Gossett was born on August 18, 1884 in Williamston, South Carolina, the son of James Pleasant Gossett and Sallie Acker Brown Gossett. He grew up under the aegis of a father who was himself a leader in the development of the cotton textile industry in the South and a prominent religious, educational, and civic figure in South Carolina.
When Gossett was fifteen years old, he enrolled at Clemson College in Clemson, South Carolina, and stayed until 1901. Two years later he was appointed to the United States Naval Academy, and in 1905 he was commissioned a lieutenant in the United States Marines.
After Gossett resigned from the Marines in 1907, he joined his father in cotton manufacturing. For the next forty years his interest and influence in the Southern textile industry grew steadily. He served as an officer or director of more than a dozen cotton mills and manufacturing companies, including the Gossett Mills, Chadwick-Hoskins Company, Williamston Mills, Brogon Mills, Cohannet Mills, Martinsville (Virginia) Mills, Southern Worsted Company, Calhoun Mills, Textron, Textron Southern, Riverside Manufacturing Company, Judson Mills, and Dan River Mills. After his father's death in 1936, Benjamin Gossett became president of the Gossett Mill chain of Anderson, South Carolina. Ten years later, in the spring of 1946, he sold the Gossett Textile interests for approximately $13 million to Textron of Providence, Rhode Island, through its new subsidiary, Textron Southern. These negotiations signaled official retirement for him (he was then sixty-two years old), even though his interest in the textile industry remained keen. For a brief time he served as a director of Textron and as chairman of the board of Textron Southern. Gossett's major contribution to the textile industry was his role as one of the founders of the Cotton Textile Institute, organized in the mid-1920's during an industry-wide depression. The Cotton Textile Institute was a new form of trade association in the industry; it was national in scope, with emphasis on stabilization, cooperation, and control. Its founders brought to it financial stability, articulate leadership, and aggressive and talented administration. Gossett and his father belonged to the group of uninhibited Southerners who took the initiative from New England textile leaders and created what has been described by Louis Galambos as a "policy shaping association" of great power and influence. Benjamin Gossett served on the institute's board of directors and was its vice-president from 1931 until 1933. He also served as president of the American Cotton Manufacturers Association; when that group merged with the Cotton Textile Institute, he became ex officio director. Like his father, Gossett was patriotic. In addition to his earlier military career, he served as a captain in the army during World War I. He was an officer in the Society of the Sons of Confederate Veterans and held membership in the Navy League of the United States, the American Legion, the Sons of the American Revolution, and a number of similar organizations. Gossett had a strong sense of civic duty. He was federal fuel administrator for South Carolina during World War I and chairman of the commerce and industry division of the State Board of Conservation and Development of North Carolina from 1927 until 1930. During the Great Depression he was a member of the code authority for the National Recovery Administration. In 1937-1938 he served as a member of the North Carolina Tax Classification Amendment Commission. During World War II he became an industry member for the regional organization of the National War Labor Board and chairman of the industrial salvage division of the War Production Board for North Carolina. Gossett was well known for his interest in higher education. Shortly before his death, he established the Gossett lecture series at North Carolina State College in Raleigh. He died in Charlotte, North Carolina on November 13, 1951.
President of the American Cotton Manufacturers Association; member of the Navy League of the United States; member of the American Legion; member of the Sons of the American Revolution; member of the code authority for the National Recovery Administration; member of the North Carolina Tax Classification Amendment Commission (1937-1938); member of the National War Labor Board
Gossett married Katharine Coleman Clayton, of Annapolis, Maryland, on December 19, 1906. They had three children.
