I can’t quite remember why now, but I wrote my dissertation on the Ideology and Imagery of Motherhood in post-war America. This was before Mad Men, so I have to assume I was inspired by the wonderful feminist teachings of Professor Julia Mickenberg during my study abroad year at The University of Texas at Austin. I hadn’t been particularly academic up until this point, but my seminars with her seemed to bring certain parts of my brain online in ways that they hadn’t been before. Suddenly, I was hungry for information and enthralled by my own new-found ability to respond to that information creatively and through storytelling. Having failed my A Levels, gone through clearing and initially dropped out of university, I graduated a year later than planned with a 2:1 and a First for my dissertation. Natch.
Many of the themes and ideas I explored in my dissertation have stuck with me ever since (that’s over 17 years, but who’s counting!?), and shaped the way I think about America, feminism, activism, women and, ultimately, motherhood. It may no longer be the 1950’s, but it’s surprising – and often shocking – how little has really changed when it comes to how women are oppressed, empowered, portrayed, and sold to.
Anyway, this is a long, winding path to talk about Tupperware. A subject I covered in my dissertation, a phenomenon I think about every time I pop some leftovers in the freezer, and an 80 year old company that recently warned regulators it could go out of business.
Tupperware is/was an undeniably iconic brand that both created, and ultimately named, an entire category. As a product, it was the first container to consist of lightweight, unbreakable, pastel-colored refined polyethylene, enabling it to keep food fresher for longer. The business model – the Hostess Party Plan – was also the first of its kind and enormously effective. In culture, the parties provided suburban housewives and mothers with an avenue to earn money, socialise, and attain a managerial position within the home – all without needing to organise or pay for childcare. As consumer items, Tupperware seamlessly fit into the post-war suburban lifestyle, where modern household appliances and TV dinners were becoming the norm. And, as an organisation, the company's culture and leadership were progressive, with women like Brownie Wise leading transformative innovations across advertising, technology, and training.
In 1954, Wise made history by becoming the first woman to grace the cover of Business Week, and in 1956 Tupperware was included in an exhibition of twentieth century design at the MOMA in New York. For nearly eight decades, Tupperware has been more than simply a household name, it’s been an integral part of the household.
So what went wrong? Why, as signalled by a regulatory filing last month that expressed substantial doubt about Tupperware’s ability to continue, and which CNN described as the company’s “last gasp”, is it failing?
Commentators have cited an inability to adapt to an evolving marketplace, brutal competition and the changing attitudes and needs of younger consumers, but that’s just life. Many companies face these issues and find a way through and up. So why can’t Tupperware?
I don’t know about the inner workings of Tupperware. I don’t know what they tried and what failed. And maybe, especially for an octogenarian consumer brand, it’s just their time to go to the Big Bargain Bin in the sky. But it’s fun to take what made them famous and think about whether it would still play today. So here goes…
A demand for modernist objects.
In the 1950s and 60s, plastic was indeed fantastic, with Tupperware leading the charge in the form of polyethylene, a material lauded as "the material of the future" by its founder, Earl Tupper. Praised for its sculptural beauty in a 1947 House Beautiful feature, it was dubbed "Fine Art for 39 cents." Tupperware didn’t gain widespread popularity until the 1950’s, but its beauty was praised long before that. Today, despite plastic’s waning favour in domestic life, Tupperware (and other branded plastic containers) remains a mainstay in most homes. Isn't our Tupperware drawer ripe for disruption, and isn't Tupperware the very brand we'd trust to lead a change away from plastic and towards beautiful new materials of the future?
A major vibe shift.
Emerging from World War II unscathed and prosperous, America rose as the leader of the Western world, profiting from economic and technological booms. Yet, beneath this triumph, a profound paranoia threatened to destabilise American society. Consequently, the 1950s became synonymous with a series of paradoxical buzzwords: Consumerism, Communism, Baby-boom, Containment, Suburbia, Cold War.
While other post-war brands capitalised on people's fears ("You'll be happier with a Hoover"), Tupperware empowered their female customers with a product that not only possessed both aesthetic appeal and convenience, but also included them in its success through the Party Plans. More on those next.
Today's buzzwords may be different (Influence, Extremism, Gen Z, Austerity, Housing Crisis, Cancel Culture), but the uneasy duality of confidence and insecurity is back with a vengeance. And still, many brands offer up consumerism as a solution to anxiety, burnout and digital overwhelm. Tupperware may be a consumer product, but it has always offered underlying benefits that go beyond extending the shelf-life of food. Could Tupperware not stand for slowing down, planning ahead, preparing nutritious meals, and ensuring there's always something ready for you – and those you love – in the fridge or freezer?
A feminine mystique.
Last, but by no means least, let’s talk about Tupperware’s all-time greatest ambassadors – women. In the 1950s, suburban women were seeking activities beyond the confines of childcare and housework, and Tupperware Home Party Plans, pioneered by Brownie Wise, provided an appealing solution. The hostess party plan involved a hostess inviting a group of women to her home. She would then demonstrate the Tupperware line, aiming for a sale.
“When [women] put on that first Tupperware Party, when they were given the opportunity to stand before a group of people in the quiet of someone’s home with maybe eight or ten women listening to them, and heard their voice above the quiet of the room, it gave them a sense of self-esteem; they thought they had passed away and gone to heaven”
Joe Hara, President of Tupperware US, 1966 - 1986.
Wise – herself a successful home sales demonstrator and single mother from Detroit – was quickly promoted to vice-president of Tupperware Home Party Incorporated (THP) and her impact was profound. By 1954, she had revolutionised the Hostess Party Plan into a highly structured, hierarchical system. She instituted standardisation across the board - from distributorship territories to retail prices and gift incentives. Wise also placed persuasive advertisements in magazines, insisting that no special skills were needed to host a party. She offered training and opportunities for promotion to women seeking to supplement their household income through hostessing, and she brought in state-of-the-art technology like IBM computers to ensure maximum communication between the Tupper Corporation and herself at THP1.
For hostesses, the parties provided an autonomous all-female environment where women could confidently both earn and shop, a space separate from the patriarchal hegemony of the business world. Unlike Betty Friedan who challenged the concept of a completely 'fulfilled' housewife in The Feminine Mystique, Brownie Wise and Tupperware wholeheartedly embraced the realities of suburban life, seamlessly incorporating them into a successful business strategy, which benefited both the Tupper Corporation and women themselves.
“I’d make up the strongest daiquiri mix… and freeze them up in my Tupperware [Ice-Tups] and get through the whole lot of them doing my chores; oh yes, I used to stand there pressing a shirt, happily sucking on one of my Tupperware ices!”
Tupperware consumer, 1960.
Party Plans may feel a bit outdated and MLM-y for today's women, yet I have to believe there's a way to zig where other brands are zagging. Especially when the pressures placed on working mothers in America has never felt more desperate… especially when the institutions they are told to trust and obey are the very same ones oppressing them. Of course, I’m sitting outside in the UK looking in, but it seems like America’s parents could do with a proposition that transcends the nasty world of MLMs and provides a real way to balance earning money with raising children. Here again, the Tupperware brand has the chops and trust to own that space, if only they could figure out the business model.
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Tupperware's legacy is complex. It's a company that revolutionised food storage and reshaped suburban life, providing a source of income and empowerment for countless women. But in recent times, it's a company grappling with financial difficulties, struggling to keep pace with a changing market. The story of Tupperware is one of innovation, empowerment, but also of a failure to adapt - a cautionary tale for businesses in a rapidly evolving marketplace. Personally, I hope they get the investment they need to lay out a new vision for their future – that they get a new lease of life rather than just fading away.
Shout out to you for reading this far, to ‘Tupperware: The Promise of Plastic in 1950’s America” by Alison J. Clarke and to ChatGPT 4 for breaking my original dissertation text of 10,000 words into a 1000 word summary for me to play with for this newsletter edition, and also for some pretty bonkers suggestions for titles too. I think mine was better.
Laters skaters, Camilla
It’s worth noting that the founder of Tupperware, Earl Tupper, ultimately fired Brownie Wise because he felt the company would be “less attractive to sell with an outspoken woman at the helm of the sales end”. So that’s nice.