I heard from a Fuller Brush Woman the other day. She had read my post about the Fuller Brush Man letter opener that I had found among some small items in a box lot at auction.
So Alice Flanders of Maine emailed me. Seems she’s been a Fuller Brush Woman since 1999. You can tell when someone joined by their account number, she said. Hers starts with 99.
Last week, I wrote about the Fuller Brush Man, who was a ubiquitous figure in American culture around the mid-20th century. Mostly men, they went door to door in suburban neighborhoods selling custom-made brushes of all kinds to housewives. They also left them a little gift as part of their purchases. Hence, the letter opener.
When I got the comment from Flanders, I decided to ask her some questions about her experience as a Fuller Brush Woman, immortalized in the 1950 Lucille Ball movie “Fuller Brush Girl” (photo above). The film was the counterpart to Red Skelton’s “Fuller Brush Man,” which had been released two years earlier. On the web, I came across a 1948 Life magazine photo of a Fuller Brush Woman entering a home and demonstrating her products.
I Googled Flanders: She’s a member of the Downeast Winning Team in Maine, and she’s a company director, meaning she’s sold a lot of products. She agreed to answer some questions about being a Fuller Brush Woman:
Auction Finds: How did you get started? Did anyone in your family sell the products?
Alice Flanders: I got started because I sell Avon. I am online with other Avon reps. One of them asked me if I would join her in Fuller. I had no idea what Fuller was. I found out and joined. No one in my family had ever sold anything.
Auction Finds: Who do you sell to? Do you have a cadre of regular customers or do you knock on doors?
Alice Flanders: I sell to any customers I can find. In person and online. I do have regular customers. I also go door to door except I do not knock. I simply leave my info and they call me. It is not necessary for someone to go door to door. I like to. You may search for customers in whatever manner you prefer. I have one girl in my Successline who sells only on the net. She has made director in the company. Another girl opened a small store. She is my best seller. So you can easily use whatever approaches or approach you prefer.
Auction Finds: What do you sell & what products are your best sellers? Do you do this full time?
Alice Flanders: I sell high quality cleaning products. Yes, I do it full time.
Auction Finds: Why do you sell? What’s the thrill or payoff for you? The people you meet? The salesmanship?
Alice Flanders: I sell because I want to help myself become a better person and want to help others with the same goal. This is a self improvement company that sells cleaning products.
Auction Finds: Is your background in sales? Tell me a little about yourself.
Alice Flanders: No, my background is in several areas. Being a certified nurse’s aide and med tech, a factory worker, and a small farmer. (ask me to tell you about goats, rabbits, and pigs anytime).
Alice’s last answer, obviously, intrigued me: A farmer, with goat-rabbit-pig stories. I wanted to hear more. (Photo above is by Rae Allen.)
Well, the calm-and-collected Alice who emanated from the Fuller Brush answers made my mouth drop with her first story, about the first time she saw a hog’s sexual organ and what it looked like (think 5-foot-long corkscrew). I looked it up – interesting bit of trivia. My grandfather had hogs on his farm, but I never knew that.
Too non-family friendly, she asked? I think so, Alice. Girl got a little freak in her.
Let’s stick with some “clean” stories, Alice. Here are her farm answers (In one bio on the web, she said that as a teen, she was interested in the back-to-land movement in the 1960s):
Auction Finds: How long did you farm?
Alice Flanders: 35 years (she raised livestock).
Auction Finds: Was it a family farm? If not, how did you get into farming?
Alice Flanders: I got into farming because the entire time I was growing up my father kept talking about how much he wanted to have a goat. He was organic when organic wasn’t cool. His father built the house so he wouldn’t leave it to go where he could farm. As soon as I was old enough to, I did. I found out quickly that you do not have ONE goat.
Auction Finds: Are you still farming or did you give it up? If so, why?
Alice Flanders: I am not. I still miss the animals, though. I gave it up because I could never make a paying proposition out of it. You could now, times have changed.
Then I had another Fuller Brush question for her:
Auction Finds: Do yo give gifts with your purchases? If so, what?
Alice Flanders: Sometimes. It depends on what they buy and what mood I am in.
Good stuff, Alice. Thank you.
