Perhaps no product line epitomizes post-World War II American suburbia as much as Tupperware plastic kitchen containers. Earl Tupper (1907-1983), inveterate experimenter from Harvard, Massachusetts, used his experience in 1937 working for Dupont to develop his own kind of plastic, which he used to make all types of products.

A Tupperware party.

He founded the Earl S. Tupper Company in 1938, which had some success selling gas masks and signal lamp parts to the Navy during World War II. But when he applied his flexible and durable material to civilian needs, Tupper achieved his greatest success.

In 1945 Tupper trademarked his perfected plastic, Polyethylene-Tupper, or "Poly-T," the "material of the future." Forever interested in women's daily lives (he experimented with designs for garter belt hooks and brassieres, for example), Tupper used this innovative material to create an entirely new line of housewares which revolutionized the way women dealt with food and...