulation called Blibber-Blubber in 1906. However, while this gum was capable of being blown into bubbles, in other respects it was vastly inferior to regular chewing gum, and Blibber-Blubber was never marketed to the public. In 1928, Fleer employee Walter Diemer improved the Blibber-Blubber formulation to produce the first commercially successful bubblegum, Dubble Bubble. Its pink color set a tradition for nearly all bubble gums to follow.

Fleer became known as a maker of sports cards, and has also produced some non-sports trading cards. In 1995, Fleer acquired the trading card company SkyBox International and, over Thanksgiving vacation shuttered its Philadelphia plant (where Dubble Bubble was made for 67 years). In 1998, 70-year-old Dubble Bubble was acquired by Canadian company Concord Confections; Concord, in turn, was acquired by Chicago-based Tootsie Roll Industries in 2004.