Memories of the earliest Tupperware parties, from one who was there
Tupperware became woven into America's cultural fabric after World War II by forgoing retail stores in favor of a direct-to-consumer sales model
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Your support makes all the difference.Sometimes something takes your thinking back to an isolated memory of decades ago. And without your bidding, other memories — memories of that era of your life — come flooding in.
When asked what I remember about Tupperware parties, I pulled out some of my pieces of Tupperware from long ago. Along with finding the “Bacon Keeper” that I have used for perhaps 35 years to refrigerate deli sandwich makings. I located an entire part of my life.
We didn’t have a dishwasher back then — what struggling young family did? When my two daughters were old enough. we made a deal. I would prepare the dinner. They would do the dishwashing and I’d be free.
What made me remember that? The Tupperware pieces I was looking at were of the pre-dishwasher type plastic that has not survived the heat very well in the many years since dishwashers have been taken for granted. My later pieces have withstood the dishwasher onslaught. They still look new.
In those days, we thought very little about most women’s designated roles in suburban society. Your husband went to work; you were home when the children arrived after school. Once in a while in the evening, you left the young ones in the care of their dad and went to a friend’s home for a Tupperware party.
It was fun. You saw 10, maybe 20 friends and acquaintances who had also escaped for an evening. It never occurred to any of us that no men were there. We played little games and took home small Tupperware pieces as prizes.
A representative demonstrated the “Tupperware seal”: how to make the containers airtight so we could serve the contents fresh and with pride. We shared coffee and cake provided by our hostess. Then we went home with renewed ability to face the next day and its chores.
Is it still the same today? Now that so many women have taken their place next to men in the working world, do Tupperware parties still exist? Do they fill the same needs? Do men also attend? Are some of the newer items designed to solve gentlemen’s storage problems?
Do we have Tupperware party equality at long last?
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Ann T. Anthony (1924-2018), wrote this story for The Associated Press in 1996. when she was 71. She was married in 1946 — the year Tupperware was introduced — and attended Tupperware parties for years. She remembers the parties as events where friends could get together and buy from someone they trusted.