Harper in the News

Canadian Franchise Association Highlights Harper's Creation of Franchising!
The Canadian Franchise Association  recently discovered the Harper story and it is featuring her as one of its own; Harper was born in Canada. In its March/April, 2008 issue of "Franchise Canada" Harper is featured in a story "The Canadian Woman Who Created Modern Franchising." In its winter newsletter to members "The Franchise Voice," it is running a Harper feature called "The Canadian Servant Who Created Modern Franchising."

We are all grateful that Martha Matilda Harper called both Canada and the United States home.

Harper's Franchises Inspire Ivorians
The U.S. Embassy in Abidgan, Ivory Coast sponsored a May 4, 2006 presentation for Ivorian businessmen and women at the new embassy. The talk was led by Harper biographer Jane Plitt in English. Not wanting to miss any detail, participants asked that the presentation be immediately translated into French, the local language.

The excitement among participants was palpable. They were inspired, indicating that if Harper could transform her life from servant to entrepreneur so could they. Many planned to pursue franchising and work with embassy personnel promoting information about such business development.

The Harper session was captured in words and photo and then posted on the U.S. Embassy website for the Ivory Coast. A copy of the Harper biography was given by Plitt to U.S. Embassy library for use by graduate students with the inscription, "Dare to dream and dare to make those dreams come true."

Harper Among Top 60 Businessmen and
Women Who Made America
According to Sir Harold Evans, author of They Make America, Harper was "the mother of America's first retail franchise network." He credits Plitt, Harper biographer, with rescuing "Martha from the oblivion to which history has consigned her." Other business innovators cited include Robert Fulton (steamboat), Eli Whitney (cotton gin), Levi Strauss (dungarees), the Wright brothers (airplanes), Walt Disney (entertainment), George Eastman (photography), Madame Walker (black entrepreur/millionaire), Joan Cooney (Sesame Street), and Ted Turner (CNN).

June 7, 2005 Investor's Business Daily spotlighted the life and accomplishments of Martha Matilda Harper under headline "A Beautiful Model for Success: No Bad Hair Days."

"The franchised Harper shops were a powerful economic innovation that changed the realities of poor women's lives," according to GreatWomen.org, the site for the National Women's Hall of Fame. "Hundreds of women became owners, purchasing a Harper shop through her flexible financing."

"At their height, more than 500 Harper salons existed in the U.S., additional outlets in Europe, Asia, and Central America."

March 2005 NEWSDAY features Martha Matilda Harper, her long hair and her stamp campaign.

Winter 2005 issue of Invention & Technology magazine includes photo of Harper's salon, illustrating America's first reclining shampoo chair that Harper invented.

November 2004 During a November 16, 2004 interview about "They Made America" on NPR's Market Place, Harper was spotlighted by Sir Harold Evans as the prime example of business leadership with a deep moral code.

October 2004 Martha Matilda Harper cited in the Newsweek October 18, 2004 book review of "They Made America":  "But ... homage (is also paid) to the relative unknowns who prove just as interesting: Martha Matilda Harper, who opened a beauty shop in Rochester, NY, that ultimately became America's first franchise."

July 2003 What a come back!  On the 125^th anniversary of her business launch, Martha Matilda Harper will be inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame this October 4, 2003 in Seneca Falls, New York. The town is often cited as the birthplace of women’s rights because it held the first women’s rights convention in 1848.  The National Women’s Hall of Fame, founded in 1969, has inducted 195 path blazing women already including Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton .

Click here for more information.

April 2003 Wall Street Journal: In a book review on Madam Walker, book reviewer Nicholas con Hoffman wrote, "Business historians many want to use this book to compare Madam Walker to Martha Matilda Harper (1857-1950), the Canadian white woman who was sold into a form of indentured servitude at age seven and emerged to go into the hair-care business in the same period. Harper probably was the first person to perfect the franchise system of business organization, her Harper Method parlors, and certainly the first to use it on a multinational basis." April 23

April 2002 Wall Street Journal: In a book review on Martha Stewart, book reviewer Nicholas von Hoffman stated, "In the history of business this Martha will certainly rank below Martha M. Harper (1857-1950), who played a major part in the development of the franchise system that so dominates America's service industries."

October 2002 "Enterprising Women," a traveling museum exhibit organized by Harvard University, opened at the National Heritage Museum in Lexington, Mass. Harper is one of 36 American women entrepreneurs featured. The exhibit will travel around the country for two years.

September 2002 NY Archives magazine's Fall 2002 issue carried a feature story, "Martha Matilda Harper: The Business of Beauty." 

August 2002 Modern Salon mentioned Harper, her legacy and the book. Read more.

June 2001 The Tribune published a copy of the Harper stamp petition. History's Women, "A Woman to Admire," June 7. 

May 2001 Palm Beach Post, West Palm Beach, Fla., "Franchise Pioneer," May 13 business section.  The Tribune published a review of the Harper book. Franchise Times, "Stylin' for a Stamp," about the crusade for a Harper postage stamp. (Read more about efforts to have Harper put on a U.S. stamp.)

April 2001 Progressive Woman, St. Louis, Mo., "The Winning Business Strategies of Martha Matilda Harper."

There is more news about Harper in the News Archive

For additional information, e-mail marthamatildaharper@yahoo.com.