Page:The Gillette Blade, 1918-02.pdf/3



MR. KING CAMP GILLETTE

President of the Gillette Safety Razor Company

HE history of the Gillette razor is such that its reading will seem more in keeping with the tales of the Arabian Nights rather than with sober facts of the Twentieth Century, and though I have been intimately associated with its birth, growth and development, and take much pride in the fact that I am its inventor I hardly feel mentally equipped to do the subject justice, and fear my ability to make that personal appeal which I feel would be sure to reach the public heart.

It was in 1895, in my fortieth year, that I first thought of the razor, and to appreciate the causes that led to its conception it is necessary that I should go back a little and become somewhat personal in regard to myself and my affairs.

I was born January 5, 1855 in Fond Du Lac, Wisconsin, and from the time I was seventeen, and immediately following the Chicago Fire, in which my father lost everything, I have been the pilot of my own destiny. From the time I was twenty-one until the fall of 1904 I was a traveling man and sold goods throughout the United States and England, but traveling was not my only vocation for I took out many inventions, some of which had merit and made money for others, but seldom for myself, for I was unfortunately situated not having much time and little money with which to promote my inventions or place them on the market.

My impulse to think and invent was a natural one, as it was with my