by Allison Claridge

Created on: April 05, 2007   Last Updated: March 19, 2012

Burp! Did you hear it? That was the unmistakable sound of the burping lid. Do you still have lids from the orange, green and yellow era? You probably do, because you know if they ever break,chip or peel, you can find a Tupperware lady and she'll replace them with today's color scheme, which consists of Cotton Candy, Caribbean Blue and Sheer Kiwi.

It was Earl Tupper who made the product. He was a tinker with big dreams and a notebook full of inventions. When his tree doctoring business went bankrupt in 1936, he took a job in a plastics factory. He tinkered with products and eventually created his own company, Tupper Plastics. It wasn't until after World War II, when Tupper received a product from DuPont, that the first WonderBowl was created. The now-famous burp-able lid was inspired by a paint can lid and Generation T - the generation that grew up on Tupperware - was born.

Brownie Wise was the force behind the home parties. She was a divorced mom who came through the ranks of Stanley Home Products and told Tupper his products would sell like hotcakes if he marketed through home parties exclusively. And she was completely right.

In the 1950s, most women didn't have cars to zoom around in, and if they did, where were they going to go? They received an allowance from their husbands and that was to care for the kids and buy the groceries. The Tupperware Home party and the era were totally made for each other women trying out those independent wings, getting away from the kids for just a smidgen of time, and earning some money to get a tiny little piece of the American dream.

Couples who grabbed hold of the vision and made huge sales caught Mr. Tupper's eye and were invited to become distributors. Cadillacs were offered to top sellers. Jubilees were held grand events where the sales force was jazzed up, educated, and trained.

Today, the basics from Tupper and Wise are all still there. The lids still burp, the lifetime warranty is unequaled, and we still call her "The Tupperware Lady" even when a guy shows up on our doorstep to show all our friends the latest colors and designs.

Now if I could just get that darn rusty-orange lid to break...

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