The
106-year success story of Harper Brush began with the dreams
of a young Fairfield, Iowa, entrepreneur, Alphonso K. "A.K."
Harper, who began peddling sewing needles door-to-door when
he was only 11. 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, hiring a group of college students who became
known as "Harper Men" 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 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.
The Harper plant was expanded several times over the last century
as more products were developed and more sophisticated machines
were added to aid in producing higher quality brushes and brooms.
In 1989, Harper became the first company in the nation to design
and deliver a fully assembled broom to the retail market. And
Harper continues to lead in the production of environmentally
friendly brooms. As a vertically integrated manufacturer nearly
90 percent of its materials come from renewable wood resources.
As
the Harper product line has evolved over the last century,
the "wagon jobber" sales corps has developed into a nationwide
network of several hundred independent distributors who have
kept Harper close to its customers and their needs. A.K. Harper,
who lived into his 90s, was succeeded in leading the company
by his son Paul and later his son-in-law "Shorty" Long. Today,
A.K.'s grandson, Barry Harper, is president of the company,
and many other family members carry on the Harper legacy.
And remarkably, although the company has taken advantage of
technological advances to streamline its operations and enhance
its product line over the years, the quality and substance
of the final product has changed only minimally from the first
Harper brushes.
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