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Burma-Shave

Creator: 
Burma-Shave shaving cream, box, and pamphlet

A nine-ounce aluminum tube of Burma-Shave shaving cream with lanolin, its box, and a pamphlet titled "The Art of Shaving." The box was made in St. Paul, Minnesota, by the Waldorf Paper Products Company between 1954 and 1957.

In the fall of 1925, a series of six signs advertising Burma-Shave, a new brushless shaving cream, appeared for the first time along highway 65 from Minneapolis to Albert Lea and on highway 61 to Red Wing. The signs began an advertising phenomenon using clever rhyming jingles that lasted into the 1960s, including: “Your shaving brush / has had its day, / so why not / shave the modern way / with Burma-Shave?”

In the early 1900s, Robert Odell, a Minneapolis attorney, was seeking a second source of income. He decided to manufacture an aromatic liniment, which he named Burma-Vita. He chose “Burma,” which was the source of the liniment's ingredients (cassia, camphor, and cajeput), and vita, which is Latin for life. Odell promoted it as a remedy for aches and pains, burns, wounds and sores, skin irritations and rashes, and other ailments.

In 1925, the Burma-Vita company was in dire financial straits. Robert’s son, Clinton, had the idea to develop a brushless shaving product for men from the liniment. This new product would eliminate the need for a shaving brush, which often became moldy and smelly when stored in a shaving kit. Burma-Shave was born after months of experimentation by Carl Noren, a Minneapolis chemist. In 1926, a newspaper advertisement encouraged enlightened young men to use Burma-Shave to shorten the time they spent on shaving. A half-pound jar cost fifty cents, and a big tube was thirty-five cents.

Sales of the new product were slow until Allan Odell, Clinton’s son, decided to take advantage of the increase in car ownership and travel. He convinced his father to invest 200 dollars to create signs to advertise Burma-Shave along the roadside. One line of a non-rhyming jingle was painted on each of six boards, which were spaced one hundred feet apart on the roadside. By 1927, business increased to $68,000 in one year. By the late 1930s, Burma-Shave became the second-highest-selling brushless shaving cream in the US and was in 17 percent of medicine cabinets.

Soon shorter, rhyming jingles appeared on the signs that motorists could more easily read as they passed by. Many of the jingles were early public service announcements—“Drive / with care. / Be alive / when you/ arrive. / Burma-Shave.” Eventually, the signs were installed in forty-five states, and over 6,000 sets were installed in thirty-three years.

Initially, the Burma-Vita company was located at 2533 Hennepin Avenue in Minneapolis. In 1926, the company leased a building at 2005 East Lake Street in Minneapolis. With 17,000 square feet and four stories, the building accommodated modern machinery used to mix the shaving cream and to fill and label jars and tubes. Projected production was two tons per day. In 1940, the company moved once again to 2318 West Chestnut Avenue in Minneapolis. It never employed more than thirty-five employees, who worked in either sign or shaving-cream production.

In the early years, Allan and Clinton Odell wrote most of the product's jingles. In 1930, they realized their jingle-writing creativity was limited, so they created a yearly, national jingle-writing contest. In 1951, prizes ranged from two to 100 dollars.

Contest rules required that the jingle words fit on a series of six signs, and the last sign had to read Burma-Shave. Each jingle had to rhyme and fit into one of six categories—Safe Driving; Humor; Brushless; Economy; Tough Beards, Tender Skin; and Avoid Substitutes. The top or bottom flap of a Burma-Shave carton had to be included with the submission. Over 50,000 entries were received in some years. The Odells were careful not to use potentially offensive jingles.

During World War II, gasoline and tire shortages limited sign maintenance, and sales dropped since there were fewer vehicles on roadways. With the beginning of the interstate highway system in the 1950s, the signs lost their advertising effectiveness since they had to be installed farther from roads. At the same time, driving speeds increased, making signs harder to read. New laws regulating highway billboards and changing times led to the eventual demise of the signs, and thus declining sales. In 1963, the Burma-Vita company was sold to Philip Morris, which began removing the signs. In 1966, the manufacturing operations moved to New Jersey and production discontinued soon after.

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“Burma-Vita Company Leases New Building.” Minneapolis Sunday Tribune, February 28, 1926.

P1920
Burma-Vita Company Records, 1949–1954
Manuscript Collection, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul
Description: Photocopies and original materials removed from a scrapbook (1949–1954) containing newspaper clippings, advertisements from both retail and trade magazines, and contest announcements documenting the nationwide sales efforts of a Minneapolis shaving cream manufacturer.

“Burma Vita Company to Establish Modern Plant in Four-Story Structure.” Minneapolis Sunday Tribune, April 18, 1926.

“Burma-Vita, What is it?” Minneapolis Star Tribune, August 10, 1924.

Esther, John. “The Signs and Rhymes of Burma-Shave.” VHS videotape. Cincinnati: Delaney Communications, 1994.

“Goodbye! Old Shaving Brush.” Minneapolis Sunday Tribune, February 13, 1927.

Gamble Agency Store Advertisement. Pine River Journal, October 31, 1935.

Jacobson, Don. “In the Place of Burma Shave, a New School’s Flag will Wave.” Minneapolis Star Tribune, May 12, 2017.

Rowsome Jr., Frank. The Verse by the Side of the Road: The Story of the Burma-Shave Signs and Jingles. Brattleboro, VT: Stephen Greene Press, 1965.

Vossler, Bill. Burma-Shave: The Rhymes, the Signs, the Times. St. Cloud: North Star Press of St. Cloud, Inc., 2001.

“What! No Lather?” Minneapolis Sunday Tribune, February 26, 1928.

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Turning Point

In 1925, the installation of signs advertising Burma-Shave, the brushless shaving cream, along two Minnesota roads, creates an advertising phenomenon that will last for decades.

Chronology

1926

The Burma-Vita Company of Minneapolis incorporates on November 18; 49 percent of its stock is sold within three weeks.

1926

The officers of the Burma-Vita Company are Clinton M. Odell, president and general manager; Allan G. Odell, vice president and sales manager; Carl Noren, chemist; and Margaret Martin, secretary.

1935

An advertisement for the Gamble Agency Store in the Pine River Journal states that a tube of Burma-Shave sells for ten cents.

1950

A set of Burma-Shave signs reads, “A whiskery kiss / for the one / you adore / may not make her mad, / but her face will be sore. / Burma-Shave.”

1953

A set of signs reads, “The safest rule, / no ifs or buts: / just drive / like everyone else / is nuts! Burma-Shave.”

1960

A set of signs reads, “Henry the Eighth / sure had trouble: / short-term wives, / long-term stubble. / Burma-Shave.”

1963

A set of signs reads, “Our fortune / is your / shaven face; / it’s our best / advertising space. / Burma-Shave.”

1963

The Odell family sells the Burma-Vita Company to the Philip Morris Company.

1965

Congress passes the Highway Beautification Act to regulate outdoor advertising signs that appear on the federal interstate and main highways of the United States.

1968

The Philip Morris Company sells the Burma-Shave brand to the American Razor Company.

2017

Minneapolis Public Schools purchases one of the Burma-Vita Company's factory buildings at 2005 East Lake Street. A new 87,000 square-foot building will replace the 1892 building on the site and will house the district’s adult education programs.