"In the first biography of entrepreneur Martha Matilda Harper, Jane R. Plitt shows how Harper created America's first retail franchise network, a radical new business model that encouraged women to own businesses, to enrich themselves spiritually and financially, and even to marry - all on their own terms.".

"Born in Ontario, Canada, Harper struggled for twenty-five years as a servant to change her life and that of other working-class women. In 1888, after immigrating to the United States, she pioneered the idea of a public hairdressing salon based on health-conscious precepts. Within three years, her concept was enthusiastically embraced by both the social elite and suffragettes across the country, including Susan B. Anthony and Mrs. Alexander Graham Bell.".

"Harper advocated practices that were progressive even by today's standards. She urged her franchisees to be accommodating to their customers and employees, to establish childcare centers in their shops, and to pursue principled endeavors. She fought an industry intent on encouraging the purchase of dangerous beauty aids and processes.

Instead, Harper preached that people were naturally beautiful and her world-wide network of five-hundred shops provided skin and scalp treatments to help release a customer's inner beauty." "The book will be of interest to historians and a general audience with a special interest in women's studies and business."--BOOK JACKET.