Tupper finally hired Brownie Wise, a self-made businesswoman who used housewives to reach housewives. From managers to distributors to living-room sales force, her empire was made up almost entirely of homemakers–blacks as well as stereotypical suburbanites. Their carefully designed Tupperware parties included games like Hubby (write an ad selling your unwanted husband), such stunts as tossing a lidded bowl full of water across the room and a powerful dose of female solidarity. Wise, writes Clarke in a close examination of this phenomenon, offered women not just earning power but a measure of self-respect they weren’t likely to find elsewhere.
Tupperware parties still flourish, though it would be hard to match the invigorating spirit of the originals. Clarke quotes one woman who remembers with special pleasure the introduction of Ice-Tups, the molds for homemade Popsicles. This pioneer filled them with daiquiri mix instead of orange or grape juice, and slurped away while she did the ironing. Housework, she reports happily, was never the same.
