18 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not the book she wanted to write--, March 13, 2002
This review is from: Tupperware: The Promise of Plastic in 1950's America (Paperback)
Alison Clarke states in the Introduction that she intends to write a "cultural history" of tupperware---and explore how objects of mass consumption are invested with meaning by people who use them (page 4).
Unfortunately, that's not the book she wrote.
Clarke regards recent scholarly literature as too often downplaying the role of women's agency in the development of 1950's consumer culture. Moreover, Clarke sees consumer culture of the 1950's as an important, politically multifaceted phenomena. Her conclusions are correct, but her argument is flawed.
Early on, Clarke appears to be concerned mainly with outlining the historical circumstances of Earl Tupper, the inventor of Tupperware. Tupper's journals outline a spirit of scientific benevolence in service to society. Combined with a classically-described "Protestant" work-ethic, Tupper's innovation and self-reliance paint a picture of classic American mythmaking at work. But Clarke is quick to recognize that it was the contributions of Bonnie Wise, Tupperware's marketing guru, that actually successfully connected Tupperware to the marketplace, and henceforth to the larger consumer culture.
According to Clarke, Wise was the pioneer behind the idea of Tupperware parties. Dismissed by other scholars as mere consumerism worship, Clarke emphasizes the entrepreneurial nature of thiese parties, as well as the social effect of creating networks of communication and support for women.
As a "modernist icon" Tupperware embodied effort to meld a univocal aesthetic to practical functionality, while at the same time providing a non-threatening social and financial space for women. What was regarded as homemaking basics became a "marketable skill" (117). Wise herself radically differed from the cultural ideal of feminine passive domesticity that so many have regarded as the norm for the time.
Clarke's analysis is valuable, but it doesn't fit the task shw outlines for herself. She skillfully utilizes an array of primary sources, from Earl Tupper's journals to company pamphlets to advertisments. She ends up "parroting" the company's official marketing strategy, and speculates on what that meant in the culture of the time.
If she had stuck with her stated intentions, she would have relied much more on oral histories of the people involved with tupperware parties, and others who bought tupperware. That would have told us how the product was appropriated and used by consumers----but we only get 1 page of these sources buried-- and then at the end of chapter 5. Moreover, she fails to adequately address the Tupperware marketing phenomenon in the context of other house -to-house sales schemes she discusses in chapter 4.
What she writes is a history of the production of tupperware--not the consumption and usage. That's all well and good in itself---but it is not good cultural history. A cultural history of consumption relies on consumers---not producers---for the consumers are the ones who decide what the meanings of products are---not the producers.
So her analysis of Tupperware as a cultural barometer fails.
How Tupperware is treated by various factors of society seems to me a more valuable measure of a cultural barometer rather than the intentions of the inventors and marketers. Such records give us an insight into production, which is valuable, but do not alone provide a strong enough measure of a product's effects.
In bringing these primary historical soruces to light Clarke adds much to the discussion she aims to join, but her evidence does not support a conclusion of cultural meaning-only of cultural intent. It's a good book, but only if you read it differently than how she intended it to be read.
Nonetheless, for its inclusion and discussion of heretofore largely ignored primary sources, Clark's book remains an important part of the literature regarding the mythic and ideological dimensions of 1950's consumer culture.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Insightful, inspiring historical perspective of Tupperware, November 19, 1999
Delving into the historical aspect of a true American icon, this book traces the triumphs and mishaps of eccentric inventor Earl Tupper. His brilliance coupled with his eventual collaboration with entrepreneurial genius Brownie Wise, a woman with a mind for business attributed in the 1950's almost exclusively to men, led to the development of one the most enduring direct selling companies in American history. A "must read" for anyone interested in women's history, intrigued by corporate history, or inspired by persistence and the quest for perfection.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Is it really about Tupperware?, December 4, 2005
This review is from: Tupperware: The Promise of Plastic in 1950's America (Paperback)
I had to read this book in grad school and lead my class in a discussion of the book-total flop because I hated the book and the rest of the class didn't. I hated Tupperware mostly because it wasn't about tupperware or it's effect on America--it was all about the soap opera between Earl Tupper and Brownie Wise. The title is totally misleading-where is the mention of tupperware's famous return policy? What about the effect that it had on food and food preparation? What about the copy-cats? Tupperware could have been so much more. If I wanted a soap opera, I would turn on the TV.
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