The line of brushes sold by Alfred Fuller (1885-1973) took him from rags to riches. He felt that products should be made to work correctly and to last a long time. This idea was new at the beginning of the twentieth century, when cleaning tools were poorly constructed and needed to be replaced often.

Alfred Carl Fuller was born on January 13, 1885, on a farm in the Canadian town of Grand Pre, Nova Scotia. His parents were Leander Joseph, a Mayflower descendant, and Phebe Jane (Collins) Fuller. Fuller was the eleventh of twelve children born to poor but hard working parents. He attended grammar school, but never went to high school and had no business experience. At the age of 18, in 1903, Fuller left Canada to seek his fortune in the U.S. He joined two brothers and two sisters in Somerville, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston. Fuller lost three...