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William Emery Nickerson
Born(1853-11-05)November 5, 1853
Provincetown, Massachusetts
DiedJune 6, 1930(1930-06-06) (aged 76)
Boston, Massachusetts
Resting placeMount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, Massachusetts
NationalityAmerican
EducationMassachusetts Institute of Technology
EmployerGillette Safety Razor Company
SpouseNellie Rosalie Partridge (1857–1937)
ChildrenWilliam Emery Nickerson, Jr. (1880–1881)
Patent drawing of the Razor.

William Emery Nickerson (November 5, 1853 – June 6, 1930) was an American businessman.[1] He invented a best selling version of the safety razor.[1] Several models were in existence before Gillette's design. Gillette's innovation was the thin, inexpensive, disposable blade of stamped steel.[2] Gillette is widely credited with inventing the so-called razor and blades business model, where razors are sold cheaply to increase the market for blades,[3] but in fact he only adopted this model after his competitors did.[4]

Nickerson[edit]

Nickerson was born in Provincetown in 1853, and was trained as a chemist at MIT, receiving his degree in 1876.[5]

His first patent was related to extracting tanning compound from tree bark; he designed a machine to grind bark finely.[6]

After reading of an elevator crash that had killed several people, Nickerson set out to create safety devices that would make elevators safer.[7]

In 1889, Nickerson joined a company creating light bulbs, with Nickerson working on a vacuum pump, necessary to remove air from inside the bulb.[8] The Edison Company sued the firm in 1893, on grounds that Edison held a patent on all-glass bulbs; a judge agreed.[9] Nickerson subsequently invented a way to seal the bulb with a plug, something that Thomas Edison had felt was not possible.[10] While the technology was successful, Nickerson's firm was put out of business in 1895 due to price cuts by the Edison Company.[11]

In 1895, Nickerson worked in a new company, on automatic weighing machines for the food industry.[12] The company was reasonably successful, but investors moved the company to Jersey City, New York, and Nickerson accepted a reduced role.[13]

Overall, Nickerson was technically very adept, with many patents to his name, but he was not able to turn his technical expertise into significant business success.[14]

In 1900, Nickerson was asked to review Gillette's razor idea, which he did, but did not meet or become involved with Gillette at that time.[15]

In 1901, Nickerson was again asked to review Gillette's razor.[16] This time, after longer review, he "envisioned machinery that would harden and sharpen the thin steel blades to a keen cutting edge."[17] He was so confident, that he offered to take company stock as compensation.[18] Nickerson first met Gillette at this time,[19] and Gillette's company was organized at the end of September 1901.[20]

Nickerson set out to create machinery to produce the blades, working on Atlantic Avenue in Boston.[21] By May 1902, he felt he had a workable design.[22]After Gillette secured additional investors (and funding) for the company Nickerson was creating sample blades in April.[23] Gillette's new disposable razor, with blades created by Nickerson's machinery, were publicly announced in October.[24]

In 1914, Nickerson created an automatic honing machine, improving the blade manufacturing process.[25]

November 1930, recently deceased.[26]

Nickerson died in Boston in June 1906, aged 76 or 77.[27][28]

Biography[edit]

His ancestors came from England to Massachusetts in 1630. He was born on January 5, 1855 in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin and raised in Chicago, Illinois.[1] His family survived the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.[29]

While working as a salesman for the Crown Cork and Seal Company in the 1890s, Gillette saw bottle caps, with the cork seal he sold, thrown away after the bottle was opened. This made him recognize the value in basing a business on a product that was used a few times, then discarded. Men shaved with straight razors that needed sharpening every day using a leather strop. As existing, relatively expensive, razor blades dulled quickly and needed continuous sharpening, a razor whose blade could be thrown away when it dulled would meet a real need and likely be profitable.

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.[30] Gillette improved these earlier safety-razor designs, and introduced the high-profit-margin stamped razor blade steel blade. Gillette's razor retailed for a substantial $5 (about $140 in 2014 dollars) — half the average working man's weekly pay — yet sold by the millions.

The most difficult part of development was engineering the blades, as thin, cheap steel was difficult to work and sharpen. This accounts for the delay between the initial idea and the product's introduction. Steven Porter, a machinist working with Gillette, used Gillette's drawings to create the first disposable razor that worked. William Emery Nickerson, an expert machinist and partner of Gillette, 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.[31]

To sell the product, Gillette founded the American Safety Razor Company on September 28, 1901 (changing the company's name to Gillette Safety Razor Company in July 1902). Gillette obtained a trademark registration (0056921) for his portrait and signature on the packaging. Production began in 1903, when he sold a total of 51 razors and 168 blades.[32]

The second year, he sold 90,884 razors and 123,648 blades,[32] thanks in part to Gillette's low prices, automated manufacturing techniques and good advertising. Sales and distribution were handled by a separate company, Townsend and Hunt, which was absorbed by the parent company for $300,000 in 1906. By 1908, the corporation had established manufacturing facilities in the United States, Canada, Britain, France and Germany. Razor sales reached 450,000 units and blade sales exceeded 70 million units in 1915. In 1917, when the U.S. entered World War I, the company provided all American soldiers with a field razor set, paid for by the government. Gillette vetoed a plan to sell the patent rights in Europe, believing correctly that Europe would eventually provide a very large market. Gillette and a fellow director John Joyce, battled for control of the company. Gillette eventually sold out to Joyce, but his name remained on the brand. In the 1920s, as the patent expired, the Gillette Safety Razor Company emphasized research to design ever improved models, realizing that even a slight improvement would induce men to adopt it.[33]

He was almost bankrupt from spending large amounts of money on property, and to his having lost much of the value of his corporate shares as a result of the Great Depression.

He died on July 9, 1932 in Los Angeles, California.[1] He was interred in the lower levels of the Begonia Corridor in the Great Mausoleum located at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.[34]

Personal life[edit]

Gillette was also a Utopian Socialist.[35] He published a book titled The Human Drift (1894)[36] which advocated that all industry should be taken over by a single corporation owned by the public, and that everyone in the US should live in a giant city called Metropolis powered by Niagara Falls. A later book, World Corporation (1910)[37] was a prospectus for a company set up to create this vision. He offered Theodore Roosevelt the presidency of the company, with a fee of one million dollars.[38] (Roosevelt declined the offer.) Gillette's last book, The People's Corporation (1924),[39] was written with Upton Sinclair and later inspired Glen H. Taylor.

Gillette married Alanta "Lantie" Ella Gaines (Oct. 12, 1868 – Aug. 28, 1951) in 1890. They had one child, King Gaines Gillette (Nov. 18, 1891 – June 18, 1955).

In his later life he traveled extensively, and was universally recognized from his picture on the packets of razor blades. People were surprised that he was a real person rather than just a marketing image. A Gillette company history stated that in non-English speaking countries people would often ask for "the kind with the Man's Face" blades.

Around 1922 or 1923, he built a residence at 324 West Overlook Road, in "The Mesa" district of Palm Springs. A 4,800-square-foot (450 m2) main home and 720-square-foot (67 m2) guest house. The homes, sitting on 1-acre (4,000 m2) of land, are what remain of the original estate.

Sometime in the late 1920s, Gillette was known as a frequent guest of Nellie Coffman, proprietor of the Desert Inn in Palm Springs, California. He was often seen wandering about the grounds and lobby in a tattered old bathrobe. When Coffman was asked why she allowed such a low life to hang out at her establishment, she responded, "Why that is King C. Gillette. He has practically kept this place in the black the last few years."[40]

Legacy[edit]

Boston University's Nickerson Field is named after him.

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c d "K.C. Gillette Dead". New York Times. July 11, 1932. Made Safety Razor. His Invention Led to Output by His Company of Nearly a Billion Blades Annually. Fame Became World Wide. Wrote Books Favoring Organization of Super-Socialistic Concern to Abolish Competition's Evils. ...
  2. ^ US 775134  "Razor"
  3. ^ see, e.g. Martin, Richard (2001-08-06). "The Razor's Edge". The Industry Standard. Archived from the original on 2008-06-25. Retrieved 2008-08-01.
  4. ^ Randal C. Picker, "The Razors-and-Blades Myth(s)", John M. Olin Law & Economics Working Paper No. 532, University of Chicago Law School full text PDF
  5. ^ Adams, pp.31–32
  6. ^ Adams p.32
  7. ^ Adams p.33
  8. ^ Adams p.33–34
  9. ^ Adams p.34
  10. ^ Adams p.34
  11. ^ Adams p.34
  12. ^ Adams p.34–35
  13. ^ Adams p.35
  14. ^ Adams p.32–35
  15. ^ Adams, pp.31–32
  16. ^ Adams, p.36
  17. ^ Adams, p.37
  18. ^ Adams, p.37
  19. ^ Adams, p.37
  20. ^ Adams, p.38
  21. ^ Adams, p.39
  22. ^ Adams, p.40
  23. ^ Adams, pp.42–43
  24. ^ Adams, p.44
  25. ^ Adams, pp.78–79, p.91
  26. ^ Adams, p.163
  27. ^ "Nickerson, Inventor, Is Dead At 77". Hartford Courant. Hartford, Connecticut. AP. June 6, 1930. p. 4. Retrieved March 26, 2018 – via newspapers.com.
  28. ^ "W. E. NICKERSON DEAD AT AGE OF 76". The Boston Globe. June 6, 1930. p. 18. Retrieved March 26, 2018 – via pqarchiver.com.
  29. ^ Biography: King C. Gillette: The Man and His Wonderful Shaving Device, by Russell B. Adams, Jr. (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1978).
  30. ^ "The First Safety Razor". creekstone.net.
  31. ^ Adams (1978)
  32. ^ a b Spang, Joseph P. (1951). Look Sharp! Feel Sharp! Be Sharp!. Boston, Massachusetts: Newcomen Society of England.
  33. ^ Frank N. Magill, Great Events from History II: Business and Commerce Series, volume 1:1897–1923 (1994) pp. 75–79
  34. ^ King Camp Gillette at Find a Grave
  35. ^ "Advertising, Utopia, and Commercial Idealism: The Case of King Gillette". Cambridge Journals. Retrieved 2 October 2012.
  36. ^ Gillette, King Camp (1894). The Human Drift. Retrieved 2 October 2012.
  37. ^ Gillette, King Camp (1910). World corporation. Retrieved 2 October 2012.
  38. ^ "No. 738: King Camp Gillette". Retrieved 2 October 2012.
  39. ^ Gillette, King Camp (1924). The people's corporation. Retrieved 2 October 2012.
  40. ^ [citation needed] [This anecdote seems to be apocryphal. No support for it can be found.]

Further reading[edit]

  • Adams, Russell B., Jr. (1978). King C. Gillette: The Man and His Wonderful Shaving Device. Little, Brown & Co. ISBN 0-316-00937-7.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  • Dowling, Tim (2001). Inventor of the Disposable Culture: King Camp Gillette 1855-1932. Short Books. ISBN 0-571-20810-X.
  • Magill, Frank N. Great Events from History II: Business and Commerce Series, volume 1:1897–1923 (1994) pp. 75–79, historiography

External links[edit]


Category:1853 births Category:1930 deaths Category:American inventors Category:Businesspeople from Massachusetts Category:People from Provincetown, Massachusetts Category:Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni

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