Alfred C. Fuller*

In 1885, Alfred Fuller was born on an Annapolis Valley farm in Welsford, Kings County, Nova Scotia. He was a farm boy of 18 in 1903 when he came to the United States to live with a sister in the Boston suburbs.

The eleventh of 12 children in a poor but industrious family, Fuller had no high school education and no business experience. He worked for a man selling brushes door to door, but Fuller had little success with the inferior product he was selling.

In 1906, at the age of 21, Fuller saved $375 to buy the equipment he would need to make his own line of brushes, and he founded the Fuller Brush Company in Hartford, Connecticut. He worked at night and sold his products door to door during the day. Three years later, he began to hire a sales force.

Soon, the Fuller Brush man became a welcome caller at doorways everywhere in the United States. By 1919, it was a $1 million business, and by 1960 it had grown to $109 million.