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HISTORY: unwrapped – February 2006

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Born in 1907 in New Hampshire, Earl Silas Tupper’s creativity was exhibited as a young boy. He built devices that made work around the family farm easier.  He earned a patent for a frame used to dress chickens for sale. He also had salesmanship skills and increased the family’s income by selling poultry and produce door to door. After high school, Tupper used his agricultural experience to start a tree surgery and landscaping business called Tupper Tree Doctors. The company was quite successful until the Great Depression forced it into bankruptcy. Tupper first came into contact with plastic at his job with the DuPont Chemical Company. Tupper purchased left-over plastic and used it to make light-weight containers. He also designed air-tight lids by duplicating the lid of a paint can. Tupper founded Tupperware Plastics Company in 1938 and introduced Tupperware to stores in 1946. But Tupperware was not well-received. Customers didn’t know how to operate the lids and sales lagged. Home demonstrations of the products were much more successful. Tupper realized the potential of direct demonstrations and by 1951 he had all merchandise pulled off store shelves. He hired a single mother, one of his first home demonstrators, to design the direct selling system. The concept proved to be a phenomenon and the Tupperware Party was born. The Tupperware Company continues to grow with a Tupperware demonstration beginning every two seconds some place in the world.

The duel which resulted in the death of the popular Alexander Hamilton, made Aaron Burr a political pariah. After completing his term as vice president, Burr headed for the Mississippi Valley and grand schemes. Former colleagues wondered what Burr would do to mend his reputation. They could not have imagined. He intended to rule his own domain in the American West. Burr had a willing assistant in James Wilkinson, the commanding general of the U.S. Army, a man with no scruples who earned extra income by informing for Spain. The former vice president dreamed of conquering Mexico, uniting it with the frontier states, and setting up his own empire. Burr and his pitiful force of fewer than 100 men were thwarted in their grandiose scheme by Wilkinson, who informed President Thomas Jefferson about the plans. Jefferson called Burr’s scheme “the most extraordinary quest since the days of Don Quixote.” Burr was brought to trial for treason but was acquitted due to unimpressive testimony by the prosecution. Though a free man, Burr thought it wise to leave the country. While living in Europe, he wrote to Napoleon Bonaparte about his plan to re-conquer Louisiana and Canada if the French provided the funding for the venture. No deal. In 1812, Burr returned to New York where he lived until his death at 80. His large ego remained intact, even at death. When told of his impending death, Burr cried, “I can’t die!” The doctor responded, “Mr. Burr, you are already dying.”

The construction of the Empire State Building began in March 1930 and was completed just 14 months later. It remained the tallest building in the world with 102 stories until 1972. It receives two and three million visitors every year and has played host to kings and queens. It has even scuffled with a giant ape and won. Built during the Great Depression, the building cost $40 million dollars. The workers who constructed the tall edifice were thrilled to have jobs. They put up the building in record time, faster and higher than anyone had ever imagined. Mohawk Indians worked on the high steel of the Empire State Building. Six generations of Mohawk Indians have helped shape the New York skyline. Known for their agile ability to work on the extremely high steel beams, the Mohawks commuted from their reservation in Canada to help construct the “Ambassador of New York.”  The Mohawk ironworkers operate in pairs in all kinds of weather at the dangerous windy heights above the city.  Fatal accidents are a constant concern, but the courageous sure-footed “sky walkers” continue to work the high steel in cities across the United States.

After receiving his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1839, William Crawford Long returned to Georgia to take over a rural medical practice. Long had some experience with the recreational use of ether in medical school. He noticed at laughing gas parties and "ether frolics” (recreational use of ether) that participants did not feel pain when they fell or bumped into things. He believed that an anesthetic could be developed to lessen or remove the extreme pain that surgical patients endured. Experimenting with sulphuric ether, Long discovered that his patients felt no pain at all during surgery. Over the next four years, Long conducted experiments involving ether but did not keep official records. Word of his successful experiments spread. A dentist, William Morton, claimed to be the first to successfully use sulphuric ether in surgery. It is true that Morton gave the first public demonstration of the anesthesia, but Long was recognized as its true pioneer. We can all be grateful for Dr. Long’s efforts in providing pain free surgery for patients.

By the middle of the nineteenth century, sepsis infection after surgery caused the death of nearly half of surgical patients. Surgeons would declare that the operation was successful but the patient died. Some believed that bad air caused infection, so surgeons would attempt to keep air away from wounds. Joseph Lister did not believe this explanation. Lister, the son of a physicist, studied to become a physician. He was appointed surgeon at the Glasglow Royal Infirmary and put in charge of its new surgical building. The hope was that infection in patients would decrease in the brand new building. That was not the case. Lister reported that half of his amputee patients died from infection. In 1865, Louis Pasteur suggested that decay was caused by living organisms in the air entering a wound and causing it to ferment. Lister made the connection with wound sepsis. When he began cleaning and treating wounds with a solution of carbolic acid, his patients remained free of infection. Lister’s methods were met with indifference and hostility, but gradually doctors began to support his antiseptic techniques. He was a deeply religious man who had joined the Scottish Episcopal Church as a young man. Lister was not interested in success or financial reward. He believed his life was directed by God and remained firm in his purpose. We all benefit from this humble man who remained steadfast in his search to improve surgical procedures so many years ago.

Georgia artist Jack Bailey (1927-2004) created the largest religious painting in the world. The “Life of Christ” was listed in the 1986 edition of Guinness World Records. The painting stretches more than three football fields, depicting the life and ascension of Jesus on 50 panels. Few people have seen it. The canvas panels have sat in Florida warehouses for the past 20 years. They finally made the trip home to Georgia in December of 2005. A self-taught artist, Bailey worked as a sign painter and commercial illustrator. While recuperating from a stroke, he conceived the idea for the painting. It took Bailey and a team of assistants three years to complete the colossal work. A series of financial snafus by those wanting to exhibit the painting have kept Bailey’s work from the public eye except for a brief exhibit in the Atlanta area during the 70s. Jack Bailey wanted the public to see his painting, but he died before his dream could be realized. Now his children are attempting to make their father’s dream come true. The painting is being restored and a foundation has been set up to raise money for an exhibition building. Perhaps in a few years, the public will be able to enjoy the magnificent painting that honors the King of kings.

Stanley Tam read that the emulsion used on photographic film contained silver and that sixteen tons of the metal are washed down the drain every week. At the age of 20, Tam (1916-) was going to make a lot of money by marketing a method to recycle the silver from film development. He made a fifty-fifty deal with photographers and x-ray labs, who initially thought he was crazy and called him “Hi-Ho-Silver.” With 37 dollars, Tam set up a factory in his spare bedroom. Reminded of the failures of his early business ventures, Tam put his business under God’s control. He made God the senior partner, receiving 51 percent of stocks and profits. Finding a lawyer to draw up such a contract was difficult, but Tam did not regret the decision. As his business flourished, he gave up more control and eventually became a mere employee at his successful company, United States Plastics. Tam gave 100 per cent of all profits to the Lord’s work. At one point, a doctor told Tam that he had terminal cancer and only had months to live. Now in his 80s, Tam travels 25 weeks of the year giving talks to churches and missionaries.

When the Allied powers landed on the beaches of Normandy with the largest invasion forces ever assembled in what is known as D-Day, accompanying those forces was an impressive dispay of large machinery and equipment built by American businessman R.G. Latourneau. Latourneau’s company had built some of the most massive machinery, earth movers, missile launchers, and offshore oil rigs. If something needed to be built that was bigger and better, Latourneau’s company could handle it.  Latourneau’s philosophy of “…there are no big jobs, only small machines and small thinking” motivated him to build on a grand scale. Though he became an international industrialist, Latourneau attributed his success to God who had blessed the humble mechanic. His success did not come easily. He dropped out of school at 14 and worked at shoveling sand and dirt at an iron works factory. He was always thinking how he could do things more efficiently. Latourneau had many ups and downs along the way to success, including losing his first child in infancy. Even in debt, he refused to give up and began his earth-moving business. Through all of his success, Laturneau remained faithful to God, living on just 10% of his income and giving away 90%. He continued this practice even when his business was in jeopardy. Laturneau founded a university in Texas, which bears his name and formed a foundation that funds many ministries. Even in death, Laturneau’s legacy continues to live on.

When Sam Goldfish started a film company, he realized the importance in a name, so he combined his name with Edgar Selwyn, his partner. Sam Goldwyn needed an image that would immediately make the company recognizable to the public, so he hired a promoter. The promoter found just the image at a Columbia University football game when the team’s mascot ran onto the field. A lion would be perfect. It was the king of beasts and would make a fine trademark. When a merger created Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Leo the lion won out over Metro’s parrot. MGM bought a real 350-pound lion and the live-action mascot would appear in the opening logo sequence in every movie produced by the studio. Charles Lindbergh’s transatlantic flight was dominating the headlines, so MGM decided to take advantage of the excitement on everyone’s minds by sending Leo on his own well-publicized cross-country trip. Leo’s plane went down near the Grand Canyon, and a bring-him-back-alive lion hunt resulted. The hunt gave MGM plenty of its own exciting headlines to endear itself to the public. Fortunately, Leo survived to continue as the popular symbol for MGM.

The father of Dr. Ludwig Roselius had been a coffee taster for a coffee company. Dr. Roselius believed that his father’s death was due to all of the caffeine he drank on the job. Roselius decided to find a way to create decaffeinated coffee. He searched for years to remove caffeine without ruining the taste and aroma of the coffee. In 1903, Dr. Roselius and his research team used a new technique of roasting brine-soaked coffee beans. They originally used beans that had been dumped into the sea during a storm. They discovered that the brine-soaked beans reacted differently to roasting. In a short time they developed a way to remove 97% of the caffeine without changing the flavor. The process was patented in 1903 in Germany.

Dr. Roselius started a coffee company called Kaffee Hag and decaf coffee was introduced to the rest of Europe. In France his product was named Café Sanka, a contraction of the French phrase “sans caffeine,” meaning without caffeine. Dr. Roselius brought his product to the U.S. in 1923, calling it “Sanka.,” and founded the Sanka Coffee Corporation in New York. So for all those coffee lovers, who prefer their java sans caffeine, you have Dr. Ludwig Roselius to thank for finding a way to eliminate the caffeine without destroying the coffee flavor.

Benjamin Franklin spent ten years in England trying to reconcile the breach between Great Britain and the American colonies. Franklin slowly became committed to independence after realizing the futility of repairing the ever-widening chasm between the two countries. The day after Franklin returned home to Philadelphia, he was chosen to be one of Pennsylvania’s representatives to the Second Continental Congress. A Committee of Secret Correspondence was formed with the mission of corresponding with other countries for support against England. With his many European connections, Franklin became the committee’s most prominent member. By taking up the pen, he entered the world of espionage. France had been humiliated with its defeat in the Seven Year’s War and was interested in supporting the colonies against England, but it didn’t want to waste money on a loser. The French selected a young Frenchman to live in America and serve as their eyes and ears. The young man did not speak English nor did he have espionage experience, but he was cheap. Archard de Bonvouloir was to provide the French with information about the Americans’ preparedness for war with England. Franklin and fellow Committee member John Jay met with de Bonvouloir and an interpreter in Carpenter’s Hall on several occasions. The skilled propagandist Franklin filled the French agent’s head with exaggerated facts and figures suggesting that America was in a better position than it truly was. The agent in turn exaggerated his reports to the French. While maintaining neutrality, France became fully committed to providing aid to the American cause.

Never did a woman create such health mayhem as Mary Mallon. She was born in Ireland and immigrated to the United States when she was 15. Mary worked as a domestic servant, which is where the problem began. In the summer of 1906, Mary worked as the family cook for a New York banker during his family’s vacation on Long Island. Two daughters became desperately ill with typhoid fever, along with his wife and two maids, the gardener, and eventually a third daughter. There were no antibiotics available at that time and buildings were burned to destroy the disease or quarantined and uninhabitable. This could bring financial disaster to the owner.

Health authorities were perplexed and hired a highly regarded epidemiologist to track down the origins of the life-threatening typhoid. Dr. George Soper’s investigation led him to Mary Mallon who had prepared the dessert that was eaten by the stricken individuals. Mary vanished after the outbreak, but Soper tracked her down upon discovering that typhoid outbreaks accompanied her from job to job. Mary herself was healthy, but she was a carrier of the typhoid bacteria due to her poor personal hygiene. Because of her uncooperative attitude and refusal to change health habits, Mary was eventually quarantined in a small cottage on the grounds of Riverside Hospital on North Brother Island, where she lived under close supervision for the rest of her life.

The secession of New York City has been proposed several times in history. One such time was on the eve of the Civil War. Mayor Fernando Wood, a powerful pro-Southern Democrat, made a proposal in an annual message to the city’s Common Council: if the Southern states seceded, the city should do so too and become “equally independent.” Wood believed that as a “free city,” New York would survive with the support of the South and the large income provided by import duties. Wood attacked the Republican-controlled state legislature: why may not New York disrupt the bands which bind her to a venal and corrupt master? Other Democrats on the council and many businessmen agreed and made secret plans for New York’s secession. But many more believed that the idea of leaving the United States was far too radical. When the war’s first shots were fired at Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, New Yorkers remained staunchly pro-Union, and Mayor Wood had to find new employment.

As recently as 2003, a bill was introduced reviving secession. It was sponsored by 20 out of 51 City Council members. Like Mayor Wood, the councilman who introduced the bill emphasized the monetary benefits of secession. No action was taken on the bill, but that doesn’t mean that secession won’t come up again in New York City.

His long beard and piercing gaze made people think of an Old Testament prophet. But John Brown’s radical behavior caused fear and terror in the hearts of many. Brown was a debt-ridden Ohio farmer who had become associated with the Secret Six, a group of abolitionists who raised funds to buy guns for him and to purchase a house for his family. Brown had terrorized the Kansas territory where he and his violent anti-slavery forces brutally murdered five settlers, some of them being torn from their beds in the middle of the night and murdered in front of their families. Brown took advantage of those who supported the anti-slavery movement by using their money to finance his bloody expeditions. Harpers Ferry was a small Southern town that produced guns for the federal government, which were stored in the local U.S. arsenal. Brown’s plan to attack Harpers Ferry was an action he hoped would rally many to his cause. He then would have a force large enough to terrorize his way through Virginia, Tennessee, and Alabama. But things went terribly wrong, and Brown was eventually taken prisoner. He was charged with treason, conspiracy, and murder and was convicted and sentenced to die by hanging. As one writer wrote, “Harpers Ferry was one of the flash points that turned a virulent social debate into a civil war.”

A depression-weary America found a reason to look heavenward in the summer of 1930. A bashful young discoverer instilled excitement in many becoming an instant hero. Twenty-two-year-old Kansas farm boy Clyde Tombaugh, a former star pole-vaulter in high school, had settled into life on the family farm. Tombaugh was a typical Midwesterner, except for his hobby of building telescopes. Using parts from old farm machinery, Tombaugh built a telescope that could magnify an impressive 400 times. He mailed sketches of the planet Mars to the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. The observatory lacked funds to pay a professional astronomer to search the skies. Tombaugh was offered an internship, which he accepted. The young Tombaugh manned the observatory’s telescope through the night, often during subfreezing cold, taking all of the necessary pictures. After nearly a year, he had scanned more than a million stars on hundreds of photographic plates, Then one night, something blinked back. The photograph was verified and Clyde Tombaugh was thrust into the headlines. A write-in contest was held to name the new planet, and an English school girl’s entry was chosen. “Pluto” became the official name for the new planet and Plutomania took off. Clyde Tombaugh continued an illustrious career in astronomy, being the only person to enroll in college after discovering a new world.

January 15, 1919 was an unseasonably warm winter day in Boston that brought many people outdoors. At the nearby distilling company a huge molasses tank, 50 feet high, 90 feet wide, and filled to the brim, was about to come apart. Basic safety tests were neglected in the construction of the tank, such as filling the tank first with water to check for leaks. When filled with molasses, the tank leaked so badly that it was painted brown to hide the leaks. On this particular day, the molasses began to sweat through the tank’s loose rivets. They popped out of their holes with a sound like machine-gun fire. With a roar, the seams split and tons of molasses spewed out. The first wave was nearly 30 feet high and reduced buildings to rubble. People and animals were helpless against the wall of thick syrup. Flying shards of metal from the tank acted like shrapnel slicing through whatever they hit. Molasses clogged the streets and 21 were left dead and 150 injured. It took months for the city to get rid of the sticky goo. People claim that the molasses left from this disaster still seeps up from some of the streets on a hot day.

Reverend James Caldwell of Elizabeth Town, New Jersey, was an ordained Presbyterian minister and chaplain of the Patriot army during the American War for Independence. His reputation reached the British ranks as a fierce patriot who fought hard and inspired his men, causing them to nickname Caldwell “The Rebel Priest.” Caldwell preached on Sunday with his pistols on the pulpit and led his men into battle during the week. When the war intensified, he opened the First Presbyterian Church for the sick and wounded soldiers. When word reached Elizabeth Town that the British were approaching, Caldwell raced to headquarters with the news. While he was gone, his wife was shot and killed at home as she held their infant child and their home torched. Hearing the awful news, Rev. Caldwell raced back home to make sure that his grieving children would be taken care of then joined the battle in Springfield. When the Americans ran out of paper wadding that was used to measure and contain gun powder for the muskets, Rev. Caldwell ordered the company to retreat to the local Presbyterian Church. He ran inside, grabbed all of the Isaac Watts hymn books, and admonished the soldiers to “fill the British with doctrine from the hymnals.”

Morris “Moe” Berg, a major league baseball player and a spy, could speak nearly a dozen languages. Though educated at Princeton, the Sorbonne, and Columbia and holding a law degree, it was baseball that gave him the most happiness.  When the owner of the Washington Senators was told that catcher Berg could speak seven languages, he replied, “Yeah. I know, and he can’t hit in any of them.” Unfortunately, Berg suffered a knee injury and spent the latter part of his career as a bench warmer. After two years as a Red Sox coach, Berg left baseball on the same day his father died. His father always regarded his son’s choice of career as a waste of fine intellect. Berg’s love of the game caused continual contention between the two men. Berg left baseball to pursue diplomacy and espionage during World War II. He was assigned to the Secret Intelligence branch of the Office of Strategic Services, precursor to the CIA. It has come to light in recent years of the extent of Berg’s work in determining Germany’s atomic bomb capability. The mysterious Moe Berg brought fascination to many and lived the original life that most desire but never attain.

On September 12, 1871, thirty-two captains of the most respected whale-hunting fleet in the world met in a ship’s cabin. The commanders decided to do the unthinkable—they were going to abandon their ships. Winter had arrived early in the Arctic and had surrounded their ships with miles of ice, crushing the ships’ hulls and sealing off their escape routes. Three ships had already been destroyed by the time the captains met. The independent leaders knew their only hope of survival was cooperation. They had provisions for three months to see them through a nine-month ordeal that would probably become a graveyard of ice. Top priority was saving the lives of the men, women, and children aboard the remaining vessels. One of the captains went south to get help and returned with news that there were two whaling ships in open water waiting for them. Men, women, and children boarded small wooden boats for the 70-mile journey to reach the rescue ships. All 1,219 survived the ordeal, but many later questioned the decision to abandon the ships. The ships’ owners and insurers back home debated the wisdom of abandoning the ships. The debate intensified with Eskimo reports stating that two weeks after the whalemen left the Arctic, a gale drove the ice away from the deserted ships. The ice returned and locked in the vessels, but some felt that the commanders could have gotten the vessels out safely if they had waited. History repeated itself in 1876, but this time those who chose to remain with the ships were never seen again.

A bullet to the heart outside a laundromat abruptly ended George Lincoln Rockwell’s leadership of the American Nazi Party. Born in 1918 to vaudeville comedians, Rockwell attended prep school and Brown University. He dropped out of college to become a Navy pilot during World War II. He later attended Pratt Institute of Art where he developed the drawing talent he would use to create Nazi propaganda. After his second marriage ended, Rockwell began the American Nazi Party and moved to the suburbs of Washington, DC.  The six-foot-four charismatic Rockwell had the looks, talent, and speaking skills to succeed in almost anything he chose to do. Sadly, he chose the dark and derisive role of hatemonger. Rockwell used tactics that would garner publicity and spread the message of hate toward Jews and blacks.  At its peak, the ANP had no more than 50 to 60 members, 200 at the most. But small as the group remained, the fallout from its hateful philosophy was felt years later.  One of the members wrote a book that inspired Timothy McVeigh, perpetrator of the Oklahoma City bombing. Rockwell spent his days reading or sleeping while other Party members tried to seek work. In the end, Rockwell was murdered by one of his own men. A tragic ending for a gifted man who chose to waste his life promoting hatred.