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119-424: King Camp Gillette (January 5, 1855 – July 9, 1932) was an American businessman who invented a bestselling safety razor . Gillette's innovation was the thin, inexpensive, disposable blade of stamped steel. Gillette is often erroneously credited with inventing the so-called razor and blades business model in which razors are sold cheaply to increase the market for blades. However, Gillette Safety Razor Company adopted

238-403: A comb patterned on various types of protective guards that had been affixed to open-blade straight razors during the preceding decades. To maintain their cutting action, razor blades can be stropped using an old strip of denim. Twinplex also sold a blade stropper which was used to extend the life of vintage carbon steel blades. Safety razor blades are usually made of razor steel which

357-634: A deflationary spiral started in 1931. Farmers faced a worse outlook; declining crop prices and a Great Plains drought crippled their economic outlook. At its peak, the Great Depression saw nearly 10% of all Great Plains farms change hands despite federal assistance. At first, the decline in the U.S. economy was the factor that triggered economic downturns in most other countries due to a decline in trade, capital movement, and global business confidence. Then, internal weaknesses or strengths in each country made conditions worse or better. For example,

476-418: A silver standard , almost avoided the depression entirely. The connection between leaving the gold standard as a strong predictor of that country's severity of its depression and the length of time of its recovery has been shown to be consistent for dozens of countries, including developing countries . This partly explains why the experience and length of the depression differed between regions and states around

595-472: A 4,800-square-foot (450 m) main home and 720-square-foot (67 m) guest house. The homes, sitting on 1-acre (4,000 m) of land, are what remain of the original estate. The company continues in the present day as the Gillette brand of Procter & Gamble . Gillette is widely credited with creating the " razor-razor blade business model ". Some peers in the marketing industry quote him as one of

714-482: A 50% increase, and profits increased in an otherwise mature market. The marketing of increasing numbers of blades in a cartridge has been parodied since the 1970s. The debut episode of Saturday Night Live in 1975 included a parody advertisement for the Triple Trac Razor , shortly after the first two-blade cartridge for men's razors was advertised. Mad magazine announced the "Trac 76", arranged as

833-548: A brand share the same razor-head designs, differing primarily in the color, length, texture, material(s), and weight of the handles. Three-piece razors generally have interchangeable handles, and some companies specialize in manufacturing custom or high-end replacement handles. The butterfly safety razor utilizes a twist-to-open mechanism head to make changing the blade easy and convenient. Variations in razor head designs include straight safety bar (SB), open comb (OC)(toothed) bar, adjustable razors, and slant bar razors. The slant bar

952-479: A chain of cartridges with a handle on each end. In the early 1990s, the (Australian) Late Show skitted a "Gillette 3000" with 16 blades and 75 lubricating strips as arrived at by working in conjunction with the help of NASA scientists - "The first blade distracts the hair...". The 16 January 1999 episode of Mad TV ran a parody commercial advertising the "Spishak Mach 20" with blades that variously "cut(s) away that pesky second layer of skin" and "gently smooth(s) out

1071-593: A conventional straight razor. The first attested use of the term "safety razor" is in a patent application for "new and useful improvements in Safety-Razors", filed in May 1880 by Frederic and Otto Kampfe of Brooklyn, New York, and issued the following month. This differed from the Henson design in distancing the blade from the handle by interposing "a hollow metallic blade-holder having a preferably removable handle and

1190-623: 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 John Joyce, a fellow director, 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

1309-458: A flat plate in front, to which the blade is attached by clips and a pivoted catch, said plate having bars or teeth at its lower edge, and the lower plate having an opening, for the purpose set forth", which is to "insure a smooth bearing for the plate upon the skin, while the teeth or bars will yield sufficiently to allow the razor to sever the hair without danger of cutting the skin." The Kampfe Brothers produced razors under their own name following

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1428-604: A former privately run bank, bearing no relation to the U.S. government (not to be confused with the Federal Reserve ). Unable to pay out to all of its creditors, the bank failed. Among the 608 American banks that closed in November and December 1930, the Bank of United States accounted for a third of the total $ 550 million deposits lost and, with its closure, bank failures reached a critical mass. In an initial response to

1547-415: A generic category of their own and not a variety of safety razor. The similarities between single-edge cartridge blade razors and the classic injector razor do, however, provide equal justification for treating both categories contiguously. In 1974, Bic introduced the disposable razor. Instead of being a razor with a disposable blade, the entire razor was manufactured to be disposable. Gillette's response

1666-467: A greater reduction in credit. On 5 April 1933, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 6102 making the private ownership of gold certificates , coins and bullion illegal, reducing the pressure on Federal Reserve gold. British economist John Maynard Keynes argued in The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money that lower aggregate expenditures in the economy contributed to

1785-434: A handle in which a removable blade is placed (although this form predated the patent). Safety razors were popularized in the 1900s by King Camp Gillette 's invention, the double-edge safety razor. While other safety razors of the time used blades that required stropping before use and after a time had to be honed by a cutler, Gillette's razor used a disposable blade with two sharpened edges. Gillette's invention became

1904-611: A joint-powers authority associated with the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, resorted to its powers of eminent domain to condemn the core parcel comprising the university and thereby halted SUA's plans for expansion. SUA appealed the eminent domain action. The legal debate continued for the remainder of the decade. Soka University was prevented from developing any expansion plans at the Calabasas property and began looking for alternative sites to build

2023-555: A large ranch in the Santa Monica Mountains near Calabasas in Southern California in 1926. The master plan and new buildings on the ranch were designed and built for Gillette in the late 1920s by renowned architect Wallace Neff . The architectural style was Spanish Colonial Revival . After his death, his wife sold the home to Clarence Brown , an MGM film director who held A-List Hollywood parties at

2142-535: A larger campus. After the university moved to a purpose-built campus, the King Gillette ranch was collaboratively purchased for $ 35 million by the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority, National Park Service, Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy and California State Parks, who then made it available for public use. Those agencies are also funding an $ 8.4 million visitor's center on

2261-600: A modern industrial city handled shortages of money and resources. Often they updated strategies their mothers used when they were growing up in poor families. Cheap foods were used, such as soups, beans and noodles. They purchased the cheapest cuts of meat—sometimes even horse meat—and recycled the Sunday roast into sandwiches and soups. They sewed and patched clothing, traded with their neighbors for outgrown items, and made do with colder homes. New furniture and appliances were postponed until better days. Many women also worked outside

2380-402: A monetary contraction first-hand were forced to join the deflationary policy since higher interest rates in countries that performed a deflationary policy led to a gold outflow in countries with lower interest rates. Under the gold standard's price–specie flow mechanism , countries that lost gold but nevertheless wanted to maintain the gold standard had to permit their money supply to decrease and

2499-787: A patent issued in 1878, serving as a close prototype for the single-edge blade in its present form. New single-edge razors were developed and used side by side with double-edge razors for decades. The largest manufacturers were the American Safety Razor Company with its "Ever-Ready" series, and the Gem Cutlery Company with its "Gem" models. Although these brands of single-edge razors are no longer in production, they are readily available in antique trade, and compatible modern designs are being made. Blades for them are still being manufactured both for shaving and technical purposes. A second popular single-edge design

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2618-640: A popular alternative to proprietary cartridge razors, and usually offer significantly lower total cost of ownership since they are not marketed under the " razor and blades business model ". Double-edge razors are still designed and produced in many countries, and in 2010, Procter & Gamble estimated that almost a billion men were shaving with double-edge razors. Better known manufacturers include Edwin Jagger, Feather, iKon, Lord, Mühle, Merkur, and Weishi, with several of them producing razors that are marketed under other brands. Often different models of razors within

2737-519: 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. Gillette improved these earlier safety-razor designs and introduced the high-profit-margin stamped razor blade made from carbon steel sheet. Gillette's razor retailed for

2856-405: A razor; a reversible guard was one of the first improvements made to guard razors. The basic form of a razor, "the cutting blade of which is at right angles with the handle, and resembles somewhat the form of a common hoe", was first described in a patent application in 1847 by William S. Henson. This also covered a "comb tooth guard or protector" which could be attached both to the hoe form and to

2975-401: A result, American Safety Razor, Gillette and Schick were driven to produce stainless steel blades to compete. Today, almost all razor blades are stainless steel, although carbon steel blades remain in limited production for lower income markets. Because Gillette held a patent on stainless blades but had not acted on it , the company was accused of exploiting customers by forcing them to buy

3094-461: A safer-to-use razor was the guard razor – also called a straight safety razor – which added a protective guard to a regular straight razor . The first such razor was most likely invented by French cutler Jean-Jacques Perret circa 1762. The invention was inspired by the joiner's plane and was essentially a straight razor with its blade surrounded by a wooden sleeve. The earliest razor guards had comb-like teeth and could only be attached to one side of

3213-477: A separate company, Townsend and Hunt, which was absorbed by the parent company for US$ 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

3332-567: A serious issue in the 1930s. Support for increasing welfare programs during the depression included a focus on women in the family. The Conseil Supérieur de la Natalité campaigned for provisions enacted in the Code de la Famille (1939) that increased state assistance to families with children and required employers to protect the jobs of fathers, even if they were immigrants. In rural and small-town areas, women expanded their operation of vegetable gardens to include as much food production as possible. In

3451-530: A seven-blade cartridge. Gillette has also produced powered variants of the Mach3 (M3Power, M3Power Nitro) and Fusion (Fusion Power and Fusion Power Phantom) razors. These razors accept a single AAA battery which is used to produce vibration in the razor; this action was purported to raise hair up and away from the skin prior to being cut. These claims were ruled in an American court as "unsubstantiated and inaccurate". Safety razors originally had an edge protected by

3570-776: A slight improvement would induce men to adopt it. He was almost bankrupt due to 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 . Gillette died on July 9, 1932, in Los Angeles, California . 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 . Gillette

3689-480: A small cadre of Labour, but the vast majority of Labour leaders denounced MacDonald as a traitor for leading the new government. Britain went off the gold standard , and suffered relatively less than other major countries in the Great Depression. In the 1931 British election, the Labour Party was virtually destroyed, leaving MacDonald as prime minister for a largely Conservative coalition. In most countries of

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3808-713: A standstill agreement froze Germany's foreign liabilities for six months. Germany received emergency funding from private banks in New York as well as the Bank of International Settlements and the Bank of England. The funding only slowed the process. Industrial failures began in Germany, a major bank closed in July and a two-day holiday for all German banks was declared. Business failures were more frequent in July, and spread to Romania and Hungary. The crisis continued to get worse in Germany, bringing political upheaval that finally led to

3927-420: A substantial $ 5 (equivalent to $ 170.00 in 2023) – 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

4046-443: A total of 3.5 million razors and 32 million blades for them). The returning soldiers were permitted to keep that part of their equipment and therefore retained their new shaving habits. The subsequent consumer demand for replacement blades put the shaving industry on course toward its present form with Gillette as a dominant force. Prior to the introduction of the disposable blade, users of safety razors still needed to strop and hone

4165-566: A variety of specialised blades for professional barber use, some of which have been re-adopted for shaving by modern designs. Until the 1960s, razor blades were made of carbon steel . These were extremely prone to rusting and forced users to change blades frequently. In 1962, the British company Wilkinson Sword began to sell blades made of stainless steel , whose edge did not corrode nearly so quickly and could be used far longer. Wilkinson quickly captured U.S., British and European markets. As

4284-658: Is a consensus that the Federal Reserve System should have cut short the process of monetary deflation and banking collapse, by expanding the money supply and acting as lender of last resort . If they had done this, the economic downturn would have been far less severe and much shorter. Modern mainstream economists see the reasons in Insufficient spending, the money supply reduction, and debt on margin led to falling prices and further bankruptcies ( Irving Fisher 's debt deflation). The monetarist explanation

4403-509: Is a low chromium stainless steel which can be made extremely sharp, but corrodes relatively easily. Safety razor blade life may be extended by drying the blades after use. Salts from human skin also tend to corrode the blades, but washing and carefully drying them can greatly extend their life. Disposable safety razor blades can be sharpened using various methods. There are commercial devices intended for this duty (Razormate, RazorPit, Blade Buddy, etc.). Double-edge (DE) safety razors remain

4522-614: Is of practical consequence has, however, been questioned. Gillette introduced the first triple-blade cartridge razor, the Mach3 , in 1998, and later upgraded the Sensor cartridge to the Sensor3 by adding a third blade. Schick/Wilkinson responded to the Mach3 with the Quattro, the first four-blade cartridge razor. These innovations are marketed with the message that they help consumers achieve

4641-493: Is supported by the contrast in how the crisis progressed in, e.g., Britain, Argentina and Brazil, all of which devalued their currencies early and returned to normal patterns of growth relatively rapidly and countries which stuck to the gold standard , such as France or Belgium. Frantic attempts by individual countries to shore up their economies through protectionist policies – such as the 1930 U.S. Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act and retaliatory tariffs in other countries – exacerbated

4760-413: Is the "Injector" razor developed and placed on the market by Schick Razors in the 1920s. This uses narrow blades stored in an injector device with which they are inserted directly into the razor, so that the user never needs to handle the blade. The injector blade was the first to depart from the rectangular dimensions shared by the wedge, standard single-edge, and double-edge blades. The injector, itself,

4879-539: The 1932 election , Hoover was defeated by Franklin D. Roosevelt , who from 1933 pursued a series of " New Deal " policies and programs to provide relief and create jobs, including the Civilian Conservation Corps , Federal Emergency Relief Administration , Tennessee Valley Authority , and Works Progress Administration . Historians disagree on the effects of the New Deal, with some claiming that

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4998-633: The Great Chicago Fire of 1871. 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,

5117-582: The New York Bank of United States – which produced panic and widespread runs on local banks, and the Federal Reserve sat idly by while banks collapsed. Friedman and Schwartz argued that, if the Fed had provided emergency lending to these key banks, or simply bought government bonds on the open market to provide liquidity and increase the quantity of money after the key banks fell, all the rest of

5236-710: The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy , environmentalists, and government representatives. Opponents sought to protect the Chumash ancestral site, the natural habitats and ecology, and the expansive open space viewshed within the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area , and to prevent a development of unprecedented urban density adjacent to Malibu Creek State Park . In 1992, the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority (MRCA),

5355-539: The coming to power of Hitler's Nazi regime in January 1933. The world financial crisis now began to overwhelm Britain; investors around the world started withdrawing their gold from London at the rate of £2.5 million per day. Credits of £25 million each from the Bank of France and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and an issue of £15 million fiduciary note slowed, but did not reverse,

5474-621: The 1880 patent and improved the design in a series of subsequent patents. These models were manufactured under the "Star Safety Razor" brand. A third pivotal innovation was a safety razor using a disposable double-edge blade for which King Camp Gillette submitted a patent application in 1901 and was granted in 1904. The Gillette Safety Razor Company was awarded a contract to supply the American troops in World War I with double-edge safety razors as part of their standard field kits (delivering

5593-447: The 1937 recession that interrupted it). The common view among most economists is that Roosevelt's New Deal policies either caused or accelerated the recovery, although his policies were never aggressive enough to bring the economy completely out of recession. Some economists have also called attention to the positive effects from expectations of reflation and rising nominal interest rates that Roosevelt's words and actions portended. It

5712-408: The 2021 The Starling movie with Melissa McCarthy . Safety razor Protective devices for razors have existed since at least the 1700s: a circa 1762 invention by French cutler Jean-Jacques Perret added a protective guard to a regular straight razor . The first known occurrence of the term "safety razor" is found in a patent from 1880 for a razor in the basic contemporary configuration with

5831-758: The British crisis. The financial crisis now caused a major political crisis in Britain in August 1931. With deficits mounting, the bankers demanded a balanced budget; the divided cabinet of Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald's Labour government agreed; it proposed to raise taxes, cut spending, and most controversially, to cut unemployment benefits 20%. The attack on welfare was unacceptable to the Labour movement. MacDonald wanted to resign, but King George V insisted he remain and form an all-party coalition " National Government ". The Conservative and Liberals parties signed on, along with

5950-530: The Depression. Businessmen ignored the mounting national debt and heavy new taxes, redoubling their efforts for greater output to take advantage of generous government contracts. During World War I many countries suspended their gold standard in varying ways. There was high inflation from WWI, and in the 1920s in the Weimar Republic , Austria , and throughout Europe. In the late 1920s there

6069-521: The Dow returning to 294 (pre-depression levels) in April 1930, before steadily declining for years, to a low of 41 in 1932. At the beginning, governments and businesses spent more in the first half of 1930 than in the corresponding period of the previous year. On the other hand, consumers, many of whom suffered severe losses in the stock market the previous year, cut expenditures by 10%. In addition, beginning in

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6188-489: The Federal Reserve did not act to limit the decline of the money supply was the gold standard . At that time, the amount of credit the Federal Reserve could issue was limited by the Federal Reserve Act , which required 40% gold backing of Federal Reserve Notes issued. By the late 1920s, the Federal Reserve had almost hit the limit of allowable credit that could be backed by the gold in its possession. This credit

6307-442: The Great Depression is right, or the traditional Keynesian explanation that a fall in autonomous spending, particularly investment, is the primary explanation for the onset of the Great Depression. Today there is also significant academic support for the debt deflation theory and the expectations hypothesis that – building on the monetary explanation of Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz – add non-monetary explanations. There

6426-642: The Great Depression. According to the U.S. Senate website, the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act is among the most catastrophic acts in congressional history. Many economists have argued that the sharp decline in international trade after 1930 helped to worsen the depression, especially for countries significantly dependent on foreign trade. Most historians and economists blame the Act for worsening the depression by seriously reducing international trade and causing retaliatory tariffs in other countries. While foreign trade

6545-481: The New Deal prolonged the Great Depression, as they argue that National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 and National Labor Relations Act of 1935 restricted competition and established price fixing. John Maynard Keynes did not think that the New Deal under Roosevelt single-handedly ended the Great Depression: "It is, it seems, politically impossible for a capitalistic democracy to organize expenditure on

6664-544: The U.K. economy, which experienced an economic downturn throughout most of the late 1920s, was less severely impacted by the shock of the depression than the U.S. By contrast, the German economy saw a similar decline in industrial output as that observed in the U.S. Some economic historians attribute the differences in the rates of recovery and relative severity of the economic decline to whether particular countries had been able to effectively devaluate their currencies or not. This

6783-490: The U.S. unemployment rate down below 10%. World War II had a dramatic effect on many parts of the American economy. Government-financed capital spending accounted for only 5% of the annual U.S. investment in industrial capital in 1940; by 1943, the government accounted for 67% of U.S. capital investment. The massive war spending doubled economic growth rates, either masking the effects of the Depression or essentially ending

6902-622: The United States, agricultural organizations sponsored programs to teach housewives how to optimize their gardens and to raise poultry for meat and eggs. Rural women made feed sack dresses and other items for themselves and their families and homes from feed sacks. In American cities, African American women quiltmakers enlarged their activities, promoted collaboration, and trained neophytes. Quilts were created for practical use from various inexpensive materials and increased social interaction for women and promoted camaraderie and personal fulfillment. Oral history provides evidence for how housewives in

7021-543: The United States, remained on the gold standard into 1932 or 1933, while a few countries in the so-called "gold bloc", led by France and including Poland, Belgium and Switzerland, stayed on the standard until 1935–36. According to later analysis, the earliness with which a country left the gold standard reliably predicted its economic recovery. For example, The UK and Scandinavia, which left the gold standard in 1931, recovered much earlier than France and Belgium, which remained on gold much longer. Countries such as China, which had

7140-638: The Wall Street crash, after which the slide continued for three years, which was accompanied by a loss of confidence in the financial system. By 1933, the U.S. unemployment rate had risen to 25 percent, about one-third of farmers had lost their land, and about half of the country's 25,000 banks had gone out of business. Many people, unable to pay mortgages or rent, became homeless and relied on begging or charities to feed themselves. The U.S. federal government initially did little to help. President Herbert Hoover , like many of his fellow Republicans , believed in

7259-460: The banks would not have fallen after the large ones did, and the money supply would not have fallen as far and as fast as it did. With significantly less money to go around, businesses could not get new loans and could not even get their old loans renewed, forcing many to stop investing. This interpretation blames the Federal Reserve for inaction, especially the New York branch . One reason why

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7378-573: The beginning of the Depression. The Depression was preceded by a period of industrial growth and social development known as the " Roaring Twenties ". Much of the profit generated by the boom was invested in speculation , such as on the stock market , which resulted in growing wealth inequality . Banks were subject to minimal regulation under laissez-faire economic policies, resulting in loose lending and widespread debt. By 1929, declining spending had led to reductions in manufacturing output and rising unemployment . Share values continued to rise until

7497-465: The behavior of housewives. The common view among economic historians is that the Great Depression ended with the advent of World War II . Many economists believe that government spending on the war caused or at least accelerated recovery from the Great Depression, though some consider that it did not play a very large role in the recovery, though it did help in reducing unemployment. The rearmament policies leading up to World War II helped stimulate

7616-414: The best shave as easily as possible. Another impetus for the sale of multiple-blade cartridges is that they have high profit margins. With manufacturers frequently updating their shaving systems, consumers can become locked into buying their proprietary cartridges, for as long as the manufacturer continues to make them. Subsequent to introducing the higher-priced Mach3 in 1998, Gillette's blade sales realized

7735-651: The business model from its competitors. The Gillette paternal ancestors were French Huguenots who sought refuge in England in the late 16th century. One or two generations later, in 1630, Nathan Gillette sailed from England to the newly founded Massachusetts Bay Colony in North America. King Camp Gillette was born on January 5, 1855, in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin , and raised in Chicago, Illinois . His family survived

7854-462: The collapse in global trade, contributing to the depression. By 1933, the economic decline pushed world trade to one third of its level compared to four years earlier. While the precise causes for the occurrence of the Great depression are disputed and can be traced to both global and national phenomena, its immediate origins are most conveniently examined in the context of the U.S. economy, from which

7973-475: The crash was a mere symptom of more general economic trends of the time, which had already been underway in the late 1920s. A contrasting set of views, which rose to prominence in the later part of the 20th century, ascribes a more prominent role to failures of monetary policy . According to those authors, while general economic trends can explain the emergence of the downturn, they fail to account for its severity and longevity; they argue that these were caused by

8092-569: The crisis, the U.S. Congress passed the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act on 17 June 1930. The Act was ostensibly aimed at protecting the American economy from foreign competition by imposing high tariffs on foreign imports. The consensus view among economists and economic historians (including Keynesians , Monetarists and Austrian economists ) is that the passage of the Smoot–Hawley Tariff had, in fact, achieved an opposite effect to what

8211-633: The decade. The Depression had devastating economic effects on both wealthy and poor countries: all experienced drops in personal income , prices ( deflation ), tax revenues, and profits. International trade fell by more than 50%, and unemployment in some countries rose as high as 33%. Cities around the world , especially those dependent on heavy industry , were heavily affected. Construction virtually halted in many countries, and farming communities and rural areas suffered as crop prices fell by up to 60%. Faced with plummeting demand and few job alternatives, areas dependent on primary sector industries suffered

8330-408: The depression. Not all governments enforced the same measures of protectionism. Some countries raised tariffs drastically and enforced severe restrictions on foreign exchange transactions, while other countries reduced "trade and exchange restrictions only marginally": The gold standard was the primary transmission mechanism of the Great Depression. Even countries that did not face bank failures and

8449-435: The domestic price level to decline ( deflation ). There is also consensus that protectionist policies, and primarily the passage of the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act , helped to exacerbate, or even cause the Great Depression. Some economic studies have indicated that the rigidities of the gold standard not only spread the downturn worldwide, but also suspended gold convertibility (devaluing the currency in gold terms) that did

8568-402: The drop in demand. Monetarists believe that the Great Depression started as an ordinary recession, but the shrinking of the money supply greatly exacerbated the economic situation, causing a recession to descend into the Great Depression. Economists and economic historians are almost evenly split as to whether the traditional monetary explanation that monetary forces were the primary cause of

8687-427: The economies of Europe in 1937–1939. By 1937, unemployment in Britain had fallen to 1.5 million. The mobilization of manpower following the outbreak of war in 1939 ended unemployment. The American mobilization for World War II at the end of 1941 moved approximately ten million people out of the civilian labor force and into the war. This finally eliminated the last effects from the Great Depression and brought

8806-409: The edges of their blades. These are not trivial skills (honing frequently being left to a professional) and remained a barrier to the ubiquitous adopting of the "be your own barber" ideal. The first safety razors used a single-edge blade that was essentially a 4 cm (1.6 in) long segment of a straight razor. A flat blade that could be used alternately with this "wedge" was first illustrated in

8925-576: The end of the month. A large sell-off of stocks began in mid-October. Finally, on 24 October, Black Thursday , the American stock market crashed 11% at the opening bell. Actions to stabilize the market failed, and on 28 October, Black Monday, the market crashed another 12%. The panic peaked the next day on Black Tuesday, when the market saw another 11% drop. Thousands of investors were ruined, and billions of dollars had been lost; many stocks could not be sold at any price. The market recovered 12% on Wednesday but by then significant damage had been done. Though

9044-500: The explanations of the Keynesians and monetarists. The consensus among demand-driven theories is that a large-scale loss of confidence led to a sudden reduction in consumption and investment spending. Once panic and deflation set in, many people believed they could avoid further losses by keeping clear of the markets. Holding money became profitable as prices dropped lower and a given amount of money bought ever more goods, exacerbating

9163-503: The few women in the labor force, layoffs were less common in the white-collar jobs and they were typically found in light manufacturing work. However, there was a widespread demand to limit families to one paid job, so that wives might lose employment if their husband was employed. Across Britain, there was a tendency for married women to join the labor force, competing for part-time jobs especially. In France, very slow population growth, especially in comparison to Germany continued to be

9282-431: The first disposable razor blade 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, and he received patents for hardening and sharpening the blades. (Nickerson was later elected to Gillette's board of directors.) To sell

9401-505: The first week of June, 540 million in the second, and 150 million in two days, 19–20 June. Collapse was at hand. U.S. President Herbert Hoover called for a moratorium on payment of war reparations . This angered Paris, which depended on a steady flow of German payments, but it slowed the crisis down, and the moratorium was agreed to in July 1931. An International conference in London later in July produced no agreements but on 19 August

9520-428: The following year Gillette introduced the twin-blade Trac II. They claimed that research showed the tandem action of the two blades to give a closer shave than a single blade, because of a " hysteresis " effect. In addition to the cutting action of the first blade, it is also supposed to pull the hair out of the follicle into which it does not fully retract before the second blade cuts it further. The extent to which this

9639-606: The government tried to reshape private household consumption under the Four-Year Plan of 1936 to achieve German economic self-sufficiency. The Nazi women's organizations, other propaganda agencies and the authorities all attempted to shape such consumption as economic self-sufficiency was needed to prepare for and to sustain the coming war. The organizations, propaganda agencies and authorities employed slogans that called up traditional values of thrift and healthy living. However, these efforts were only partly successful in changing

9758-519: The home, or took boarders, did laundry for trade or cash, and did sewing for neighbors in exchange for something they could offer. Extended families used mutual aid—extra food, spare rooms, repair-work, cash loans—to help cousins and in-laws. In Japan, official government policy was deflationary and the opposite of Keynesian spending. Consequently, the government launched a campaign across the country to induce households to reduce their consumption, focusing attention on spending by housewives. In Germany,

9877-527: The initial crisis spread to the rest of the world. In the aftermath of World War I , the Roaring Twenties brought considerable wealth to the United States and Western Europe. Initially, the year 1929 dawned with good economic prospects: despite a minor crash on 25 March 1929, the market seemed to gradually improve through September. Stock prices began to slump in September, and were volatile at

9996-511: The innovators who revolutionized the freebie marketing ideas. The Gillette Company continued to thrive and sell products under a variety of brand names including Gillette, Braun , Oral-B , and Duracell . In 2005, the Gillette company was sold to Procter & Gamble for US$ 57 billion. It is now known as Global Blades & Razors, with the Gillette brand , a business unit of Procter & Gamble. King Gillette purchased property for

10115-454: The jawbone" culminating in a blade that "destroys the part of the brain responsible for hair growth." In 2004, a satirical article in The Onion entitled "Fuck Everything, We're Doing Five Blades" predicted the release of five-blade cartridges, two years before their commercial introduction. South Korean manufacturer Dorco released their own six-blade cartridge in 2012, and later released

10234-563: The lack of an adequate response to the crises of liquidity that followed the initial economic shock of 1929 and the subsequent bank failures accompanied by a general collapse of the financial markets. After the Wall Street Crash of 1929 , when the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped from 381 to 198 over the course of two months, optimism persisted for some time. The stock market rose in early 1930, with

10353-521: The market entered a period of recovery from 14 November until 17 April 1930, the general situation had been a prolonged slump. From 17 April 1930 until 8 July 1932, the market continued to lose 89% of its value. Despite the crash, the worst of the crisis did not reverberate around the world until after 1929. The crisis hit panic levels again in December 1930, with a bank run on the Bank of United States ,

10472-414: The mid-1930s, a severe drought ravaged the agricultural heartland of the U.S. Interest rates dropped to low levels by mid-1930, but expected deflation and the continuing reluctance of people to borrow meant that consumer spending and investment remained low. By May 1930, automobile sales declined to below the levels of 1928. Prices, in general, began to decline, although wages held steady in 1930. Then

10591-423: The monetary base and by not injecting liquidity into the banking system to prevent it from crumbling, the Federal Reserve passively watched the transformation of a normal recession into the Great Depression. Friedman and Schwartz argued that the downward turn in the economy, starting with the stock market crash, would merely have been an ordinary recession if the Federal Reserve had taken aggressive action. This view

10710-502: The most to make recovery possible. Every major currency left the gold standard during the Great Depression. The UK was the first to do so. Facing speculative attacks on the pound and depleting gold reserves , in September 1931 the Bank of England ceased exchanging pound notes for gold and the pound was floated on foreign exchange markets. Japan and the Scandinavian countries followed in 1931. Other countries, such as Italy and

10829-427: The most. The outbreak of World War II in 1939 ended the Depression, as it stimulated factory production, providing jobs for women as militaries absorbed large numbers of young, unemployed men. The precise causes for the Great Depression are disputed. One set of historians, for example, focuses on non-monetary economic causes. Among these, some regard the Wall Street crash itself as the main cause; others consider that

10948-582: The need to balance the national budget and was unwilling to implement expensive welfare spending . In 1930, Hoover signed the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act , which taxed imports with the intention of encouraging buyers to purchase American products, which worsened the Depression because foreign governments retaliated with tariffs on American exports. In 1932, Hoover established the Reconstruction Finance Corporation , which offered loans to businesses and support to local governments. In

11067-483: The physical volume of exports fall, but also the prices fell by about 1 ⁄ 3 as written. Hardest hit were farm commodities such as wheat, cotton, tobacco, and lumber. Governments around the world took various steps into spending less money on foreign goods such as: "imposing tariffs, import quotas, and exchange controls". These restrictions triggered much tension among countries that had large amounts of bilateral trade, causing major export-import reductions during

11186-480: The policies prolonged the Depression instead of shortening it. Between 1929 and 1932, worldwide gross domestic product (GDP) fell by an estimated 15%; in the U.S., the Depression resulted in a 30% contraction in GDP. Recovery varied greatly around the world. Some economies, such as the U.S., Germany and Japan started to recover by the mid-1930s; others, like France, did not return to pre-shock growth rates until later in

11305-406: The political situation in Europe. In their book, A Monetary History of the United States , Milton Friedman and Anna J. Schwartz also attributed the recovery to monetary factors, and contended that it was much slowed by poor management of money by the Federal Reserve System . Chairman of the Federal Reserve (2006–2014) Ben Bernanke agreed that monetary factors played important roles both in

11424-521: The predominant style of razor during and after the First World War , when the U.S. Army began issuing Gillette shaving kits to its servicemen. Since their introduction in the 1970s, cartridge razors and disposable razors – where the blades are embedded in plastic – have become the predominant types of safety razors. In 2010, Procter & Gamble stated that almost a billion men were shaving with double-edge razors. The first step towards

11543-567: The presidency of the company, with a fee of one million dollars. (Roosevelt declined the offer.) Gillette's last book, The People's Corporation (1924), was written with Upton Sinclair and later inspired Glen H. Taylor . Gillette was initiated to the York Rite of Freemasonry, till his elevation to the highest degree of Grand Master. Gillette married Alanta "Lantie" Ella Gaines (1868–1951) in 1890. They had one child, King Gaines Gillette (1891–1955). In his later life he traveled extensively and

11662-627: 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. The second year, he sold 90,884 razors and 123,648 blades, thanks in part to Gillette's low prices, automated manufacturing techniques, and good advertising. Sales and distribution were handled by

11781-532: The property. On June 30, 2007, the 588-acre (2.38 km) King Gillette Ranch opened to the public as a park. The ranch is situated adjacent to Malibu Creek State Park in the Santa Monica Mountains , at 26800 West Mulholland Highway in Calabasas, California . Since 2008, the ranch has been used for the NBC reality show The Biggest Loser . The ranch was also featured in the 2019 Ratched Netflix series and in

11900-642: The ranch. In 1952, Bob Hope bought the property, immediately giving it to the Claretian Order of the Catholic Church, which operated a seminary on the grounds for 25 years. In 1970 Thomas Aquinas College rented the property from the Claretian Order before later moving their campus to Santa Paula in 1977. Elizabeth Clare Prophet , founder of the Church Universal and Triumphant, purchased the property in 1978, and ran her New Age church at

12019-426: The rust-prone blade. The risk of injury from handling razor blades was further reduced in 1970 when Wilkinson released its "Bonded Shaving System", which embedded a single blade in a disposable polymer plastic cartridge. A flurry of competing models soon followed with everything from one to six blades, with many cartridge blade razors also having disposable handles. Cartridge blade razors are sometimes considered to be

12138-434: The scale necessary to make the grand experiments which would prove my case—except in war conditions." According to Christina Romer , the money supply growth caused by huge international gold inflows was a crucial source of the recovery of the United States economy, and that the economy showed little sign of self-correction. The gold inflows were partly due to devaluation of the U.S. dollar and partly due to deterioration of

12257-443: The site until 1986 when Soka University of America (SUA) bought the land. In 1990, SUA announced plans to build a future liberal arts college on campus and plans to expand the facility over the next 25 years to an enrollment of as many as 5,000 students. SUA began making plans to expand the campus infrastructure to accommodate living quarters and classrooms for the proposed expansion, but ran into opposition from some local residents,

12376-476: The world, recovery from the Great Depression began in 1933. In the U.S., recovery began in early 1933, but the U.S. did not return to 1929 GNP for over a decade and still had an unemployment rate of about 15% in 1940, albeit down from the high of 25% in 1933. There is no consensus among economists regarding the motive force for the U.S. economic expansion that continued through most of the Roosevelt years (and

12495-624: The world. The financial crisis escalated out of control in mid-1931, starting with the collapse of the Credit Anstalt in Vienna in May. This put heavy pressure on Germany, which was already in political turmoil. With the rise in violence of National Socialist ('Nazi') and Communist movements, as well as investor nervousness at harsh government financial policies, investors withdrew their short-term money from Germany as confidence spiraled downward. The Reichsbank lost 150 million marks in

12614-778: The worldwide economic decline and eventual recovery. Bernanke also saw a strong role for institutional factors, particularly the rebuilding and restructuring of the financial system, and pointed out that the Depression should be examined in an international perspective. Women's primary role was as housewives; without a steady flow of family income, their work became much harder in dealing with food and clothing and medical care. Birthrates fell everywhere, as children were postponed until families could financially support them. The average birthrate for 14 major countries fell 12% from 19.3 births per thousand population in 1930, to 17.0 in 1935. In Canada, half of Roman Catholic women defied Church teachings and used contraception to postpone births. Among

12733-444: Was a common design in Germany in which the blade is slightly angled and curved along its length to make for a slicing action and a more rigid cutting edge. A primary functional difference between double-edge razors and modern cartridge razors is that DE razor heads come in a wide array of aggression levels (where aggression is commonly defined as being less protection from the blade). Great Depression The Great Depression

12852-658: Was a scramble to deflate prices to get the gold standard's conversation rates back on track to pre-WWI levels, by causing deflation and high unemployment through monetary policy. In 1933 FDR signed Executive Order 6102 and in 1934 signed the Gold Reserve Act . The two classic competing economic theories of the Great Depression are the Keynesian (demand-driven) and the Monetarist explanation. There are also various heterodox theories that downplay or reject

12971-505: Was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty; drastic reductions in liquidity , industrial production, and trade; and widespread bank and business failures around the world. The economic contagion began in 1929 in the United States , the largest economy in the world, with the devastating Wall Street stock market crash of October 1929 often considered

13090-478: Was a small part of overall economic activity in the U.S. and was concentrated in a few businesses like farming, it was a much larger factor in many other countries. The average ad valorem (value based) rate of duties on dutiable imports for 1921–1925 was 25.9% but under the new tariff it jumped to 50% during 1931–1935. In dollar terms, American exports declined over the next four years from about $ 5.2 billion in 1929 to $ 1.7 billion in 1933; so, not only did

13209-468: Was also a Utopian Socialist . He published a book titled The Human Drift (1894) 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) was a prospectus for a company set up to create this vision. He offered Theodore Roosevelt

13328-495: Was also the first device intended to reduce the risk of injury from handling blades. The Gillette blade dispenser released in 1947 had the same purpose. The narrow injector blade, as well as the form of the injector razor, also strongly influenced the corresponding details of the subsequently developed cartridge razors. Both injector blades and injector safety razors are still available on the market, from antique stock as well as modern manufacture. The injector blades have also inspired

13447-474: Was endorsed in 2002 by Federal Reserve Governor Ben Bernanke in a speech honoring Friedman and Schwartz with this statement: Let me end my talk by abusing slightly my status as an official representative of the Federal Reserve. I would like to say to Milton and Anna: Regarding the Great Depression, you're right. We did it. We're very sorry. But thanks to you, we won't do it again. The Federal Reserve allowed some large public bank failures – particularly that of

13566-426: Was given by American economists Milton Friedman and Anna J. Schwartz . They argued that the Great Depression was caused by the banking crisis that caused one-third of all banks to vanish, a reduction of bank shareholder wealth and more importantly monetary contraction of 35%, which they called "The Great Contraction ". This caused a price drop of 33% ( deflation ). By not lowering interest rates, by not increasing

13685-500: Was in the form of Federal Reserve demand notes. A "promise of gold" is not as good as "gold in the hand", particularly when they only had enough gold to cover 40% of the Federal Reserve Notes outstanding. During the bank panics, a portion of those demand notes was redeemed for Federal Reserve gold. Since the Federal Reserve had hit its limit on allowable credit, any reduction in gold in its vaults had to be accompanied by

13804-446: Was intended. It exacerbated the Great Depression by preventing economic recovery after domestic production recovered, hampering the volume of trade; still there is disagreement as to the precise extent of the Act's influence. In the popular view, the Smoot–Hawley Tariff was one of the leading causes of the depression. In a 1995 survey of American economic historians, two-thirds agreed that the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act at least worsened

13923-607: Was the Good News disposable razor which was launched on the US market in 1976 before the Bic disposable was made available on that market. Shortly thereafter, Gillette modified the Good News construction to add an aloe strip above the razor, resulting in the Good News Plus. The purported benefit of the aloe strip is to ease any discomfort felt on the face while shaving. In direct response to Wilkinson's Bonded cartridge, during

14042-470: Was the rollback of those same reflationary policies that led to the interruption of a recession beginning in late 1937. One contributing policy that reversed reflation was the Banking Act of 1935 , which effectively raised reserve requirements, causing a monetary contraction that helped to thwart the recovery. GDP returned to its upward trend in 1938. A revisionist view among some economists holds that

14161-475: 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 blades of "the kind with the Man's Face". Around 1922 or 1923, he built a residence at 324 West Overlook Road, in "The Mesa" district of Palm Springs, consisting of

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