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Smithsonian Books

Tupperware: The Promise of Plastic in 1950's America

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Format: Paperback


Description

From Wonder Bowls to Ice-Tup molds to Party Susans, Tupperware has become an icon of suburban living. Tracing the fortunes of Earl Tupper's polyethylene containers from early design to global distribution, Alison J. Clarke explains how Tupperware tapped into potent commercial and social forces, becoming a prevailing symbol of late twentieth-century consumer culture. Invented by Earl Tupper in the 1940s to promote thrift and cleanliness, the pastel plasticwares were touted as essential to a postwar lifestyle that emphasized casual entertaining and celebrated America's material abundance. By the mid-1950s the Tupperware party, which gathered women in a hostess's home for lively product demonstrations and sales, was the foundation of a multimillion-dollar business that proved as innovative as the containers themselves. Clarke shows how the “party plan” direct sales system, by creating a corporate culture based on women's domestic lives, played a greater role than patented seals and streamlined design in the success of Tupperware. Read more

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Smithsonian Books


Publication date ‏ : ‎ February 17, 2001


Language ‏ : ‎ English


Print length ‏ : ‎ 256 pages


ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 2


ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 02


Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 12 ounces


Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.98 x 0.67 x 9.02 inches


Best Sellers Rank: #1,193,343 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #887 in Company Business Profiles (Books) #3,480 in Popular Culture in Social Sciences #7,045 in Women's Studies (Books)


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Top Amazon Reviews

    • I haven't finished reading all of the book but what ...
I haven't finished reading all of the book but what I have read is very informative and I am enjoying it. I was a Tupperware dealer and manager for many years so it especially interesting to me.
Reviewed in the United States on April 20, 2015 by Wallie Starnes
    • Very informational
This is a very informational book about Tupperware. If you have an interest in the business and how it came to be, then this is your book. Anyone studying business might find it very interesting too as TW was the first company to market the "home party". Very interesting history to say the least.
Reviewed in the United States on December 5, 2008 by Shawnodese
    • Five Stars
Very interesting book! A must have for Tupperware collectors and sales reps!!!
Reviewed in the United States on June 10, 2016 by Melissa Matheny
    • Insightful, inspiring historical perspective of Tupperware
Delving into the historical aspect of a true American icon, this book traces the triumphs and mishaps of eccentric inventor Earl Tupper. His brilliance coupled with his eventual collaboration with entrepreneurial genius Brownie Wise, a woman with a mind for business attributed in the 1950's almost exclusively to men, led to the development of one the most enduring direct selling companies in American history. A "must read" for anyone interested in women's history, intrigued by corporate history, or inspired by persistence and the quest for perfection. ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on November 19, 1999 by Cindy Riedl ([email protected])
    • A Tupperware beginning
Really have enjoyed reading this historical review of how Tupperware began. This book shows insite into how the Tupperware company began but also a look at women entering the workforce at a time when this was not exactly accepted. I was given this book as a gift and really have enjoyed it.
Reviewed in the United States on November 23, 1999 by Vanessa
    • Not the book she wanted to write--
Alison Clarke states in the Introduction that she intends to write a "cultural history" of tupperware---and explore how objects of mass consumption are invested with meaning by people who use them (page 4). Unfortunately, that's not the book she wrote. Clarke regards recent scholarly literature as too often downplaying the role of women's agency in the development of 1950's consumer culture. Moreover, Clarke sees consumer culture of the 1950's as an important, politically multifaceted phenomena. Her conclusions are correct, but her argument is flawed. Early on, Clarke appears to be concerned mainly with outlining the historical circumstances of Earl Tupper, the inventor of Tupperware. Tupper's journals outline a spirit of scientific benevolence in service to society. Combined with a classically-described "Protestant" work-ethic, Tupper's innovation and self-reliance paint a picture of classic American mythmaking at work. But Clarke is quick to recognize that it was the contributions of Bonnie Wise, Tupperware's marketing guru, that actually successfully connected Tupperware to the marketplace, and henceforth to the larger consumer culture. According to Clarke, Wise was the pioneer behind the idea of Tupperware parties. Dismissed by other scholars as mere consumerism worship, Clarke emphasizes the entrepreneurial nature of thiese parties, as well as the social effect of creating networks of communication and support for women. As a "modernist icon" Tupperware embodied effort to meld a univocal aesthetic to practical functionality, while at the same time providing a non-threatening social and financial space for women. What was regarded as homemaking basics became a "marketable skill" (117). Wise herself radically differed from the cultural ideal of feminine passive domesticity that so many have regarded as the norm for the time. Clarke's analysis is valuable, but it doesn't fit the task shw outlines for herself. She skillfully utilizes an array of primary sources, from Earl Tupper's journals to company pamphlets to advertisments. She ends up "parroting" the company's official marketing strategy, and speculates on what that meant in the culture of the time. If she had stuck with her stated intentions, she would have relied much more on oral histories of the people involved with tupperware parties, and others who bought tupperware. That would have told us how the product was appropriated and used by consumers----but we only get 1 page of these sources buried-- and then at the end of chapter 5. Moreover, she fails to adequately address the Tupperware marketing phenomenon in the context of other house -to-house sales schemes she discusses in chapter 4. What she writes is a history of the production of tupperware--not the consumption and usage. That's all well and good in itself---but it is not good cultural history. A cultural history of consumption relies on consumers---not producers---for the consumers are the ones who decide what the meanings of products are---not the producers. So her analysis of Tupperware as a cultural barometer fails. How Tupperware is treated by various factors of society seems to me a more valuable measure of a cultural barometer rather than the intentions of the inventors and marketers. Such records give us an insight into production, which is valuable, but do not alone provide a strong enough measure of a product's effects. In bringing these primary historical soruces to light Clarke adds much to the discussion she aims to join, but her evidence does not support a conclusion of cultural meaning-only of cultural intent. It's a good book, but only if you read it differently than how she intended it to be read. Nonetheless, for its inclusion and discussion of heretofore largely ignored primary sources, Clark's book remains an important part of the literature regarding the mythic and ideological dimensions of 1950's consumer culture. ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on March 13, 2002 by Christopher W. Chase
    • Tupperware was yet another man who used a woman and ...
Tupperware was yet another man who used a woman and then sexually harassed her (left OUT of the book) and took all the glory. Tupperware was NOT selling when he then brought on Brownie Wise. Tupperware was NOT in the living rooms of those women selling to them, getting them excited and basically inspiring an army. That psychological phenomena was ALL due to Brownie. The forgotten heroine of Tupperware who was "mysteriously" forced out. With her looks, one can only guess why she was forced out. ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on April 1, 2017 by Terri Nopp
    • Too Wordy
Very disappointed in this book. From the vintage photo cover I expected a much more fun, although enlightening, read instead of all the scientific psychological "wordiness". This might be a great book for an in depth college class, but not for an enjoyable look back on the past. Every time I tried to read this book I would start to fall asleep. Won't be finishing this one. ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on June 26, 2016 by Mary Ann Blindt

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