Jane R. Plitt
Martha Matilda Harper and the American Dream- How One Woman Changed the Face of Modern Business uncovers the buried story of how Harper created America’s first retail franchise network, a radical new business model that encouraged women to own businesses, to enrich themselves spiritually and financially, and even to marry – all on their own terms. This biography captures the rags to riches true story of how a 19th century Canadian immigrant woman transforms her life and the lives of thousands of other poor women. The first 100 of her Harper shops went only to impoverished women. Harper, thereby, pioneered, modern franchising, social entrepreneurship and invented the reclining shampoo chair we use even today.Born in Ontario, Canada, Harper struggled for twenty-five years as a servant to change her life and that of other working-class women. Bound out into servitude at age seven, Harper was determined to find an alternative to her fate.In 1888, after immigrating to the United States, she pioneered the idea of a public hairdressing salon for women in Rochester, NY, based on health-conscious precepts. Within three years, both the social elite and suffragists enthusiastically embraced her concept across the country, including Susan B. Anthony, Mary Baker Eddy, Bertha Palmer and Mabel Alexander Graham Bell, wife of Alexander. Later British royalty, presidents of the U. S., the German Kaiser, George Bernard Shaw,Danny Kaye, Helen Hayes, the Kennedy clan, would become loyal customers. At its peak, the Harper franchise network spanned the world.Harper advocated practices that were progressive even by today’s standards. She urged her franchisees to be accommodating to their customers and employees, to establish childcare centers in their shops, to use organic products, and to pursue principled endeavors. She fought an industry intent on encouraging the purchase of dangerous beauty aids and processes. Instead, Harper preached that people were naturally beautiful and her world-wide network of five hundred shops provided skin and scalp treatments to help release a customer’s inner beauty. Her training schools assured skilled practitioners who followed her methods and her manufacturing centers delivered the required quality products.Ultimately, at age sixty-three, Harper married a much younger man and it changed the operation of her business.This book will be of interest to a general audience, business leaders, and historians with a special interest in women’s accomplishments and movements, religious influences, and business breakthroughs. 3
