It isn’t an overstatement to say that Ivory soap – one of P&G’s iconic brands and very first products – changed the world. Today, we may not think about the benefit of having soap that floats. But in the late 19th century, when people were still bathing in the murky waters of local rivers and streams, a soap that floated was revolutionary.

So Harley Procter and James Gamble got creative to get the word out. As the story goes, Harley was distracted in church one Sunday morning, trying to come up with what to call the new white soap of exceptional purity that James had invented. He’d been struggling over a name for months when, legend has it, someone started reading aloud the 45th Psalm. When they reached verse eight, Harley was inspired.