The Gillette Blade - company magazine for employees

Discussion in 'General Shaving Talk' started by IAmTheJody, Jul 28, 2011.

  1. IAmTheJody

    IAmTheJody Gillette-i Master Staff Member

    During it's early days, the Gillette razor company published a monthly magazine for its employees called The Gillette Blade. These are very rare to own and I only know of 3 other people that own some of these as well as the entire collection in the Boston library. I was fortunate enough to acquire 11 issues from 1919 that someone had bound into a hardcover (February 1919 through December 1919, not sure where why they didn't include January 1919). I've added a few more pictures from these issues to my picture gallery here and thought I'd share with everyone here. :)
     
  2. Regan

    Regan Well-Known Member

    First of all... congrats on 1800 posts.

    Secondly COOOOL. Thanks for sharing. Would have been better if had a full year instead of missing one :D. It is almost as cool as the belt buckle :D
     
  3. TheCopperHat

    TheCopperHat Member

    What an outstanding find!
     
  4. IAmTheJody

    IAmTheJody Gillette-i Master Staff Member

    I really think they didn't publish a January 1919 issue because they had their big nationwide salesmen convention going on that month and it's plausible to think that putting something that big together required full attention and all hands so the employees that did the magazine were too busy to do an issue that month because they were too busy working on the convention and February's issue. Additionally, there's no ripped out section or damage in the hardcover that would show that there was once another issue in it.

    And these magazines are WAY cooler than the belt buckle... and much older. :D
     
  5. IAmTheJody

    IAmTheJody Gillette-i Master Staff Member

    If anyone is interested in actually reading the articles and pages, Razor Emporium has their set scanned and viewable for reading here. And speaking of, their set does have a January 1919 issue so scratch what I said above about me not thinking they did a January 1919 issue. The January 1919 issue was given to salesmen at the convention, it was a convention-only issue so unless you were there at the convention, you didn't get one.. which explains why that issue is missing from my set.
     
  6. Regan

    Regan Well-Known Member

    But you can look much cooler with a belt buckle on everyday rather than carrying a book with you :D. Would love to give some of the Gillette books and magazines a read.
     
  7. tomnat

    tomnat accepting applications

    Nice collection, Jody. That is amazing that the company put that many resources, and what would have been a lot of time, into putting that magazine out monthly. That is not your cheap little bi-fold monthly newsletter that you may see today. That is a serious production. Very nice.
     
  8. Griff76

    Griff76 Member

    Absolutely impressive!
     
  9. Shaver X

    Shaver X Well-Known Member

    The January 1919 issue starts on p.65 at this link on Google Books. The bookplate at the beginning of the bound volume says "Library of the University of Michigan". It is possible that they still have these and other issues in their collection. If I recall correctly, Stanford University also had many issues of this magazine. The bookplate states that the magazines were donated by Gillette to the university, so other schools may have donated copies.

    There are additional volumes available on Google Books. The volumes there can also be downloaded as PDFs.
     

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