Martha Matilda Harper's Life Story

This Post may interest our friends and others who might wonder why would the life Story of Martha Matilda Harper be posted on this persons Blog? We have been interested in the story of Martha Matilda Harper’s life in the beauty industry since I first entered the profession with my wife in the late “Fifty’s.” It so happened that we graduated from Adolph’s Harper Method franchised Cosmetology School in Atlanta, Georgia. In those days the only way one could be employed in a franchised "Harper Method" Salon was to graduate from one of her franchised Schools. And so it was that her Harper Method system was one of the reasons we continued in the Beauty industry. This story lets you know that women could be successful even in the 1800’s if they had the fortitude and a dream. Permission to post this information can be found in the writers URL at the end of this post.

First, this is a biography. It uncovers the story of the woman behind the "Harper Method," following her as she escaped her poverty-stricken family in northern Canada, traveled to New York, and became one of the premier business women of her day. Martha Harper's life embodied most of the characteristics of the classic Horatio Alger myth. Indeed, Plitt sees her as "a female Horatio Alger." (p. 3) Born in 1875, the daughter of an abusive, ne'er do well dreamer, she was bound out to servitude when she was only seven. Like a Horatio Alger hero, she had "luck" as well as "pluck." When she was twelve, she went to work for a physician, who shared his secret formula with her -- a hair tonic that would make hair and scalp both healthy and beautiful. Armed with this knowledge and 60 silver dollars, Harper left Canada at the age of 25, settling in Rochester New York, where she went to work once more as a servant -- this time for a prominent attorney, Luther Hovey, and his wife Charlotte. There she adopted the Christian Science religion and, relying on the contacts the Hoveys provided her, acquired an office in the Powers Building, "the showpiece" of downtown Rochester. (p. 24) From these inauspicious beginnings, she launched an international corporation that she ran until the 1930s.

Harper's story is a compelling one. Yet the biography is the weakest portion of the book. Pitt relies too heavily -- perhaps because she had no other choice -- on "official" and often suspect company sources. Moreover, the narrative is dotted with qualifiers -- "probably," "perhaps," and "may have" -- which indicate that too many of Pitt's assumptions are based on plausible guess work rather than hard fact.

The book also offers a gendered interpretation of Harper's achievements. It describes the difficulties that women once had in establishing themselves and being taken seriously in the business world. Pitt argues that had Harper been a man, she would be ranked among the leading innovators of business practices in her day. She also maintains that Harper's determination to foster a sense of community among her employees was a tactic that a woman would be particularly likely to embrace. While suffragists talked about women's capabilities, Harper quietly turned real women into strong and capable entrepreneurs. For her, women's leadership in her company was not accidental; it was essential. "Dismissing the traditional capitalist competitive approach of "owner-take-all," Harper emphasized the values of cooperation and mutual support, shared her profits with other women, changed her employees' lives and gave her "girls" real financial security and personal freedom. (p. 5) Pitt's analysis here is solid -- albeit somewhat hagiographic -- but it tells us nothing new about the problems women faced in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Finally, Pitt analyzes Harper's contributions to the world of business, stressing her innovative, even visionary techniques, techniques that have become commonplace in the modern world. The "Harper Method" was, in fact, virtually identical with the modern franchise system. At its peak, it included a worldwide network of shops, owned by individual "Harperites" -- mostly working class women -- who ran their businesses following the dictates of Martha Harper. The Harper system "integrated recruitment, training, and job placement. It offered a soup-to-nuts system of indoctrination, skill building, and ownership." (p. 117) Harper trained the women, taught them how to market their goods, how to treat their customers, and how to maintain a high and consistent quality of service. She occasionally introduced new "scientific" products and techniques to the Harperites, and required them to take occasional refresher courses so that they would continue to represent the company in the best possible manner. Perhaps because of her Christian Science faith, she emphasized healthy -- rather than simply beautiful -- hair. For that reason she eschewed the use of the hair dyes (unless they were organic) and permanents that became increasingly popular after World War II. Unlike her contemporaries, Elizabeth Arden and Helena Rubinstein, she tried to steer clear of business strategies that targeted the middle class, and democratized the beauty industry. She was not interested in persuading her customers that beauty was possible for any woman for the price of a few cosmetics. For Harper, health was the basis of beauty; externally applied products were mass produced facades designed to hide rather than enhance a woman's assets.

While Harper was ahead of her times in some ways, she represented a bygone era in others. She may have empowered working class women; yet she sought only elite women as customers. Even during the depression, she told "her girls" to continue charging upscale prices, hoping to differentiate her business from those led by others in the beauty industry. She wanted her goods and services to be better, not cheaper.

In the 1930s, when Harper's mental and physical health declined, and her husband Robert MacBain gradually assumed control of the business, it became increasingly clear that Harper had not built a business that could go on without her. MacBain abandoned many of her core principles, adopting a more "masculine" strategy, and the enterprise lost much of its distinctiveness. He stressed outer rather than inner beauty; he allowed the use of dyes and permanents. He did not share his wife's determination to recruit servant girls to run the franchises. In a sense, Martha Harper's was more a personal than an economic triumph, a product of her charisma and her drive. No other business imitated the Harper Method in her era, and it died with her.

Citation
Sheila L. Skemp, "Review of Jane R. Plitt, Martha Matilda Harper and the American Dream: How One Woman Changed the Face of Modern Business." EH.Net Economic History Services, Aug 12 2002. URL: http://eh.net/bookreviews/library/0525