King C. Gillette

Lore & Background

King Camp Gillette was born on January 5, 1855, in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, and raised in Chicago, Illinois. His family survived the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. In 1891, he joined the Baltimore Crown Cork and Seal Company and befriended founder William Painter, inventor of the disposable metal bottle cap. Painter advised Gillette to think of a disposable product that would bring customers back for more. Men at the time shaved with straight razors that required daily sharpening, and Gillette saw an opportunity for a razor with a throwaway blade.

Gillette improved earlier safety-razor designs and introduced a high-profit-margin stamped razor blade made from carbon steel sheet. The most difficult part was engineering the thin, cheap steel blades. Machinist Steven Porter created the first working disposable blade from Gillette's drawings, and expert machinist William Emery Nickerson improved the handle and frame and designed mass-production machinery. Gillette founded the American Safety Razor Company on September 28, 1901 (renamed Gillette Safety Razor Company in July 1902). Production began in 1903, selling 51 razors and 168 blades; the next year, sales soared to 90,884 razors and 123,648 blades, aided by low prices, automated manufacturing, and advertising.

Gillette was also a Utopian Socialist who published The Human Drift (1894) advocating a single public-owned corporation and a giant city called Metropolis powered by Niagara Falls. He later wrote World Corporation (1910) and The People's Corporation (1924) with Upton Sinclair. He married Alanta Ella Gaines in 1890 and had one child. In his later life, he traveled extensively and was recognized from his picture on razor blade packets. He died on July 9, 1932, in Los Angeles, California.

Reader's Guide

King C. Gillette's significance lies in his invention of the disposable safety razor blade, which transformed personal grooming and created a mass market for shaving products. Although often credited with the razor-and-blades business model—selling razors cheaply to boost blade sales—the Gillette Safety Razor Company actually adopted that model from its competitors. His innovation of a thin, stamped steel blade that could be discarded when dull made shaving more convenient and affordable, leading to millions of razors sold by 1915. The company provided field razor sets to American soldiers during World War I, further cementing its reach. Gillette's name and portrait became a globally recognized brand, and the company continued to thrive, eventually becoming part of Procter & Gamble. His legacy also includes his utopian socialist writings and his ranch in the Santa Monica Mountains, which later passed through various owners. The Gillette brand remains a major name in consumer products.

Did You Know?

• Gillette's family survived the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.
• He published a book titled The Human Drift (1894) advocating a single public-owned corporation and a giant city called Metropolis.
• He offered Theodore Roosevelt the presidency of a company with a fee of one million dollars, but Roosevelt declined.
• People in non-English speaking countries often asked for blades of 'the kind with the Man's Face'.