Tupperware

Perhaps no product line epitomizes post-World War II American suburbia as much as Tupperware plastic kitchen containers. Earl Tupper (1907-1983), inveterate experimenter from Harvard, Massachusetts, used his experience in 1937 working for Dupont to develop his own kind of plastic, which he used to make all types of products.

He founded the Earl S. Tupper Company in 1938, which had some success selling gas masks and signal lamp parts to the Navy during World War II. But when he applied his flexible and durable material to civilian needs, Tupper achieved his greatest success.

In 1945 Tupper trademarked his perfected plastic, Polyethylene-Tupper, or "Poly-T," the "material of the future." Forever interested in women's daily lives (he experimented with designs for garter belt hooks and brassieres, for example), Tupper used this innovative material to create an entirely new line of housewares which revolutionized the way women dealt with food and other things in their kitchens. Up until this time, plastics like Bakelite and celluloid were common materials but had limited uses—products made from them were either brittle or heavy and were not suitable for use with foods. In contrast, Tupperware was perfect in the kitchen. It came in many forms, including tumblers, bowls, pitchers, ice cube trays, butter dishes, and even cocktail shakers. Tupper's most famous and effective innovation, in 1947, was a set of storage canisters with resealable lids that could be "burped" to let out and keep out excess air. They were light-weight, air-tight, indestructible, and waxy-textured for a good grip. These canisters proved to be great improvements over the more common glass and metal containers women had been using in the kitchen, which were heavy, not air-tight, were prone to sweating from refrigerator condensation, and broke easily.

Tupper's plastic products were not only utilitarian, but also materially seductive. The drinking tumblers came in many colors, including lime, raspberry, lemon, plum, and orange. The bowls were attractively shaped and could even be used to display fresh-fruit centerpieces. Tupperware was such an embodiment of post-war materialism that some of its pieces became part of the Museum of Modern Art's permanent collection in 1955, and were described as "carefully considered shapes … marvelously free of that vulgarity which characterizes so much household equipment." It is ironic that Tupper, such a pioneer bringing the modernity of his translucent plastic designs into the home, was an antiquarian at heart. He believed, nostalgically, in the traditional values of hand-craftsman-ship and manual labor, and his home was filled with antiques. In contrast, the products he engineered and manufactured were truly "tomorrow's designs with tomorrow's materials."

While Tupper brought new materials and new forms into the domestic sphere, his products also introduced a new kind of sociability among women through private home sales. From 1950 on, Tupperware was marketed and distributed only by direct selling, through Tupperware Parties, overseen by Tupperware Home Parties Incorporated, established in 1951 and also known as the Cinderella Company. These parties were actually commercial opportunities orchestrated as social events. A hostess would throw a party in her home, inviting friends and neighbors in order to provide first-hand demonstrations of the products (like how to "burp" the storage canisters), and to give her guests a chance to purchase Tupperware items. Here, women also played games and could win Tupperware prizes, and the hostess would try to recruit potential hostesses to give their own parties—all in exchange for Tupperware items for herself.

This method of product distribution paradoxically offered women the freedom to be entrepreneurs while it emphasized their domestic duties as wives and mothers, giving them the chance to socialize on their own, yet in a way that channeled them into their traditional gender roles. However ambiguous, Tupper's marketing strategy—overseen by homemaker Brownie Wise until 1958—was clearly successful. In 1954 over 200,000 women were dealers, distributors, and managers. In that same year sales topped $25 million and allowed Tupper to double the size of his Blackstone, Massachusetts, manufacturing facility. In 1958 he sold his interest in the company to Justin Dart of the Rexall Drug Company.

Tupperware and the party system both successfully entered Britain in 1961. By 1979 there were over 50,000 people selling over $700 million worth of Tupperware. In the 1980s Tupperware was sold in over 42 countries and carried product lines fitting specific cultural needs, like the sushi saver in Japan. To bring it up to date, Morris Cousins redesigned Tupperware in the 1990s, giving it "Euro styling" with brighter colors and sleeker shapes. The company introduced "Tupperkids," a line of children's toys, in 1994. What is more, Tupperware is so familiar to Americans that it has become a generic word applied to all such plastic storage containers with resealable lids, and has come to symbolize the unique blend of domesticity, materialism, and superficiality that is seen to characterize life in the American suburb.

—Wendy Woloson

Further Reading:

Clarke, Alison J. "Tupperware: Product as Social Relation." American Material Culture: The Shape of the Field, edited by Ann Smart Martin and J. Ritchie Garrison. Winterthur, Delaware, Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum and Knoxville, Tennessee, University of Tennessee Press, 1997.

Fenichell, Stephen. Plastic: The Making of a Synthetic Century. New York, Harper Business, 1996.

Meikle, Jeffrey L. American Plastic: A Cultural History. New Brunswick, New Jersey, Rutgers University Press, 1995.