Social Change Can Come from Business

Flextime, a holistic approach to health and beauty, onsite childcare and participative management seem like modern concepts, yet they were part of a business model that was in place in the late 1800s.

They were just a few of the business practices championed by Martha Matilda Harper, a feminist and businesswoman with humble beginnings who developed America's first business-format franchise in 1891.

Long before Ray Kroc developed the chain of highly standardized McDonald's restaurants, Harper devised a chain of beauty shops that utilized trademark products, proprietary training and territories, coordinated advertising and business duplication tools.

The shops include the reclining shampoo chair that is still used in salons today, which Harper invented but never patented.

Harper recruited and trained working class women to own and operate the Harper Hairdressing Parlors in the hopes of offering them economic security and a better life.

In the early 1930s, visitors to any of the more than 500 Harper shops worldwide could expect the same kind of treatment that they received from the Harper shop down the street.