In a special edition of women who made history who I’ve never heard of until now: Martha Matilda Harper.
Martha Matilda Harper (1857 – 1950) essentially launched modern franchising. About one in ten businesses in the United States is a franchise today — McDonald’s probably being the most recognizable. Cheatsheet: a franchise is where a parent company, franchisor, licenses out their brand, products, services to independent business owners who then share back a % of their sales with the franchisor and must adhere to certain brand standards . . . it’s basically a business-in-a-box.
Harper developed this modern system in 1891 with Harper Salons.
Harper grew up in servitude (her father bound her out as a domestic servant when she was seven) but after twenty-five years of menial labor, she developed her own hair tonic and saved up enough to open her own shop — the first public hair care salon in the Rochester, NY area.
She was an innovator who used only natural substances in her products (that she developed!) and invented the reclining shampoo chair that we still use today. She also employed only former servant women, offered childcare and evening hours to make her services more accessible, and gave flextime, profit sharing, and paid time off to her employees.
And she launched franchising! She trained thousands of women on her “Harper Method” — operations, skills, branding, marketing — and gave them flexible financing to own their own salon. This was an incredibly transformative to economic realties for poor women.
At the height, there were over 500 Harper salons! This woman was a legacy.
With Love,
Natalie
Martha Harper is also Canadian,( from Oakville,Ontario). According to local legend she was sold into indentured servitude of a sort by her father, making her story all the more impressive..