the larkin company, also known as the larkin soap company, was a company founded in 1875 in buffalo, new york as a small soap factory. it grew tremendously throughout the late 1800s and into the first quarter of the 1900s with an approach called "the larkin idea" that transformed the company into a mail-order conglomerate that employed 2,000 people and had annual sales of $28.6 million () in 1920. the company's success allowed them to hire frank lloyd wright to design the iconic larkin administration building which stood as a symbol of larkin prosperity until the company's demise in the 1940s.