From humble tool to global icon:
In Switzerland, there is a saying that every good Swiss citizen has one in his or her pocket. It is an object that is recognised all over the world, and it is globally popular.But the Swiss army knife had humble beginnings, and, at the start, it wasn’t even red.
In the late 19th Century, the Swiss army issued its soldiers with a gun which required a special screwdriver to dismantle and clean it. At the same time, tinned food was becoming common in army rations. Swiss generals decided to issue each soldier with a standard knife. It was a life-saver for Swiss knife makers, who were, at the time, struggling to compete with cheaper German imports.
“My great-grandfather started a small business in 1884, 125 years ago,” explains Carl Elsener, head of the Swiss knife manufacturer Victorinox. “He was making knives for farmers, for in the kitchen and so on, and then he heard that the Swiss army wanted a knife for every Swiss soldier.”
Carl Elsener senior seized that opportunity with both hands, and designed a knife that the army loved. “It was a very simple thing,” explains his great-grandson. “It had a black handle, one big blade, a tin opener and a screwdriver.”
Now, to mark the 125th anniversary, that first knife is on display at an exhibition at the Forum for Swiss History, together with hundreds of other Swiss army knives. “The thing about the army knife is that it really has become a kind of global cult object,” says Pia Schubiger, curator of the museum. “Everyone seems to have one, lots of people even have collections of them, and we wanted to explore this phenomenon.”
