Page:The Gillette Blade, 1918-02.pdf/6

6 until the summer of 1895, when, like a child that we have looked for and longed for, it was born as naturally as though its embryonic form had matured in thought and only waited its appropriate time of birth.

I was living in Brookline at No. 2 Marion Terrace at the time, and as I said before I was consumed with the thought of inventing something that people would use and throw away and buy again. On one particular morning when I started to shave I found my razor dull, and it was not only dull but it was beyond the point of successful stropping and it needed honing, for which it must be taken to a barber or to a cutler. As I stood there with the razor in my hand, my eyes resting on it as lightly as a bird settling down on its nest—the Gillette razor was born. I saw it all in a moment, and in that same moment many unvoiced questions were asked and answered more with the rapidity of a dream than by the slow process of reasoning.

A razor is only a sharp edge and all back of that edge is but a support for that edge. Why do they spend so much material and time in fashioning a backing which has nothing to do with shaving? Why do they forge a great piece of steel and spend so much labor in hollow grinding it when they could get the same result by putting an edge on a piece of steel that was only thick enough to hold an edge? At that time and in that moment it seemed as though I could see the way the blade could be held in a holder; then came the idea of sharpening the two opposite edges on the thin piece of steel that was uniform in thickness throughout, thus doubling its service; and following in sequence came the clamping plates for the blade with a handle equally disposed between the two edges of the blade. All this came more in pictures than in thought as though the razor were already a finished thing and held before my eyes. I stood there before that mirror in a trance of joy at what I saw. Fool that I was, I knew little about razors and practically nothing about steel, and could not foresee the trials and tribulations that I was to pass through before the razor was a success. But I believed in it and joyed in it. I wrote to my wife, who was visiting in Ohio, "I have got it; our fortune is made," and I described the razor and made sketches so she would understand. I would give much if that letter was in existence today, for it was written on the inspiration of the moment and described the razor very much as you see it today, for it has never changed in form or principle involved—only in refinements.

The day of its inception I went to Wilkinson's, a hardware store on Washington Street, Boston, and purchased pieces of brass, some steel ribbon used for clock springs, a small hand vise, some files and with these materials made the first razor. I made endless sketches which have since then been used in our Patent suits—and were the basis of establishing the time and scope of my invention. These sketches are still a part of the company's records. Then came the hour of trial, for I could not interest any one in a razor, the blades of which were to be used