Its 1925, and young Allan Odell of the then Burma-Vita Corporation of Minneapolis pitches a great sales idea to his father,Clinton: small, wooden roadside signs to pitch their product, Burma Shave, a brushless shaving cream. His Dad wasn't convinced, but eventually gave Allan $200 to give it a try. Before long, Allan and brother Leonard were putting up signs all over the place and sales began to increase. Started merely as a sales pitch, they eventually found their good humor and old-fashioned wisdom extending to safety tips and whimsy. By the mid '30s, Burma-Shave signs could be seen from coast to coast; with the notable exception of Arizona and Massachusetts. Eventually, there were 7,000 Burma Shave signs stretching across America, coast to coast.
Actual Burma Shave Sign c.1933
The signs were eventually standardized to a uniform white text on red background. They were grouped by fours, fives and sixes and became a ubiquitous visual element of every family's outings and vacations over the roads across the country.
Though very supportive and wildly successful during the Depression and the wartime economy of World War II, things changed in the late Fifties, due to the implementation and construction of the Eisenhower Interstate System of super-highways. Cars got faster and superhighways were needed to accommodate them. The smaller signs couldn't be seen, and were soon replaced by far larger, and more unsightly billboards.
1963 was the last year for the newest Burma Shave signs. Sales plummeted to the point that in 1966 the line was discontinued. Three decades later, in 1997, the Burma-Shave product line was re-introduced through a division of the American Safety Razor Company. But it was the end of an era for the fun little red and white icons of roadside wisdom. One of the very last sets of Burma Shave signs is been preserved in the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C..
The product, a brushless shaving cream, was the means to retire the old brush and mug system of shaving that had been the only way to shave for centuries. It's said that a sailor who was stationed in Burma (today's Myanmar) gave the recipe for the balm to the company's founders at a time when many men wore beards and/or moustaches. Burma-Shave correctly saw great potential in a product that could do away with the brush and mug forever, and allow men to simply smooth the cream onto their skin to shave.
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