Henry Jacques Gaisman

Background

Gaisman was born on December 5, 1869 in Memphis, Tennessee, to Jaques Gaisman and Sarah Kaufman.

Education

The family moved to Cincinnati, where Henry received his only formal education in the public schools. He never went to college.

Career

Gaisman first came to prominence in 1906 as founder and president of a small manufacturing business in New York, Auto-Strop Safety Razor Company. The clean-shaven look had become fashionable, and Gaisman recognized, as had King Gillette a few years earlier, the increasing demand for safety razors, a product that vastly facilitated shaving. Such razors replaced the old straight razor - essentially a knife honed to a very keen edge. Each time a man shaved, he had to sharpen the blade, which was done on a flexible length of leather or canvas - a strop. Shaving with a straight-edge razor was both tedious and slightly dangerous, so men frequently chose to use the professional services of a barber or did not shave. Gaisman, a creative thinker who eventually patented eighty-four inventions, believed many men would prefer to avoid the inconvenience of replacing blades; he designed a single-edge blade that could be easily stropped with a built-in mechanism. Although no detailed information remains, Auto-Strop seems to have been a financially successful firm; in the early 1920's it was paying steady 6-percent dividends and held a small but solid share of the razor business dominated by Gillette. Gaisman was a very active inventor. He developed a nonslip belt for men's trousers, designed a better carburetor for automobiles, improved cutlery designs and the machine tools to manufacture cutlery, and built specialized photographic devices. His most successful invention was a technique used to write captions on photographic film when a picture was taken; George Eastman of Eastman Kodak bought the technique, called Autographics, for $300, 000 in 1914, reportedly the highest price paid in America for a single invention at the time. During these years, Gaisman served on the board of the New York State Reformatories (1911-1919), chaired the safety razor division of the War Industries Board, and served as an expert for both the chief of the Bureau of Research of the General Staff and the Port of New York War Board. Under Gaisman's direction, Auto-Strop held to a steady if uneventful course. But the 1920's offered new opportunities, in the United States and overseas. Gaisman recognized these opportunities, and in the late 1920's Auto-Strop grew dramatically, expanding from its base of two factories in New York City and Newark, New Jersey, by adding manufacturing facilities in Toronto, London, and Rio de Janeiro. The company was said to have sales offices in all principal cities of the world. Auto-Strop reported impressive profits of nearly $1. 5 million in 1929. The basic Gillette patents all expired by the mid-1920's, and Gaisman saw an opportunity to design a superior blade that would fit the millions of Gillette razor handles consumers had bought over the years. He designed such a blade and offered it to Gillette in 1928 for $5 million. Gillette's directors, whose company was more than ten times the size of Auto-Strop and who had long been accustomed to unchallenged dominance of the safety-razor market, took no interest in Gaisman's idea. So Gaisman set himself the task of designing and building a production line for his Probak razor; it came on the market at the end of 1929. The blade had an added advantage: it would fit the standard Gillette handle, but Gillette blades would not fit the Probak handle. Gillette management finally realized that Gaisman's design had merit. They set to work in 1929 to design their own version; the blade came on the market only months after the Probak. But the Probak was patented, and Gaisman immediately sued for patent infringement. By July 1929, Gillette had learned that the Probak patent would carry the day, and the company sought accommodation. Gaisman agreed to merge Auto-Strop with Gillette in exchange for 310, 000 shares of Gillette common stock. In an audit of each company's books, it was discovered that Gillette's long-standing practice of booking shipments to its foreign subsidiaries as completed sales had, in the declining markets of the previous five years, led to overstating profits by more than $11 million. In the face of such misrepresentation, Gaisman refused to go through with the merger as negotiated; he demanded much more. Gillette had no room to bargain; the company paid Gaisman specially created preferred shares, which paid a guaranteed dividend and came with full voting rights. Gaisman thus received $20 million instead of roughly $3 million, as originally agreed; more significant, he became Gillette's largest shareholder and joined its board of directors. Within a few months, it was clear that Gillette needed new leadership; Gaisman was elected chairman of the board (1930-1938), and he recruited Gerard Lambert as president (Lambert was the man who made Listerine). Under their combined leadership, Gillette designed and introduced an improved handle (the Goodwill), in which only the Gillette and Probak blades properly fit. In 1934, Gaisman founded the Inventors Foundation in New York. Its purpose was to give practical guidance to inventors, with particular emphasis on how to protect inventions through patents. Several colleges in the New York area offered the program, which consisted of classes and seminars, including one at New York University that included women. Gaisman stepped down as chairman of Gillette's board in 1938, the same year Gillette introduced its first electric razor. Gaisman died in White Plains, New York.

Achievements

• Gaisman was a philanthropist and inventor of a type of safety razor, the autographic camera, and over one thousand other patents which benefited common items such as swivel chairs, men's belts, and carburetors.

Connections

In 1951, at age 82, Gaisman married Catherine Vance, a nursing supervisor at Mount Sinai Hospital who was forty-nine years his junior.

Father:

Jacques Gaisman

Mother:

Sarah Kaufman

Spouse:

Catherine Vance

References

• King C. Gillette, the man and his wonderful shaving device