ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Martha Matilda Harper moved to Rochester from Canada in 1882 and went on to create a business empire that changed how we get our hair done and how franchises operate today.
WATCH: Old newspaper clippings highlight Rochester’s Martha Matilda Harper
Harper’s story begins as a domestic servant. Before coming to Rochester, she worked for a doctor who handed over a recipe for a tonic. She made it her own and started an empire.
“Martha Matilda Harper is one of my favorite people in Rochester’s history,” Christine Ridarsky said.
Ridarsky is the Rochester and Monroe County historian. She explained that Harper started doing hair for people in their homes because at that point in time, ladies didn’t leave the home.
Harper’s method focused on invigorating the scalp with massaging techniques. Ridarsky met people who experienced Harper services firsthand, including the woman who wrote Harper’s biography.
“The woman who wrote the biography of Martha Matilda Harper has shared with me the experience of actually having her own hair done by someone trained in this harper method,” said Ridarsky.
Some of Harper’s clientele included Susan B. Anthony and Jackie Kennedy. The method grew too popular for house calls, so she opened her first salon in 1888 in the Powers Building downtown.
“It becomes very popular, and she decides she wants to do something not only for herself but for other women,” Ridarsky said.
Harper hired women who mirrored herself — often former domestic servants. She gave them the opportunity to enter her business and improve their own life circumstances.
Harper also laid the foundation for the business model we know today as franchising. Workers paid their fee and Harper trained them in her method of hair care, emphasizing natural ingredients and customer comfort.
“I like to tell people that Martha Matilda Harper is the reason we have Starbucks on every corner,” Ridarsky said.
Harper also invented the lay-back chair used in salons to wash hair. The Rochester Science Museum Center dug the original chair out of their archives.
The chair was designed to keep soapy suds out of clients’ faces. Without it, getting a client’s head in the sink would be uncomfortable and nearly impossible to keep them dry.
In her lifetime, there were more than 500 Harper Method shops not only in the United States but across the globe.
“It was very unusual at that point in time for a woman not only to have her own factory, but to have her name emblazoned on a building like that,” Ridarsky said.
She created a line of beauty products to sell and send to other stores, made at her former factory at Harper’s Corner on East Main Street.
“I think she’s someone who understood the value of marketing at a very early period of time,” Ridarsky said.
Harper was hard to miss in the studio or around town with her hair that went down to the floor.
“That’s all the PR she needed for her product,” said Ridarsky.
Harper died in 1950 and is buried at Riverside Cemetery. After her death, Harper was honored by the International Franchising Association and inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame.
Harper was also the first female member of the Rochester Chamber of Commerce. She was a member of the Rochester Country Club and Oak Hill Country Club.
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