Gillette, King C.

Gillette, King C. (Camp) (1855–1932) inventor, businessman; born in Fond du Lac, Wis. An inveterate "tinkerer," he worked for hardware concerns in Chicago, New York, and Kansas City, and as a traveling salesman. Advised to invent a product for which there would be a continual demand, by 1895 he had made a crude version of a disposable razor blade; by 1901 he founded the Gillette Safety Razor Company in Boston, Mass., to make his razor and blades. In 1904 he sold 90,000 razors and over 12 million blades. Although he remained president of the company until 1931, he retired to Los Angeles in 1913. A utopian, he wrote four books translating his business experience into social theories, culminating with The People's Corporation (1924).