Earl Tupper and Tupperware

Earl Silas Tupper, the inventor of Tupperware, was born in New Hampshire in 1907.  As a child, Tupper worked for his small family farm and greenhouse business.  Tupper was not only a successful inventor but also a creative businessman.  At the early age of ten, he first demonstrated business savvy with door-to-door sales of the produce from the family business.

In his late twenties, he worked for a division of DuPont where he gained his knowledge and interest in plastics.  Tupper founded his own plastics company in 1938. The Earl S. Tupper Company first designed and sold plastic products in support of the war.  After WWII, he focused his design efforts on the consumer, and invented the non-breakable, air tight plastic containers.  Slow sales on the department store shelves encouraged home demonstrations and sales otherwise known as the direct selling system.  Today, Tupperware and Tupperware Parties are household names.

Sources:

http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bltupperware.ht

http://www.americanhistory.si.edu/archives/d8470b.ht

http://order.tupperware.com/coe/app/home