Lucky for Edna Murphey, people attending an exposition in Atlantic City during the summer of 1912 got hot and sweaty.For two years, the high school student from Cincinnati had been trying unsuccessfully to promote an antiperspirant that her father, a surgeon, had invented to keep his hands sweat-free in the operating room.
Murphey had tried her dad’s liquid antiperspirant in her armpits, discovered that it thwarted wetness and smell, named the antiperspirant Odorono (Odor? Oh No!) and decided to start a company.
But business didn’t go well—initially—for this young entrepreneur. Borrowing $150 from her grandfather, she rented an office workshop but then had to move the operation to her parents’ basement because her team of door-to-door saleswomen didn’t pull in enough revenue. Murphey approached drugstore retailers who either refused to stock the product or who returned the bottles of Odorono back, unsold.
-
Recent Posts
- May 22, ’13 How the Decline of the Traditional Workplace Is Changing Our Cities
- May 22, ’13 Whey Too Much: Greek Yogurt’s Dark Side
- May 22, ’13 The Secret Donors Behind the Center for American Progress and Other Think Tanks
- May 21, ’13 In defense of digital freedom
- May 21, ’13 Surveillance and the Internet of things
-
Archives
-
More Info