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History of Tupperware

Earl Silas Tupper invented Tupperware in 1939 while working for DuPont in plastics. He developed a way to make plastic flexible, clear and durable. After inventing his plastic containers, he added an airtight seal inspired by a paint can lid. In 1946, he first introduced Tupperware which was distributed in department stores. In 1951, Brownie Wise convinced Tupper to sell Tupperware through home parties instead of stores, which became very successful and helped many women start their own businesses. Wise grew Tupperware into a global empire through her marketing strategies and motivation of the Tupperware ladies sales force until Tupper fired her in 1958.

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Kimbre Bellhouse
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445 views3 pages

History of Tupperware

Earl Silas Tupper invented Tupperware in 1939 while working for DuPont in plastics. He developed a way to make plastic flexible, clear and durable. After inventing his plastic containers, he added an airtight seal inspired by a paint can lid. In 1946, he first introduced Tupperware which was distributed in department stores. In 1951, Brownie Wise convinced Tupper to sell Tupperware through home parties instead of stores, which became very successful and helped many women start their own businesses. Wise grew Tupperware into a global empire through her marketing strategies and motivation of the Tupperware ladies sales force until Tupper fired her in 1958.

Uploaded by

Kimbre Bellhouse
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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History of Tupperware: Who Invented Tupperware

Earl Silas Tupper was the man who invented Tupperware in 1939.

Earl Tupper grew up on a farm at the turn of the century, and was always into tinkering and
inventing to help his family farm become more productive.

One of his early inventions received a patent.

After leaving the family farm, he had several jobs and even started a tree service business, which
eventually went bankrupt. In 1937, Earl Tupper, who invented Tupperware, started to work for
DuPont in plastics. He worked there for only one year.

During this time period, plastics were not widely used as they are today. They were notorious for
being greasy and extremely brittle. They even smelled bad. To say they were unreliable was an
understatement.

Though Earl Tupper is credited as the man who invented Tupperware, his contributions to plastic
go further than the history of Tupperware. He was the pioneer who developed a way to purify a
waste product called polyethylene slag into a plastic that was flexible, clear, and durable.

After inventing his plastic containers in 1939, he came up with an ingenious solution for a lid,
modeled after an upside down lid used for paint containers.

Until Earl Tupper, who invented Tupperware, came along, most people stored their food items in
wood, metal, or glass containers. In 1946, Tupper first
introduced Tupperware, which originally came in clear and
pastel colors, and were distributed in department stores.

In the 1950s, American women discovered they could earn


thousands -- even millions -- of dollars from bowls that
burped. "Tupperware ladies" fanned out across the nation's
living rooms, selling efficiency and convenience to their
friends and neighbors through home parties. Bowl by bowl,
they built an empire that now spans the globe.

American Experience presents Tupperware!, a


new documentary by Laurie Kahn-Leavitt (A
Midwife's Tale). Narrated by Kathy Bates, this
funny, thought-provoking film reveals the secret behind Tupperware's success: the
women of all shapes, sizes, and backgrounds who discovered they could move up in the world
without leaving the house. Tupperware! charts the origins of the small plastics company that
unpredictably became a cultural phenomenon.

It all began with the unlikely partnership of Earl Silas Tupper, a reclusive small-town inventor,
and Brownie Wise, a self-taught marketing whiz. At a time when women, who had been
celebrated for working in factories during World War II, were being pushed back to the kitchen,
Wise showed them how to defy the limitations they faced by starting up their own businesses --
based in their kitchens.

In Tupperware!, archival footage of Tupperware parties, annual Tupperware Jubilees, and home
movies is interwoven with the thoughtful, often humorous recollections of Tupperware
salespeople and executives who experienced firsthand the company's meteoric rise.

Tupperware seemed to be custom-made for a post-war America in love with modern


conveniences. But it wasn't an instant success. Its creator, Earl Tupper, spent years tinkering with
his machines in the heart of Massachusetts' plastics industry. Eventually, he figured out how to
mold raw polyethelene, developed for use in weapons, into food containers. Inspired by a paint
can, in 1945 he developed the watertight, airtight Tupper seal. But his Wonderbowl languished
on store shelves.

In 1947 a young mother and divorce named Brownie Wise was living in Detroit when she
stumbled across Tupper's product. Wise was a self-taught saleswoman who never got past eighth
grade growing up in rural Georgia, but she had an intuitive gift for marketing. In 1951, she
traveled to Massachusetts to meet with Tupper. She argued that his products should be sold not in
stores, but at home parties, where women would demonstrate the revolutionary, unbreakable
bowls to their friends and neighbors. Tupper not only bought her reasoning, he hired her on the
spot to head up his entire sales operation, Tupperware Home Parties. From the company's lush
new headquarters just outside Orlando, Florida, Wise began to train an army of Tupperware
ladies to put on parties and recruit new women into the business. She inspired and motivated her
sales force, rewarding them with minks, appliances, and European vacations. Wise developed
exuberant annual Jubilees -- filmed by the company, and excerpted in this documentary -- that
were equal parts costume party, business training, cheerleading, and Hollywood glitz. "It was
like a fairy tale," remembers dealer Li Walker. "Like you're in a wonderland."

Wise transformed the stereotype of the suede-shoed door-to-door salesman into


a woman -- in heels, no less. Women who had worked in factories, or five-and-
tens, or on farms, were now dressed in white gloves and hats, self-assured, able
to speak publicly with confidence. "It was a very privileged job...Tupperware
moved us up to being a lady," says dealer Clairie Brooks. Perhaps most
importantly, Wise encouraged these women to believe in themselves and dream
big. "Brownie had the ability to talk to your dreams. You could suddenly see
yourself being something you hadn't thought about before," recalls salesperson Sylvia Boyd.

A successful female executive in a man's world was news. In a carefully crafted publicity
strategy, Wise was positioned as Tupperware's public face, despite Earl Tupper's objections. As
the company grew, she appeared on talk shows, was quoted by newspapers, and was featured in
dozens of well-known magazines, including Business Week -- becoming the first woman ever to
grace their cover. Tupper grew annoyed when the press implied that his plastic products owed
their success entirely to Brownie Wise's marketing know-how. Relations between Tupper and
Wise, once cozy, became contentious as they tussled for control. On January 28, 1958, as
projected sales reached $100 million, Tupper fired Wise with next to no warning, cutting her off
with a $35,000 settlement. Before the year was out, he sold the company for $16 million and
later bought an island in Central America, where he continued to invent gadgets and gizmos.

Stunned by her dismissal, Brownie attempted to get back on her feet. She launched Cinderella, a
home-party cosmetics company. It folded within a year. "The story of Earl Tupper, Brownie
Wise, and her Tupperware ladies takes us into the heart of twentieth-century America," says
Kahn-Leavitt. "Tupperware! reveals the lives of women with very few options who remade
themselves and built an empire based on plastic dishes. Their funny, straightforward, often
poignant stories tell us a lot about the history of selling, the changes in expectations for women,
and the importance of recognition and applause in all of our lives."

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