Title and statement of responsibility area
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Issuing jurisdiction and denomination (philatelic)
Dates of creation area
Date(s)
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[1890?]-1974, predominant 1923-[196-] (Creation)
- Creator
- Fuller, Alfred C., 1885-1973
Physical description area
Physical description
2.4 m of textual records and other material
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Archival description area
Name of creator
Biographical history
Entrepreneur Alfred Carl Fuller, the eleventh child of Leander and Phebe (Collins) Fuller, was born at Welsford, Kings County, N.S., on 13 January 1885. Fuller moved to Boston in 1903 where he lived with his sister and worked odd jobs including one as a salesman for the Somerville Brush and Mop Company. By 1906 he began manufacturing and selling his own household brushes. After four months, he moved his operations in April 1906 to Hartford, Conn. under the name Capitol Brush Company. The company was re-named the Fuller Brush Company in 1913. Fuller originally sold his brushes door to door; as the company grew and became known world-wide, he served as president until 1943 followed by chairman of the board of directors. In 1969 the company merged with Consolidated Foods Inc. and left family hands. Fuller and his first wife, Evelyn (Ells) of Welsford, married 1908 at Somerville, Mass., had two sons, Howard and Avard, who became the second and third presidents of the Fuller Brush Company. He married his second wife, Mary Primrose (Pelton), of Yarmouth, N.S., at New York in 1932. Fuller's biography, A Foot in the Door: The Life Appraisal of the Original Fuller Brush Man, as Told to Hartzell Spence was published in 1960. He died on 4 December 1973 at Hartford.
Custodial history
Scope and content
Fonds consists of scrapbooks, newspaper clippings, product manuals, publications, inventories, and ledgers documenting the activities of the Fuller Brush Company, particularly in the area of advertising. Also includes newspaper clippings, articles, certificates, biographical notes, addresses, correspondence, and printed ephemera relating to Alfred C. Fuller and his career; draft manuscript and correspondence pertaining to his biography, A Foot in the Door; and notes and charts on Fuller family geneaology and related families. Fonds also contains photographs of the Fuller Brush Company plant and products, Alfred C. Fuller, family members, celebrities, and social and promotional events, some of which were published in Foot in the Door. There are also drawings of Fuller, miscellaneous prints, and sound recordings and films featuring interviews with Fuller, company training and recruitment, and scenes of a trip to Connecticut by the Nova Scotia Apple Blossom Festival queen in 1960.
Notes area
Physical condition
Immediate source of acquisition
Donated by Mrs. Alfred C. Fuller in 1974 and in 1977, the latter accession received through Hugh Conrad.
Arrangement
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Script of material
Location of originals
Availability of other formats
Genealogical material available on microfilm. Videocassette viewing copies also available.
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Accruals
General note
Brushes and various other artifacts were also donated.
Physical description
Includes: ca. 152 photographs, 8 drawings (mostly copies), 3 prints, 2 watercolours, 6 audio discs (33 1/3 rpm, mono), 2 audio reels (1/4 in.), 9 film reels (16mm, b&w & col.)
