Baby Boomers Grew Up on Tupperware Parties | BabyBoomerDaily ...

?I just have one word to say to you. Just one word. Are you listening??Plastics. There?s a great future in plastics?Will you think about it??

Whispered into recent college graduate Dustin Hoffman?s ear as the secret to making big bucks, from The Graduate, 1967

The Tupperware home party was the right pop culture idea at the right time. Mothers of baby boomers led the marketing charge.

In the 1950s, Rosie the Riveter exchanged her overalls for cocktail dresses and maternity clothes. The new American woman was liberated from work by prosperity, spared from domestic drudgery by modern conveniences. She could spend idyllic days at home: cooking, decorating, watching soap operas and raising her 2.4 little baby boomer rug rats. Not a care in the world.

Betty Friedan?s 1963 best-seller The Feminine Mystique lambasted the lifestyle as repressive and neurosis-inducing. Her words would resonate more with young boomer ladies than their mothers.

Yes, women of the 1950s admitted, paradise could get a little boring or lonely sometimes. New life in country-like suburbia meant neighbors were barricaded inside nuclear family split levels. Tupperware cavalry to the rescue! Here was social adventure plus shopping. The party turned into an updated Welcome Wagon.

Earl Tupperware was a Dow Chemical plastics wizard who invented a new ?burp when open? seal that kept food fresh. Tupperware combined? thrift, convenience and casual dining: all 1950s marketing buzz words.

Enter Brownie Wise, a single mom and marketing genius. Tupperware Home Parties was born with a sales force: festive, upbeat ?organizers? who would recruit neighborhood ?hosts,? set up events, demonstrate the product and sell, sell, sell. All the host had to do was provide a living room and snacks, then revel in free gifts and calculate her percentage of the take. Hubby is thrilled. Here was extra income and the little lady didn?t even have to leave home. Eager baby boomer kids could help out.

By 1954, Tupperware boasted 9000 ?independent consultants? (party organizers).?The first wave of baby boomer moms embraced the idea and the juggernaut continued to thrive well into the 1970s.

During the 1980s, the bubble began to lose its burp. The second wave of boomer moms were less enthusiastic. Women?s liberation raised expectations while opening up the real workplace. Divorce was assaulting the nuclear family. The Tupperware party seemed so yesterday, almost embarrassing.

Today, the Tupperware party is making a bit of a comeback. But it competes with other types of home parties. The children and grandchildren of baby boomers get together to socialize and sip Chardonnay over taser-guns, sex toys and lingerie. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Trivia Factoids

?Did you know that somewhere in the world, a Tupperware party starts every 2.2 seconds?? boasts the official Tupperware website. About 120 million people have attended.

Tupperware held lavish, gala theme/costume parties called Jublilees to honor the best sales performers and boost company morale. The practice continues.

Dueling Banjos

Tupperware empowered women at a time of cultural and economic repression, giving them a shot at independence and income. It set the stage for their mass entry into the labor market and was the opening roar of the? ?I Am Woman? cultural revolution.

Tupperware co-opted the independent urges of woman and further enslaved them in domestic roles. They were fed crumbs and illusions. Women?s liberation succeeded in spite not because of the Tupperware party.

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