Brownie Wise

I mean, Earl Tupper's over the moon. He's finally found somebody to burp his baby.

Brownie was the communicator. Brownie was the motivator. Brownie loved to get out among the public and have her picture taken. And so Brownie started becoming famous as the Tupperware Lady.

Nominally, Earl Tupper is the president of the company, but she's the genius behind this. It was good advertising. It spread the message. But ultimately, that's what started to cause the friction with Tupper and Brownie.

And then the big thing was the annual jubilee in Kissimmee in July of 1957.

Oh, they'd wear costumes, they'd sing their songs, I got that Tupper feeling down in my heart. I mean, they were into it.

Brownie had bought her own island in the middle of Lake Toho, which is in Kissimmee, right near Tupperware headquarters. And Brownie had decided she was going to have a luau. on her private island.

If you're ever in Central Florida in the summer, in the evening, you can almost set your watch by the thunderstorms that are going to brew up. And sure enough, they did. And there was no cover for anybody on the island. The boat drivers were struggling to get people back on dry land. And there were a bunch of boat accidents. And there were people injured. And it was a disaster.

And Brownie left and went home.

Brownie left. She saved her own skin, let's say, you know?

Some of the people who were injured ended up filing lawsuits. And Earl Tupper wanted no part of that. And he was livid.

He felt she would be a liability. He was just going to go out there and say, you're done.

Hello, this is Brownie. You know, Brownie was a minimally educated woman from South Georgia.

Her marriage fell apart not long after her son was born. So it was up to her to make money to raise him.

Brownie has a guy. for Stanley Home Products who knocks on her door is selling these utilitarian home cleaning products, kind of dowdy brushes, brooms, you know, different things you can use around the house. And he gives this very fumbling demonstration of all the products. And she says, oh, my God, I could do better than that.

She wanted to move up in the world. And she told him, I'd really like to get into management. And he said, honey, management's no place for a woman.

Earl Tupper was a Spartan New Englander. He was a dyed-in-the-wool inventor who had said, I'm going to be a millionaire by the time I'm 30.

It was like a byproduct of what the military would use for helmets, a product no one else would consider even using.

He was able to make it more malleable and softer, and he could even add certain dye colors to it to make it more attractive.

It was not doing well.

She would take the Wonder Bowl, she'd fill it up with grape juice, seal it, and then throw it across the room in somebody's family room. And they'd be aghast, but it wouldn't spill a drip.

You burp it just like a baby. And that was one of the things Brownie would say. to her prospective customers.

It took about 15 seconds for me to say, oh, it's warm down there. Yeah, we'll go.

You get somebody who would be willing to host the party. It turns into a social gathering.

And they would give their demonstration.

He told her, you know, when you talk, people listen. And he made her the head of sales for the brand new home party division that he created at her encouragement to sell the product exclusively through home parties.