This volume offers a behind-the-scenes look at how the Gillette company works, providing insight into its global outlook and strategy. It highlights the company's commitment to innovation, creative advertising and environmental issues.

Which came first, sliced bread or the toaster? When did most people begin wearing deodorant? Who invented the electric blanket? Catherine O’Reilly tackles questions such as these with a keen curiosity and well-honed writing skills. Her ability to turn any normal home into a jungle of history, invention, and technological wonder is a treat. For fans of Schott’s Original Miscellany and The Book of Useless Information, O’Reilly’s Did Thomas Crapper Really Invent the Toilet? is another smart and quirky look at miscellaneous items. Learn the real histories of the blender, the fire extinguisher, the cheese grater, the clock radio, deodorant, Post-its, fabric softener, and, of course, the toilet. These are the unknown stories of everyday items that we take for granted.

A book for the barberiana collector or anyone curious about the history of safety razors before Mr. Gillette's invention. The stories of inventors and patents, plus numerous photographs of collectible safe shaving devices. Index.

The conservative columnist shares stories about inventors who have shaped American technological progress through the innovation of everyday objects, from bottle caps to bridge cables.

From the invention of eyeglasses to the Internet, this three-volume set examines the pivotal effects of inventions on society, providing a fascinating history of technology and innovations in the United States from the earliest European colonization to the present. Technical Innovation in American History surveys the history of technology, documenting the chronological and thematic connections between specific inventions, technological systems, individuals, and events that have contributed to the history of science and technology in the United States. Covering eras from colonial times to the present day in three chronological volumes, the entries include innovations in fields such as architecture, civil engineering, transportation, energy, mining and oil industries, chemical industries, electronics, computer and information technology, communications (television, radio, and print), agriculture and food technology, and military technology. The A–Z entries address key individuals, events, organizations, and legislation related to themes such as industry, consumer and medical technology, military technology, computer technology, and space science, among others, enabling readers to understand how specific inventions, technological systems, individuals, and events influenced the history, cultural development, and even self-identity of the United States and its people. The information also spotlights how American culture, the U.S. government, and American society have specifically influenced technological development.

"This is a book that is full of things I have never seen before, and full of new things to say about things I thought I knew well. It is a book about houses and about culture and about how each affects the other, and it must stand as one of the major works on the history of modern housing." - Paul Goldberger, The New York Times Book Review Long before Betty Friedan wrote about "the problem that had no name" in The Feminine Mystique, a group of American feminists whose leaders included Melusina Fay Peirce, Mary Livermore, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman campaigned against women's isolation in the home and confinement to domestic life as the basic cause of their unequal position in society.The Grand Domestic Revolution reveals the innovative plans and visionary strategies of these persistent women, who developed the theory and practice of what Hayden calls "material feminism" in pursuit of economic independence and social equality. The material feminists' ambitious goals of socialized housework and child care meant revolutionizing the American home and creating community services. They raised fundamental questions about the relationship of men, women, and children in industrial society. Hayden analyzes the utopian and pragmatic sources of the feminists' programs for domestic reorganization and the conflicts over class, race, and gender they encountered. This history of a little-known intellectual tradition challenging patriarchal notions of "women's place" and "women's work" offers a new interpretation of the history of American feminism and a new interpretation of the history of American housing and urban design. Hayden shows how the material feminists' political ideology led them to design physical space to create housewives' cooperatives, kitchenless houses, day-care centers, public kitchens, and community dining halls. In their insistence that women be paid for domestic labor, the material feminists won the support of many suffragists and of novelists such as Edward Bellamy and William Dean Howells, who helped popularize their cause. Ebenezer Howard, Rudolph Schindler, and Lewis Mumford were among the many progressive architects and planners who promoted the reorganization of housing and neighborhoods around the needs of employed women. In reevaluating these early feminist plans for the environmental and economic transformation of American society and in recording the vigorous and many-sided arguments that evolved around the issues they raised, Hayden brings to light basic economic and spacial contradictions which outdated forms of housing and inadequate community services still create for American women and for their families.

This book argues that being first to market guarantees little. It argues that enduring market leadership depends on five key principles: vision of mass market; managerial persistence; relentless innovation; financial commitment; and asset leverage.

As one of the original Thirteen Colonies and birthplace of the American Revolution, Massachusetts has continued the rich tradition of liberty throughout its storied history, becoming a primary contributor to many fields of human endeavor in American society. Massachusetts native August C. Bolino profiles two hundred significant historical personages from this state in Men of Massachusetts. Beginning with a brief history, Bolino traces the role individual men have played throughout the states nearly four-hundred-year history, offering a concise and informative profile of each one. He discusses how Massachusetts has been a leader in reform movements, including education, the abolition of slavery, and womens and African American suffrage. In addition, Bolino depicts how people of Massachusetts spread culture in literature, music, entertainment, and sports, championed liberty, encouraged entrepreneurship, and paved the way for us in the twenty-first century. Profiles include such storied figures as John Adams and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Henry David Thoreau and Nathaniel Hawthorne, Elias Howe and Calvin Coolidge, and, of course, the Kennedy family. A true testament to the remarkable achievements of the people of Massachusetts, this compendium shows the fruits of true liberal philosophy.

"When are the 1970s going to begin?" ran the joke during the Presidential campaign of 1976. With his own patented combination of serious journalism and dazzling comedy, Tom Wolfe met the question head-on in these rollicking essays in Mauve Gloves and Madmen, Clutter and Vine -- and even provided the 1970s with its name: "The Me Decade."