Iowan Jacob Schick was a lieutenant in the U. S. Army. He retired from service in 1910, but reenlisted in World War I. During his hiatus from military service, he was a miner in Alaska and British Columbia.

One winter, Schick weathered temperatures of 40 degrees below zero. When it is that cold, using water to shave is painful. While a lesser man might have simply grown a beard, Schick began devising a way to shave painlessly without water. Inspired by the repeating rifle, he came up with the Magazine Repeating Razor.

In 1926, he tried to market the razor It was not a stunning success, and he sold the rights to the product in 1930. A year later, Schick was back in business, this time manufacturing the first electric shavers. By 1936, Schick had sold a million of them. So had a lot of other people. Schick died in 1957 in the midst of a lawsuit over patent violations.

The Court of Appeals in New York ruled that Schick's electric razor patent was not valid. The judge was later found guilty of accepting bribes in the case. In the end, it was the company Schick sold that made him a household name. In 1946, Eversharp, Inc. acquired the Magazine Repeating Razor Company and renamed it the Schick Safety Razor Company.