Earl Tupper

Earl Silas Tupper (July 28, 1907 – October 3, 1983) was an American businessman and inventor, best known as the inventor of Tupperware, an airtight plastic container for storing food, and for founding the related home products company that bears his name, Tupperware Plastics Company.

The Tupper family moved from Berlin, New Hampshire when he was three years old, spending the rest of his youth growing up on different farms in central Massachusetts.

[2] Using black, inflexible pieces of polyethylene slag, a waste product of the oil refining process given to him by his supervisor at DuPont, Tupper purified the slag and molded it to create lightweight, non-breakable containers, cups, bowls, plates, and even gas masks that were used in World War II.

Around 1946, he joined forces with Brownie Wise, who caught his attention after she made a lengthy phone call to his office in South Grafton, Massachusetts, during which she explained her extraordinary success selling Tupperware via home parties.

Shortly afterward, he divorced his wife, gave up his U.S. citizenship to avoid taxes, and bought an island just off the coast of Costa Rica[6] or according to other sources Isla San José[7][8][9] In 1969, Tupper donated 428 acres of land in Smithfield, Rhode Island, to his alma mater, Bryant College (now named Bryant University).