We all know about King C Gillette, the man who invented the modern safety razor. Or claimed to invent it – there was clearly many who had similar ideas around the turn of the last century. But do we actually know the guy, and not just know about him? Turns out that we may not – hence why I would suggest reading “King C Gillette, the man and his wonderful shaving device“. Printed in 1978, it is easily available online.

King Gillette was a man who wanted to build a better world, but ended up building a better razor. One one hand he was a utopian socialist arguing for public ownership of everything through a single cooperation, on the other he practiced the cut-throat free enterprise of the early industrial age. He wanted to move all of the US’ population into a single megacity, yet built a ranch for himself away from the urban sprawl.

King C Gillette wanted to change the world, and he did.

Just not in the way the had hoped – but when he patented his wonderful shaving device, he quickly learned that humanity was more interested in clean shaving than in his philosophical ideas.

The book also outlines the history of the Gillette Shaving Company until the mid 1970’s, which by itself is work the time to read it.

You can read “”King C Gillette, the man and his wonderful shaving device” on the Internet Archive. You’ll need a free account to read the whole book.