1946 |
British prime minister Winston Churchill introduces the phrase "Iron Curtain" to define the line of separation between Western powers and the areas under Soviet control. It marks the start of the Cold War.
8,000 U.S. homes have television sets. |
1947 |
October 7: Air Force captain Charles "Chuck" Yeager breaks the sound barrier, piloting the X-1-1 rocket-powered plane in the first supersonic flight. |
1948 |
Tom and Anne Damigella, who had been selling Stanley Home Products, start selling Tupperware in Massachusetts. |
1949 |
November 8: Earl Tupper patents the "Tupper Seal" for closing plastic containers.
Brownie Wise, who had been selling Stanley Home Products, starts selling Tupperware in Detroit.
Arthur Miller publishes his classic play, Death of a Salesman. The main character, Willy Loman, examines his failure to achieve his American dream of success in sales.
There are one million television sets in the U.S. In the economic boom of the next decade, the number of sets will increase to nearly 160 million. |
1950 |
Brownie Wise moves to Florida with her son, Jerry. |
1951 |
May: Brownie Wise is appointed general sales manager of a new company, Tupperware Home Parties, which will oversee all Tupperware sales operations.
October 15: "I Love Lucy," a television show starring comedian Lucille Ball, first airs.
Tupperware holds its first sales conference with a handful of early Tupperware distributors in Worcester, Massachusetts. |
1952 |
January: Tupperware Home Parties moves to Florida, and temporarily sets up shop in an aircraft hangar.
Jean and Jack Conlogue, who had been selling Stanley Home Products, open a Tupperware distributorship in St. Louis, Missouri.
Elsie Mortland starts selling Tupperware. Within a year, she will become the Tupperware Home Parties headquarters hostess, using new products in the company's test kitchen. She is the only woman other than Brownie Wise on staff at Tupperware.
Dwight Eisenhower is elected president.
The television shows "This is Your Life," "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet," and "The Abbott and Costello Show" first air. |
1953 |
January: Mary and Frank Siriani leave their jobs at a General Motors factory and a luncheonette to start selling Tupperware.
July: Li Walker, a Filipino war bride who is unable to get a teaching job because of her accent, starts selling Tupperware.
Tupperware Home Parties holds its first manager seminar in Kissimmee, Florida.
"The Loretta Young Show," the first drama series with a female host, airs. |
1954 |
May 17: In a landmark case, Brown v. Board of Education, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously rules that segregation in schools is unconstitutional.
July: Lavon Weber, who grew up during the great drought of the early Thirties on an Oklahoma Dust Bowl farm, starts selling Tupperware.
Tupperware Home Parties Headquarters is completed and dedicated. Big Dig Jubilee, the first of Tupperware's annual jubilees, is held there.
The long-running television situation comedy, Father Knows Best, first airs. |
1955 |
September: Lavon and Bob Weber are promoted to a distributorship in Wichita, Kansas.
Anna and Howard Tate leave Stanley Home Products. Howard is appointed to the Tupperware staff. |
1956 |
Sylvia Boyd starts selling Tupperware.
July: Tupperware holds the Wish Fairy Jubilee.
August 22: The Tupperware Wish Fairy appears on "The Steve Allen Show." |
1957 |
The Soviets launch a space satellite called Sputnik. |
1958 |
Brownie Wise is fired from Tupperware Home Parties, Inc. She launches Cinderella, a direct sales cosmetics company.
July: Earl Tupper sells Tupperware to the Rexall Drug and Chemical Company for $16 million and buys himself an island in Central America.
Tupperware holds its Full Sales Jubilee, with a pirate theme.
FBI director J. Edgar Hoover publishes Masters of Deceit: The Story of Communism in America and How to Fight It. |
1959 |
Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev and American vice president Richard Nixon hold their "Kitchen Debate" about the relative merits of capitalism and communism. |
1960 |
Jon and Sylvia Boyd are promoted to a distributorship in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
May: The U.S. Food and Drug Administation approves the birth control pill.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy is elected president. |
1961 |
President Kennedy establishes a Presidential Commission on the Status of Women, and names former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt its chair.
May 25: President Kennedy announces he plans to put a man on the moon and return him to earth before the end of the decade, and before the Soviets do.
October: The Cuban Missile Crisis erupts after the discovery of Soviet ballistic missiles in Cuba. Public and private diplomacy defuses the crisis and pulls the world back from the brink of nuclear war. |
1963 |
Elsie Mortland helps bring Tupperware sales to Mexico and Guatemala.
Congress passes the Equal Pay Act, which prohibits sex-based wage discrimination between men and women in the same establishment who are performing under similar working conditions.
Betty Friedan publishes The Feminine Mystique.
The Mary Kay home party cosmetics company is started, modeled on the direct sales success of Tupperware.
November 22: President Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas, Texas. |
1964 |
President Lyndon Johnson pushes the Civil Rights Act of 1964 through Congress. He also issues an executive order laying out his policy of equal employment opportunity for all Americans. |
1965 |
Elsie Mortland helps bring Tupperware sales to Hong Kong. |
1966 |
Li Walker brings Tupperware to the Phillipines.
The National Organization for Women is established. |
1971 |
The first issue of Ms. Magazine hits the newsstands. |
1972 |
Earl Tupper moves to Costa Rica.
Congress passes the Equal Rights Amendment and sends it to the states for ratification. |
1974 |
Congress passes the Equal Credit Opportunity Act. |
1978 |
Congress amends the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to prohibit discrimination because of pregnancy.
The World Federation of Direct Selling Associations is formed. |
1983 |
Earl Tupper dies.
Sylvia Boyd is appointed to the Tupperware staff, becoming only the third female regional vice president in company history. |
1986 |
The U.S. Supreme Court rules that sexual harassment is a form of illegal job discrimination. |
1992 |
Brownie Wise dies. |
2003 |
The Direct Selling Women's Association is formed. |
