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Gillette Company Locations and Year Established

Just for information: I´ve found this in the 1977 Gillette booklet:

$1977 Gillette Booklet 75 years-01.jpg

$1977 Gillette Booklet 75 years-18.jpg
 
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I'm sure the noted manufacturing sights cover the spectrum of the Gillette products of the day, but still I'm amazed at the number of facilities Achim.
 
Thanks for posting that, Achim. As I understand it the largest period of expansion was immediately after WWI: ads show this pretty clearly, with new Gillette locations springing up around the world in a short period of time. Some of them did not make this list: Turkey for example.

I wish we knew more about the early days of the French operation. We have a couple of pretty good sources that say it was established in 1905, rather than 1908: Flanagan and Bittues. Bittues was the man who went there and managed things, so he ought to have known. McKibben and Adams also seem to agree on 1905, probably because they read the Bittues article. King Camp himself says 1906 and mentions a variety of other locations worldwide that do not show up in this 1977 table. But perhaps there are good reasons for these discrepancies.

Germany raises a similar question. King Camp mentions an office opened there in 1906. Maybe a typo? Possibly he was exaggerating and meant the sales through Grell in Hamburg? Or since he was writing in 1918, perhaps he misremembered?
 
Very cool, Achim. It would be nice if they'd reported the establishment of the sales and manufacturing operations separately, but beggars can't be choosers. It's interesting that Spain is listed there as having been established in 1922 and that, at least at some point, there was manufacturing of some sort there, since we have the information that the "V" and "W" suffixes were used during the New Improved run for Spanish- and French-made razors even though we don't seem to be able to turn up any examples of either.

It's also interesting to line these up with the map of "Factories, Branches, and Agencies" from the 1926 Jubilee Issue of the Gillette Blade (below), which seems to show Gillette already having a presence in quite a number of places that the above list would seem to suggest shouldn't yet have existed.

$gillette_map.jpg
 
Bump.
I don't have any big-brain comments like Mike & Porter, but this is the most interesting thing I have seen on this site in quite some time.
 
Great Find Achim, I never cease to be amazed at how often you casually show up with documentation that no-one has previously reported.

The articles in the Gillette Blade by Flanagan and Bittues relate to the Canadian operation and devote only one short sentance each to Bittues attempt to set up a factory in Paris in 1905, so perhaps the fact that it was barely mentioned is indicative of its level of success.

On this thread there is general scepticism about the operations in France and Germany around 1905/6, but does contain this excellent post by Alex:

Patents have to be worked in each country, that means that the product/razors must be made in the country granting the patents within 3 years. This patent law did not apply to England though, so Gillette was safe over there. But it did apply in France and Gillette only had til the last day of 1905 to produce a razor and site.

Gillette exec Heilborn was in France negotiating with a French cutler to make the razors but the plans fell through after disagreement on terms and a October fire that wiped the machinery in the prospective French building for the razor making. Something had to be done fast, so Gillette sent executive Bittues to France in November to set up a quick production line in France so the patent could be worked before the end of year 1905 deadline. [just 2 months away].

Bittues looked at many buildings in France and settled on [old bike seat maker building] American Saddle Company on 24 Rue Cuachy rd. After a fast installation of machinery from the USA and some rented machinery from the Saddle company, Bittues managed to set up the first ever over seas Gillette factory by the end of the year
[ before the patent deadline].

A few years later [ 1906-09?] , the French courts found that Gillette established the factory only to serve as a Stopgap to protect the patent and was not a serious attempt to make razors and blades......A year after [ 1909?] Gillette moved out of the American saddle plant, Gillette then went with the original French cutler who they first picked to make the razors, but the patent was nullified by the French courts for lack of working.....it seems that they never had a patent after 1906.

Bittuets was then sent to Montreal in 1906 to start a factory there. He stayed on as manager director of Gillette Safety Razor Company of Canada, limited.

In 1907 Gillette director Heilborn was in Germany, he wrote back to Boston that the "Berlin market was growing and we should be manufacturing there soon as possible, and Berlin is a better site than Hamburg".....by the end of 1908 the Berlin factory was set up and making razors and blades. By the same time the finishing touches were being made to the Leicester England plant, by 1909 Gillete had 3 European factories. The London sales office was in charge of all the European business.

Russel Adams book " The Man and his wonderful shaving device" p68-69

It could be reasonable expected that Gillette would have had historical documentation for the 1908 dates for France and Germany in their publication, evidence to which we may not yet have acquired access.

Thanks again Achim for the marvellous research and supportive evidence.

Cheers, George
 
I find it interesting that is says 1942 for Argentina, right after Pearl Harbor. Perhaps they broke ground there in that year and waited until after the war(?).
 
I find it interesting that is says 1942 for Argentina, right after Pearl Harbor. Perhaps they broke ground there in that year and waited until after the war(?).

I tend to read the 1977 booklet with a critical eye. Whoever wrote it was fairly distant from the original events, and may have been more interested in marketing than history.

In post #4 Porter kindly shared a 1926 map that seems to show at least location in Argentina. Looking at Moody's Manual of Railroads and Corporation Securities from 1921 and 1922, some of the apparent contradiction is probably "Branches and Agencies" vs "Company Locations". It seems Buenos Aires had a local agency ca. 1920, but did not have a local Gillette subsidiary.



And in 1922:



But this 1921 advert in American Cutler made no distinction: why should they?



Earlier still this 1917 ad for the IPO by the Delaware corporation also fudged the distinction:

[url="http://books.google.com/books?id=R0lOAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA541&ci=73%2C53%2C909%2C578&source=bookclip"]


However the 1919 annual report called them all "branch offices or branch companies":



Paris in 1905-06 might have been a similar situation. We have good contemporary sources saying that a factory was established, but we do not know what the legal framework was. That may be why it is hard to find anything outside the 1918 testimony from Bittues, King Camp Gillette, and Flanagan.
 
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After the cold war ended, didn't they consolidated and move many Gillette European operations to Poland and later Russia? Anyone know when the current PPG plant in Russia was opened?
 
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