Tupperware Creator Saw A Great Future In Plastics Innovate: Inventor Earl Tupper had to win over a public leery of the material, and what better way than to throw parties?(A)

Byline: SEAN HIGGINS

What if you built a better mousetrap, and the public didn't beat a path to your door?

That was the problem facing inventor and entrepreneur Earl Silas Tupper (1907-83). He created Tupperware, the handy, resealable plastic containers, in 1946.

Despite extensive ad campaigns and boosting from the plastic industry, the public just didn't buy it at first. People had an aversion to plastic back then.

Tupper's solution was to withdraw it from stores altogether. Instead, Tupperware would be sold only by local representatives, women holding Tupperware parties in their homes.

The gutsy decision was based on a simple faith in his invention: Tupper knew it was a winner. What he needed was a way to demonstrate that to consumers. The parties, he believed, would do that.

He was right. Homemakers in America's then-burgeoning suburbs made Tupperware a staple. Sales soared so high, the whole plastics industry soon turned around.