Hunter C. Haynes

How this work helped shape America

Born in Selma, Alabama, in 1867 to formerly enslaved parents, Hunter C. Haynes learned barbering as a teenager and eventually transformed his knowledge of the trade into a manufacturing enterprise. Seeking a better method for sharpening and maintaining razors, Haynes developed the ready-to-use Haynes Razor Strop and established a company to manufacture and market the product. After expanding beyond the limited opportunities available to a Black manufacturer in the Jim Crow South, he operated a factory and mail-order business in Chicago and later developed a larger New York-based enterprise in partnership with a German steel company. Haynes promoted his razor strops nationally and internationally, converting occupational knowledge from the barbering trade into manufactured goods and commercial distribution. His career demonstrates how a Black American entrepreneur used product development, manufacturing and mail-order marketing to participate in the expanding American personal-care products industry.