brushes produced and sold by the Fuller Brush
Company, a well-known
American company founded by Alfred Fuller (1885-1973) in the early 1900s. After working in a brush
manufacturing company and successfully
selling their
brushes door-to-door, Fuller decided to make his own
brushes to fulfill the
needs of his
customers. He began making
brushes in the basement of his sister's
house in 1906 and then sold them door-to-door to his already known
customers. Fuller became very
successful at
selling his
brushes, using
lines such as "I'll
step in," as opposed to asking for permission, and concentrating on showing what his
brushes could do rather than talking about them. In doing this, he scrubbed
babies' backs, cleaned
milk bottles, swept stairs, dusted floors, etc., to show how good his
brushes were. About a year later, he founded the Fuller Brush
Company and began making
brushes of all designs. His
business greatly expanded and in just
seventeen years of beginning his
company's annual sales had reached $15,000,000. By 1922 the Fuller Brush salesmen numbered in the thousands and became known as the "Fuller Brush Men," an army of door-to-door salesmen
trained on a
special sales
patter to
sell Fuller
brushes.