Harold L. Schafer*

Harold Schafer was born on a farm in Stanton, North Dakota, in 1912. When he was seven, the family home burned down during a winter blizzard. At the age of eight, he went to work in a butcher shop. His father left the family when Schafer was 12, so Schafer worked at a variety of jobs to help support his family. He graduated from high school in 1929, and enrolled at the North Dakota State Agricultural College, but left after one year because he needed to work full time.

After being a traveling salesman for a number of years, Schafer began packaging and selling a product he called Gold Seal Floor Wax in 1942. He typed labels and taped them onto old cans in his basement. In 1945, he introduced Glass Wax, which increased his sales dramatically. In 1948, Glass Wax went national in distribution. In the 1950s, his success was repeated with the introduction of Snowy Bleach and then again in the 1960s with Mr. Bubble. Each of these became the top-selling product throughout the world in their respective categories. The Gold Seal Company was sold to Airwick Industries in 1986.