Forbes_USA_June_13_2017

LeaderBoard
FORBES @ 100
As Forbes’ September 2017 centennial approaches,
we’re unearthing our favorite covers.
November 15, 1952: Blades of Glory
NOTABLE & NEWSWORTHY
Lights, Cinerama, Action!
As a young man, Lowell Thomas
had helped turn T.E. Lawrence into
Lawrence of Arabia by filming and
photographing the British Army
captain during World War I. Now
stock in Thomas’ new company,
Cinerama, was soaring after it
debuted a new style of widescreen
cinematography that would
later be used by such directors as
John Ford and Stanley Kubrick.
TWO DECADES HAD passed since the death
of King C. Gillette, but his razor manufacturer
still ruled its industry. Half of the razors sold in
America were Gillette, sales of which topped
$100 million annually (over $900 million today).
Company president Joseph Spang had run things
smoothly for the previous 14 years, displaying the
same knack for advertising and promotion as the
business’s legendary founder. Under Spang, Gillette’s
marketing budget had grown almost sevenfold
to $7.5 million (about $70 million in 2017).
Gillette’s business practices had some
sharp edges, though. Its blue-collar employees
described a highly stratified environment despite
a professed egalitarian workplace. “We’re
peasants!” one told Forbes. The company didn’t
think too highly of its public shareholders,
either, leaving investors to “ponder skeleton
statements cloaked in consolidated mystery for
‘competitive reasons.’ ”
EPILOGUE
Sharp-Tongued
When Gillette made the cover
again in February 1991, its
chief, Colman Mockler, wasn’t
a fan of the way we illustrated
him. He had fended off four
takeover bids in two years but
took umbrage at our depiction
of the aftermath: a bloody
handprint on his white shirt.
He didn’t have much time to
dwell on it. He died the month
the issue hit newsstands.
EDITOR’S DESK
We Liked Ike
For the first time in nearly 25 years,
America had a Republican president:
Dwight D. Eisenhower. Malcolm Forbes partly
ascribed the ex-general’s victory to his being
“outstandingly equipped to deal emphatically
with Communism at home and abroad.”
30 | FORBES JUNE 13, 2017
SIGN OF THE TIMES
The Triplicator
The Three Unit Copy Typist
was a trio of typewriters linked
by an electrical-pneumatic
mechanism and sold by
the American Automatic
Typewriting Co. Whatever was
typed on the so-called “master”
machine was simultaneously
reproduced on the other two.
AMAZING ADS
Steeling the Spotlight
U.S. Steel’s many jobs added up to $3.1 billion in
sales, some $28 billion today. It’s far less busy
now, doing only about a third as much revenue.
BY ABRAM BROWN
MOVIESTORE COLLECTION/ALAMY; INDEPENDENT PICTURE SERVICE/ALAMY (PIN)