Brownie Wise - Tupperware's First Lady

Brownie Wise, born in 1913, grew up in a broken home in rural Georgia. Her mother, a traveling Union organizer, often left her with cousins for long stretches of time. In 1936, she met and married Robert Wise. Robert took a job with Ford Motor Company and the couple relocated to Detroit. Their son, Jerry, was born in 1938. Although Brownie wrote pieces for a Detroit newspaper column about her idealic life, it was fiction. Robert was a violent alcoholic and they were divorced in 1942.

Earl Tupper was constantly inventing things, but after working in a plastics factory, he decided that he could go into business for himself and invented the Tupperware seal that has made the product so successful. Tupperware was a successful product being sold at home parties and in department stores when Brownie Wise began to sell it in the late 1940s.

After the divorce, Brownie took classes and became a secretary, but she also sold Stanley Home products in home parties to make extra money. Sixteen year old Gary McDonald was also a successful Stanley Home party seller and suggested to Brownie that they start a business selling Tupperware at home parties, which they did. Soon they were so successful that they caught the attention of Earl Tupper. Brownie convinced Tupper that he should sell his products only at home parties. So Earl pulled his product out of the department stores and hired Brownie, eventually making her Vice-president of Sales.

Brownie built up the home party business, establishing headquarters in Kissimee Florida, holding jubilee celebrations, and traveling extensively across the country. She was so successful that in 1954, she became the first woman to be featured on the cover of Business Week magazine.

But Brownie wasn’t a feminist pioneer. Although Tupperware was largely a women’s business, Brownie surrounded herself with male executives. Women could be dealers and managers, but distributorships were offered to husband and wife couples where the husband was expected to quit his job and handle the distribution aspect of the business. Regional positions were the exclusive provenance of men.

In 1957, trouble began to brew between Earl Tupper and Brownie. He began to question some of her expenses, but she consistently refused to go to Rhode Island with her books for Earl to examine. Finally, Earl went to Florida and the end result was Brownie being fired.

Even though she tried to start a new company, Brownie never again had the same success she experienced with Tupperware. She pioneered methods and strategies that are used by many other companies even today. Earl Tupper sold the company and it continued to expand. Tupperware is sold today in over 100 countries.

Bette Graham, Liquid Paper and a Monkee

This is Women's History Month and I've been busy searching for women I am unfamiliar with to post on the Facebook page associated with my women's history blog Saints, Sisters, and Sluts. I took a poll and choose the 4 highest areas of interest to be covered during the 4 weeks in March: Queens and Rulers, Inventors, women in science and math, and writers. I highlight one woman each day and then do the usual of sharing other things I find.

I read and write about women's history, but when the month started I realized that I didn't know of any women inventors! So, Google here I come, I began the search and this has turned out to be a fun category. Some of these items it wouldn't surprise you to know were invented by women,for example the dishwasher (Josephine Garis Cochrane in 1892), the rolling pin (Catherine Deiner in 1891), and disposable diapers (Marion Donovan in 1950.)

Some inventions we take for granted, but couldn't do without: windshield wipers (Mary Anderson in 1903), electric hot-water heater (Ida Forbes in 1917), and the medical syringe (Letitia Geer in 1899.) And some we rarely think about, but when we need them are a necessity, the life raft (Maria Beaseley in 1882) and Kevlar (Stephanie Kwolek in 1966.)

There was one invention that I found out about off-line. A friend told me that she thought the mother of one of the Monkees invented Liquid Paper®. (We were both little girls in the 1960s, so this was cool, at least then.) Well sure enough, it was Bette Graham.

Bette Clair McMurray was born in Dallas, Texas in 1924 and was raised in San Antonio. She graduated from high school and married her first husband in 1942 before he went off to WWII. She had a son later that year, but unfortunately the marriage didn’t last and she was divorced in 1946. 

As a single mother, Bette had to support herself and began working as a secretary at Texas Band and Trust. Soon she worked her way up the ladder to become an executive secretary, a plum position, especially in the 1950s when there wasn’t anything else open to women in the banking industry. This, of course, was before the days of word processors.  On a typewriter, once that wrong letter was hit it was too late. This meant that you had to try to erase it or retype the entire page.

Bette also had artistic talent and during holidays she painted department store windows. She realized that painters never erased mistakes, they just painted over them. So she mixed a little tempura paint in a bottle and took her brush to work. It worked and although she tried to keep it hidden, soon other people started borrowing her "paint." She made some improvements over the next few years with help from her son’s chemistry teacher.

In 1956, Bette began to market her correction fluid as “Mistake Out.” The name was later changed to Liquid Paper®. In 1979, Bette’s company had 200 employees and was making 25 million bottles of Liquid Paper® a year when she sold the company for $47.5 million.

When Bette Nesmith Graham died in 1980, her son Michael Nesmith inherited half of her $50 million estate. And yes that’s Michael Nesmith of the Monkees! 

The Monkees in 1967, from left to right Micky Dolenz, Davy Jones, Michael Nesmith, and Peter Tork

R. I. P. Sherwood Schartz (a few months late)

I was looking at a list of famous people born today and discovered that Sherwood Schwartz had died! Granted I don't watch TV and get my news mostly online and via newspapers and NPR, but I can't believe that I didn't know he died on July 12th of this year. If I had heard it, I definitely would have remembered it.

Why? I am a big Gilligan's Island fan. Not the fan club variety, I'm not much of a follower of anything. But the "I OWN the DVDs of that quirky sitcom", variety. I know, I know, it's stupid slapstick, no one could ever be as inept as Gilligan, foul up so many rescues without being "voted off the island", and the women are kept in their places doing all the "hutwork" and cooking. But I still love it.

I admit this is strange and I can't really explain it. I love classical music and opera, am more likely to read history and science than fiction, and surf the web primarily to get news. But there are a few things that I do semi-regularly that are decidedly less intellectual. Every couple of years I reread the entire original Little House Series of books, I periodically reread the Harry Potter series, and I watch Gilligan's Island. Most often I put it on in the background while I read. (After all it really doesn't take a lot of attention to follow the plot.)

Gilligan's Island was one of those shows that critics love to hate, but that fans love (or hate.) It only ran for 3 years, 1964-1967 (one in black and white, two in color) but has stayed on air almost continuously in syndication since it was cancelled. Only three of the actors are still alive, Mary Ann, Ginger, and the Professor. Oh, sorry, that's Dawn Wells, Tina Louise, and Russell Johnson.

Mr. Schwartz was the writer, creator, and producer of the show. Of course, he did other things. In fact he had a long career, writing for a number of shows on radio and TV, producing several one season shows, and even creating, writing, and producing The Brady Bunch. He won an Emmy in 1961 and a Daytime Emmy for the 2004 special Still Brady after All These Years. He even wrote Gilligan's Island: The Musical which was still playing as of his death this year. But, what I remember him for is Gilligan's Island. I don't know if that's what he would prefer to be remembered for, but there it is.

As I said I can't really explain it. Maybe it's because of the simplicity of their existance, although it always seemed odd that Ginger evidently carried a 3 year supply of hairspray on a 3 hour tour and never got her gowns dirty. Maybe it's because they always ended up friends regardless of how Gilligan fouled up the rescue. Or maybe it's just because it's such an obvious retreat from reality.Where else could you see them visited by Hollywood producers, a rock group (The Mosquitoes), Russian cosmonauts, bank robbers, a jungle boy, a surfer who rode in on a tsunami, and an experimental robot and STILL not be rescued.

Whatever the reason, after following all the political news for the last couple of months as the GOP primaries are gearing up with all the accompanying meanness that comes with politics, I think I'm ready for a little break from reality. Maybe it's time to pay a tribute to Sherwood Schwartz for a week or so and indulge in a little escape to Gilligan's Island. Rest In Peace Mr. Schartz. Thank you for giving us a view into a kinder, gentler world even if it is fantasy.