Tupperware, one of the first products that turned mass amounts of American women into entrepreneurs, was, in fact, developed by a man. Earl Tupper of Berlin, New Hampshire, created Tupperware in 1945. The airtight food containers were famous for their "burping seal" which was an audible assurance of freshness.
Though Earl is credited with the creation bearing his namesake, the product may have never left his own home had it not been for people-guru Brownie Wise. Click on her picture for the Wikipedia article.
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Brownie was the image that brought Tupperware to life. Women across America wanted to be her. Mary Siriani, in a PBS documentary:
When she came out, all the hullabaloo and the applause, and this was our Brownie. And everyone wanted to be like a Brownie. I guess Bess Bernstein lost about twenty-five, thirty pounds wanting to look like Brownie.
Tupperware quickly became a saving grace to women who wanted or needed to work but were denied jobs due to a patriarchal society that believed that a woman had but two places in the world. Anne Tate, in a PBS documentary:
Well, I frankly think that everybody believed a woman's place was in the home and in the kitchen and in the bedroom, and that was it. I think that, that, a lot of men did not want their wives to go out and earn money.
Brownie Wise helped women with little education and tight finances realize that they could earn their own living, too. Wise knew too well the need to be financially independent. According to PBS, when she was 24 she was stuck in a terrible marriage with an infant son. Then in 1947 she was introduced to door-to-door sales through a company called Stanley Home Products, until one day one of her associates introduced her to Tupperware. Gary McDonald, in a PBS documentary:
Well, my first exposure to Tupperware was when I saw it in the J.L. Hudson Department store. And I said, "Wow! That is a product which must be demonstrated." ...We got calls from Mr. Tupper's sales manager who said, "Just what in the hell are you people doing to sell the amount of Tupperware you're selling?"
The idea of women selling kitchen products to other women seems counterintuitive to the general beliefs about the modern feminist movement; however, like the teachings of Wollstonecraft and other pre-modern feminists, Tupperware's empowerment of women was, indeed, an advancement. Albeit they were more like baby steps, no where near the protests and marches that were little more than a decade away, Tupperware allowed women to begin to see that their place in the world expanded far beyond the kitchen or the bedroom.
Tupper
Fabulous!