The American Safety Razor Co. filed for a patent (issued November 15, 1905: US775134) for the famous “T” razor with interchangeable blades (the folding model in vogue at the time had been the subject of incidents of assault and murder). In June of the following year, the company changed its name to Gillette Safety Razor Co. The first razor was sold in 1903, along with 50 others that same year. The following year, it sold 90,000. By 1908, annual sales exceeded one million. King Camp Gillette, the company’s founder and patent holder, was a utopian socialist who, as he wrote in his books (written in 1894 and 1910), advocated moving the entire population of the United States to a megalopolis around Niagara Falls. This megalopolis would have electricity, everyone would eat at a single public soup kitchen, and a single public company would own and manage all businesses. This idea didn’t gain much traction, but the razor made him truly rich and famous, even though he died near poverty during the Great Depression. The company survived and expanded enormously.
