By Dan Mitchell, MLM Blog Correspondent

Here's an excerpt from an article in Wired:

1907: Earl S. Tupper, inventor of the famous Tupperware “burping” plastic kitchenware, is born. Baby Tupper may well have burped for the first time on this day.

The New Hampshire native grew up on farms in Massachusetts. Tupper developed a business selling his parents’ produce door-to-door, but scraped through high school, barely graduating.

On the other hand, he took some correspondence courses and was convinced the secret to success was in advertising and marketing. He likened himself to Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Edison and Henry Ford, and dreamed up hundreds of inventions.

Tupper jotted his ideas down on notepads he always kept in his pockets. The ideas included a better garter for stockings, a clip-on comb to hang from your belt, permanent-press trousers, a boat powered by fish, a convertible top for an automobile rumble seat, a new method to perform emergency appendectomies, and lifestyle brands for cigarettes: “Sporty” and “The Collegiate.”

Despite Tupper’s dreams to become a famous millionaire, he received nothing but rejection letters from the manufacturers he approached with his ideas. He started a tree-trimming business to support himself, but it went bankrupt in the throes of the Great Depression.

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