If William Emery Nickerson had achieved success in another industry, he’d be a celebrated industrial hero. Against all odds he made the safety razor, with its disposable blades, a staple in nearly every man’s medicine cabinet.
But fame cuts both ways. He was rewarded for his ingenuity with the ultimate 21st-century humiliation.
William Emery Nickerson doesn’t have a Wikipedia page.
The last time Nickerson heard “it couldn’t be done” the words came from the mouth of Thomas Edison.
But let’s back up a bit. American folklore—and, yes, Wikipedia—have long attributed the invention of the safety razor and disposable blades to King Camp Gillette. That story is true…as far as it goes.
It was in 1895, while Gillette worked as a traveling salesman for the Baltimore Seal Co., that William Painter, inventor of the bottle cap, gave him the advice that edged him on toward fame and fortune.
As Gillette wrote in The Gillette Blade, the company’s in-house magazine, Painter advised him “to think of something [that]…when once used…is thrown away, and the customer keeps coming back for more…”
Gillette had no idea what that could be—until one morning when he tried to shave with a particularly dull straight razor.
“I saw it all in a moment,” Gillette wrote. “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…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?” (The Gillette Blade)
Thus began a journey that, in 1901, led to patent number 775,134, which Gillette modestly proclaimed would revolutionize the art of shaving.
Gillette envisioned a thin blade so inexpensive that you didn’t sharpen it when it got dull you simply replaced it with a brand-new, perfectly honed and sharpened one.
It was, in the words of nearly everyone Gillette approached, a laughable idea.
One didn’t throw away a razor when it got dull. One carefully stropped, honed, and sharpened the blade in the anticipation of another few hours of bloodless shaving. Ordinarily Gillette, a natural-born salesman, wouldn’t have seen such a marketing problem as a stumbling block.
Only the people who were doing the laughing were the people whose money could finance his dream.
They, and Gillette, were advised by engineers, metallurgists, and academics that there was no way to manufacture thin steel razor blades, at least not inexpensively and certainly not in mass quantities.
It simply couldn’t be done.
But “they” didn’t count on Nickerson, who was introduced to Gillette through mutual business associates. The last time Nickerson heard “it couldn’t be done” the words came from the mouth of Thomas Edison.
It seemed Nickerson found a way to manufacture light bulbs that Edison, himself, swore was impossible. Edison expressed his awe and admiration by slashing the selling price of his own bulbs until he drove Nickerson out of the business.
In their book Hard Call: Great Decisions and the Extraordinary People Who Made Them
Gillette proclaimed that Nickerson “by luck or providential design was the only man in the world who could have perfected the razor,” (The Gillette Blade) Nickerson had attributed some of his earlier successes to his ignorance, saying that if he’d known how impossible those tasks were he might never have tried his hand at them. Had he been asked, he might have blamed ignorance, not providence, for this achievement, too.
Even though Nickerson made it possible for Gillette to realize his dream, Gillette declined to attach Nickerson’s name to the company.
It certainly wasn’t because of his contributions. Nor was there a problem lurking in Nickerson’s past. He was an MIT graduate and a sixth-generation resident of Provincetown, on Cape Cod. His New England bloodline could be traced back to the Puritans.
Gillette found Nickerson’s name—especially its first syllable—too reminiscent of another bloodline, one whose image wasn’t consistent with a clean, close, comfortable shave. (This from a man whose own name sounded like someplace you dumped your bratty kids for the summer.)
In the end, it was King Camp Gillette’s name and picture on every box of blades. But it was William Emery Nickerson, whose name Gillette hid from the general public, who got Gillette, and millions of shavers, out of a tough scrape.
A tip of the hat to my friend Angelika Demirchyan for the idea that led to this story.
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Mind Doodle…
King Gillette is given credit for the concept of giving away the razors to sell the blades. Not so. The original Gillette razor—the handle that held the disposable blades—cost five dollars, about a third of a worker’s weekly wages. It was not until the 1920s, when Gillette’s patents began expiring, that the company adopted the cheap razor policy—and then only because its competitors were doing it.
Great story… but the question is, was Nickerson well paid for his development. Sounds like he was but maybe not.
Hi Nick…
Nickerson was paid well, and he was also a director of the company.
Nickerson was not in favor of using Nickerson or Gillette in the corporate name. He did not think the company was about the inventors. He pushed for the American Safety Razor Company, which was how the company was originally incorporated. Shortly thereafter, though, Gillette changed the name to the Gillette Safety Razor Co.
Perhaps because he was not much of a businessman and wound up working behind the scenes, Nickerson never received appropriate notoriety for his inventive genius. Hence, the man without a Wikipedia page. You’d think, however, that a man who beat Edison at his own game deserves more attention than he’s received.
— jay
Perhaps Nickerson’s name still lives on in the razor world. When one gets cut with a razor, we are “nicked”
Hi Amanda…
Haha…yes, that could be. Though I believe the term preceded Nickerson’s affiliation with Gillette. What I want to know is if people at Gillette called him “Old Saint Nick” behind his back.
— jay