King Camp Gillette
What failed
The Great Chicago Fire of October 1871 destroyed his family's hardware business when he was sixteen; the family moved to New York and he stayed behind in Chicago to clerk for a hardware wholesaler. Two decades of tinkering produced four patents and no money. The utopian book he published in 1894 went nowhere. When he took the idea of a cheap throwaway blade to metallurgists at MIT they told him it was impossible, and six years of experiments followed that proved them right. In its first full year on sale the razor sold fifty-one sets and a hundred and sixty-eight blades.
What happened next
An MIT-trained engineer, William Nickerson, solved the metal problem. The patent issued in November 1904 and sales that year jumped to around ninety thousand razors.
The point
The experts were not being obtuse. Given what was known about sheet steel in 1895, they were right, and he failed for six years proving it. What changed was not his persistence but finding the one engineer who could do the thing everyone had correctly said he could not.
The sequence
6 documented failures, shown with the successes in between. Every entry carries its own source — the wins are part of the record, and leaving them out is how these stories get distorted.
- 1871
The Great Chicago Fire destroys the family's hardware business and the family moves to New York. He is sixteen, and stays in Chicago to clerk for a hardware wholesaler.
- 1890
Two decades of inventing produce four patents and no money.
- 1894
The book setting out his plan to reorganise society goes nowhere.
- 1895
Metallurgists at MIT tell him a cheap throwaway blade cannot be made.
- 1901
Six years of failed experiments. The scientists and toolmakers he consults think the idea impractical.
- 1903
The first year on sale: fifty-one razor sets and a hundred and sixty-eight blades.
- 1904
The patent issues and sales jump to around ninety thousand razors.
Sources
- King Camp Gillette (National Inventors Hall of Fame)
Although only 51 razor sets and 168 blades were sold that year, by 1904, sales had jumped to 90,000 razors and two million blades.
- King Gillette (Lemelson-MIT)
Gillette visited metallurgists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), who assured him his idea was impossible.
- King Gillette (Encyclopedia.com)
Adams noted that the 17-year-old Gillette stayed in Chicago and clerked for a wholesale hardware company.
- King Gillette (Encyclopedia.com)
In October of 1871, a fire devastated the city of Chicago.
- King Camp Gillette (National Inventors Hall of Fame)
Born Jan. 5, 1855 - Died July 9, 1932
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