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The success story of Harper Brush began with the dreams of a
young Fairfield, Iowa, entrepreneur, Alphonso K. "A.K."
Harper. Watching his mother's daily struggle to scrub floors and keep
other surfaces clean, he was inspired in his early 20s to create his
first five-piece combination brush kit, hand-crafted from horse hair.
The next year, in 1900, he founded Harper Brush Works, Inc. hiring a
group of college students to make brushes part-time during the school
year and travel full-time during the summer selling Harper brushes from
their wagons.
In 1925, Harper Brush Works started making industrial cleaning
tools as well as household products, beginning the evolution of
a diverse family of Harper products to suit a variety of
specialized cleaning applications, often in direct response to
customer suggestions.
important innovations included the 1935 introduction of a
heavy-duty broom handle brace with an iron connector, still a
hallmark of Harper quality, and the installation of the first
motor-driven brush machine in 1946 as the company began to
automate its factory. Around 1948, in an effort to upgrade the
recruiting program, a system of selective distribution through
the assignment of geographical territory was created. Formal
contracts, with counties assigned, were issued to the
distributor salesperson and they became the sole source of
Harper products. |
For the next several years, a marked shift toward full-time
distributors and a few conventional storefront distributors occurred.
In1989, Harper products entered the retail market with fully assembled
pushbrooms.
From December 1990 to present, Harper Brush Works has been managed
by President/CEO Barry Harper, a third generation Harper. Barry has
committed himself to carrying on the family tradition of
manufacturing quality products and providing excellent service to
Harper’s customers.
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