King Camp Gillette was born January 5, 1855 in Fond Du Lac, Wisconsin. The Gillette family moved to Chicago in 1859. Then in 1871, after the Great Fire destroyed their hardware supply business, they moved to New York City.
In 1891 he took the position of traveling salesman for the Baltimore Seal Company, who were manufacturing a seal for stoppering bottles.
On the road, Gillette used to shave every morning with a Star Safety Razor, which is a heavy, wedge-shaped blade fitted perpendicularly into its handle.
Safety razors had been developed in the mid-19th century, but still used a forged blade. In the 1870s, the Kampfe Brothers introduced a type of razor along these lines. One morning in 1895, Gillette, now living in Boston, had a revelation. If he could put a sharp edge on a small square of sheet steel, then he could market a safety razor blade that could be thrown away and readily replaced when it grew dull. It was an entirely new razor and blade that flashed in his mind—a razor with a safe, inexpensive, and disposable blade.
Gillette visited metallurgists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), who assured him his idea was impossible. It took Gillette six years to find an engineer, William Emery Nickerson (an MIT-trained inventor), to produce the thin, sharpened steel blades he envisioned. William Emery Nickerson changed the original model, improving the handle and frame so that it could better support the thin steel blade. Nickerson designed the machinery to mass-produce the blades, and he received patents for hardening and sharpening the blades.
In 1901 the American Safety Razor Company, soon renamed the Gillette Safety Razor Company, was formed. Sales and production, which began slowly in 1902 grew rapidly. By the end of 1905. annual production had grown in 250.000 razor sets and100.000 dozen-count blade packages.
For the first time, razor blades were sold in multiple packages, with the razor handle being a one-time purchase.
The invention of Gillette safety razor
