Tupper, Earl Silas

Born into a poor farm family in Berlin ( New Hampshire, USA ). Father, Ernest Leslie Tupper is a farmer. Mother, Lulu Clark Tupper - laundress in a local guesthouse My father was known as a skilled craftsman and inventor. It is known that Ernest Tupper received a patent for a device to facilitate the cleaning of chickens.

Earl's entrepreneurial and inventive talents woke up early. At age 10, Earl began to distribute his father's products to the homes of neighbors, thereby significantly increasing sales on the farm. In 1925 he graduated from high school and worked for two years on his father's farm. He later left the farm, worked as a postman, a railroad worker, completed landscaping courses and started his own business, which went bankrupt during the Great Depression . In 1936 he got a job at DuPont, where he met with polyethylene . Working with the waste from the oil refining industry, he managed to clear slag from plastics and get a new material called Poly-T .

In 1938 he left DuPont and created his own company Earl S. Tupper Company. Using decommissioned injection machines and raw materials, DuPont Tapper began the production of plastic soap dishes, beads and cigarette cases. After the outbreak of World War II, Tapper managed to get government orders for gas masks and lights for the US Navy , which significantly improved his financial situation. By 1944, military orders were declining and Tapper had to look for new ideas for the conversion of production increased during the war years. In 1945, Earl Tupper invented a sealed plastic container and subsequently received a patent for a “lid with a sealed lock for a plastic container”. He renames the company into the Tupper Plastic Company, and in 1946 into Tupperware .

Post-war plastics were far from perfect and enjoyed a poor reputation in the US consumer market. Tupperware products sold poorly. In 1951, Brownie Wise convinced Tupper to abandon sales through the distribution network and switch to the direct-to-home sales technique “From Home to Home” ^[1] . In the same year, Wise became vice president of Tupperware and remained in this position until her dismissal in 1958. Thanks to Wise's entrepreneurial talent, Tupperware products quickly conquered the US market.

In 1958, Tupper divorces his wife, sells the business for $ 16 million to the US pharmacy chain Rexall, and in order to avoid taxes and alimony, renounces US citizenship and moves to live in Costa Rica .

Family

Married (1931-1958). He had five children: four sons, one daughter.