The Plastic Fantastic
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

Every 2.5 seconds, a Tupperware party is held somewhere in the world. Ninety percent of American households own at least one piece of Tupperware. And yet, few stop to examine the plastic containers they use to carry their lunches to work or freeze their leftovers. This may change today with the opening of a new exhibit, “Tupperware Party: Past, Present, Future” at the galleries of the Parsons School of Design. The exhibit includes more than 500 Tupperware products, as well as documentary photographs, vintage advertising images, and other historic materials from the Smithsonian archives. It is being held in conjunction with other “Tupperware Party” programs next month at Parsons, including a screening of the PBS/American Experience documentary “Tupperware!” directed by Laurie Kahn-Leavitt and a day of panel discussions on the topic of Tupperware.
All that may sound like a lot of fuss over a rather mundane item, but as the exhibit makes clear, Tupperware has had tremendous influence in the fields of design, marketing, and sales, and in the more than 55 years since its introduction has had a unique role in many aspects of American postwar cultural history, from consumerism to the movement of women into the workplace.
In 1945, an eccentric small-town inventor named Earl Silas Tupper found a way to mold a relatively new substance, raw polyethylene, which had been developed for use in weapons, into plastic containers with watertight, airtight seals. In the next year, he patented what he called the “burping seal” and introduced the new containers, which helped to keep foods from drying out or spoiling, and wouldn’t break if dropped. The designs, originally billed as “fine art for 39 cents,” are now in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In 2001, Tupperware won the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum’s prestigious National Design Award in Corporate Achievement.
Tupperware is sold today in more than 100 countries, and has been adapted to overseas markets with items such as its “Kimchi Keeper” and “Japanese Bento Box” sold abroad. Tupper’s “burping seal” patent expired in 1983, and since then, dozens of other companies have rushed in to duplicate the Tupperware designs.
The cultural history of Tupperware is perhaps even more surprising than its design history. When Tupper first introduced his containers to the market, they languished on the shelves. But in 1947, Brownie Wise, a young, divorced mother living in Detroit – a woman with only an eighth-grade education but an uncanny marketing instinct – stumbled upon the product and had an idea: Tupperware should be sold at home parties, where women could demonstrate the items to their friends. She began holding her own “Tupperware Parties,” and in 1951 met with Earl Tupper himself, arguing that Tupperware should not be sold in stores but only through parties. Tupper was convinced, and hired her on the spot as the head of the company’s new sales operation, Tupperware Home Parties. Wise trained a sales army of Tupperware ladies and helped turn the company into a staggering success, becoming an extremely rare figure in her time – a female executive. She was featured in hundreds of newspapers and magazines, and became the first woman ever to appear on the cover of Business Week.
Wise also provided thousands of women with something that they’d never had before: a job. Selling Tupperware was something that women could do while raising families, scheduling their Tupperware parties around the schedules of their children. Women from all economic, ethnic, and social backgrounds could become Tupperware saleswomen, and many ultimately earned more than their husbands, even convincing their husbands to quit their own jobs and join the Tupperware “family.” Wise inspired her cadre of saleswomen to believe in themselves, motivating them with rallies, prizes, parties, and coveted mentions in the company newsletter. She was known to say to her saleswomen, “You are your own treasure chest.”
Eventually, Wise’s success was her downfall. Tupper was increasingly frustrated as Wise became the company’s public face and news stories implied that Tupperware’s success was entirely due to Wise’s marketing abilities. In 1958, he fired Wise with no warning or explanation, and soon after sold the company for $16 million. Both Tupper and Wise lived the rest of their lives in relative obscurity, but the company that they created together changed America.