006 - Peddlers: the travelling store

An introduction to the life and times of the Adirondack peddler.

Transcript

Peddlers: the travelling store

Main Idea: An explanation of pack peddlers in the Adirondack region in the late 1800s and early 1900s. 

Introductory Segment 

[Diane]Imagine a world without Walmart, Amazon or Stewarts! And there are no roads to take you to the mall, only trails through a thick forest. At any moment you may see deer, moose, otter, or even a wolf! But you won’t see a dollar store.

Think I’m talking about some prehistoric alternate dimension? Nope. I’m talking about the past. That’s what it was like here in the Adirondack region long ago. 

[Taylor]If stores were not common, how did early settlers buy the goods they needed and wanted? This episode is going to introduce you to the Peddler.  The traveling dollar store of the past, bringing bargains to your door.

TRANSITION - ADKX Podcast Intro

CONTENT

[Diane]What is a peddler? A peddler is a traveling seller of goods. A person that sells things door to door. This was common until very recently. We still buy things from home, but now it’s easier to use the internet. We don’t have someone come right to our house and show us the goods they have to sell. We look at their goods on our computer screen. 

[Taylor]It was different throughout history. A person, called a peddler, came right to your house with their stuff. They were called peddlers because they walked. Peddlers carried the goods they had for sale in a pack on their back and another on the front and they walked from home to home. They would be really loaded down! Remember that the more they could carry the more they would have available to sell. They couldn’t just run to the car and get more stuff. 

[Diane]The peddler was a familiar sight on American roadways in the 19th century. Selling goods is still a great way to get started in business for yourself. Back in the 19th century there were so many new things to sell and more and more people to sell to. The population of the United States grew by more than 70 million people from 1800 to 1900. Those people needed and wanted goods and services. That need is one of the things that brought about the Industrial Revolution. The Industrial Revolution was a time period in history. During that time the economy changed from relying on farming and items that were hand-made to an economy that relied on machinery and factories. 

[Taylor]Industry was growing by leaps and bounds in the 1800s. Before this time most things were made by hand one at a time by an artisan. That's a person that is skilled at making an item. For example, a cobbler was a maker of shoes. They would create the entire pair of shoes from start to finish. The Industrial Revolution changed that. Instead of artisans making things goods were made in a factory. One person didn’t create one thing from start to finish, many people would share the job. Using shoes as an example, it's one person's job to cut the leather into pieces and that is all they do all day. It's the job of another person to take those pieces and sew them together to make the upper part of the shoe, and yet another person sews on the bottom part of the shoe, and so on until the shoes were finished. This early factory process became the assembly line of today. Because factories operate like that they can make many, many items that are exactly alike in a shorter amount of time than it takes one person to make an item from beginning to end. 

[Diane]With factories able to make many, many items that makes the items cost less. A peddler could buy these items and take them to sell door to door. 

TRANSITION - sounds

[Taylor]There were a lot of different names for Peddlers, too. Some may sound pretty funny to us today. Some were old-time names for a person that sells things. Like Hawker, chapman, higler, monger, tout, and rag-and-bone-man. 

[Diane]Some names told people what they sold. A costermonger sells apples and an ironmonger sells things made from iron. A milliner sells women's hats. 

[Taylor]Because someone can only carry so much, peddlers would specialize in buying and selling certain goods. A ragman sold cloth and shirts and bought or traded rags. They would take a sack of worn out clothes or other cloth items, those are the rags, in trade. A tinman sold kitchen and household items that were made out of tin. There were as many different specializations as there were different things to sell. 

[Diane]Really any items that could be carried would be sold by peddlers. Needles and pins for sewing were especially popular items, since clothes were not already made as they are today.  But it wasn’t just useful items hiding in the peddler's pack. They might have a harmonica, a drawing pad, or toys!

[Taylor]So now that we know what a Peddler is and why they were able to make a living, let's find out a little more about what it was like to be a Peddler.

TRANSITION - sounds

[Diane]The life of a peddler was very difficult. They faced many hardships. As we said before, they travelled on foot carrying a pack on their back and another on their front. The weight of the two packs was often 70 to 100 pounds. 

[Taylor]They didn’t carry these packs short distances either. Especially here in the Adirondack Mountains homes were often very far apart. They would be making stops at homes that might be as much as 10 to 20 miles apart.

[Diane]Then when they finally got where they were going they might not even make a sale. If the household didn’t need any of the goods, or didn’t have any money to buy anything then the peddler moved on without making a sale.

[Taylor]Yes. Many of the stops would have been at homes of people that were struggling to survive themselves. Living in the Adirondacks was very hard. In some of our other podcasts we told you about the rich visitors. Visitors on vacation were very wealthy, but the common resident was often very poor. So, many of them would not have been able to buy the peddlers goods even if they needed them. Remember this was long before credit cards. You needed cash if you wanted to buy.

[Diane]That brings up another hardship for the peddlers. They had many troubles with thieves! Most peddlers travelled alone, so they faced thievery from rotten people that would rob them of their goods and money. Sometimes they would be overpowered by robbers as they tramped along a deserted trail. Or they might even be robbed while they slept! Peddlers needed to be brave and determined.

[Taylor]At this point you may be wondering why would anyone would choose the life of a peddler! It was so fraught with danger and difficulty. As with most things in history there are many reasons.

[Diane]First of all, the abundance of goods being produced by factories in the cities made finding something to sell pretty easy. A peddler could buy some things cheaply then sell them for a little bit more and in that way make a profit. 

[Taylor]Also, factory work isn’t for everyone. An Adirondack peddler was outside most of the time. Not inside a factory. Also, most peddlers worked for themselves. They didn’t have to depend on a big company and follow the rules that company made for their workers. A person that works for themselves, like a peddler, only relies on their own abilities and ambition. That’s very appealing to people that may have immigrated to the United States to pursue better opportunities for themselves and their families.

[Diane]That brings us to another reason to become a peddler. The huge increase in population that we spoke of earlier was due in part to immigration. People moved to the United States from other countries in great numbers in the 1800s. Many immigrants used peddling as a way to get started in business. They had contacts with other immigrants already in the US and could use those contacts to find goods to sell. 

[Taylor]Most peddlers didn’t become peddlers because it was a great job. They became peddlers because it was a stepping stone to better things. Just an avenue on their trip to freedom and prosperity.

TRANSITION - another voice 

[Diane]The following is an excerpt of an interview with Mose Ginsberg. He was a peddler in the Adirondacks in the early 1900s. He was interviewed by the Adirondack Museum in 1969, when he was about 90 years old. Here he tells a little about what it was like to be a peddler in the Adirondacks.

TRANSITION - another voice 

Excerpt from recorded interview 1969. 

Interviewer - Were you peddling with a pack at this time and walking?

Mose - Yes, I had apack on my back weighing about 75 pounds. And I had a sort of telescoped suitcase in the front which weighed about 25 pounds. 20, depending on when I fill up. 

Anyway my route was to go to Keene and there was only one house between Lake Placid and Keene, a distance of 16 miles.

Interviewer - 16?

Mose - 16 miles. With one house on it. The road was very narrow. From Keen I went to Keene Valley. From Keene Valley I went to Upper Jay, and go to lower Jay, and go to Wilmington and back to Lake Placid. And from there we’d go to Saranac Lake, Bloomingdale and over to Brandon. We called it Buck Mountain, it had two names.

Mose - You could only peddle in the summer. In the winter you couldn’t do anything. No one did much of anything in the winter. 

It was a hectic time. It wasn’t very easy. It was very, very...I would lose… I’d be walking all the time. Because 16 miles is a long walk to one house. And if that house didn’t want to buy anything… they wouldn’t let me in some places. Well, I’d just have to walk the other 8 miles. And that happened a good many times.

Mose - So, this gives you a little idea what my route was.

TRANSITION - sounds

[Taylor]People living in the Adirondacks long ago often lived far apart from each other and far from a town or city where they could easily buy goods. Before trains and long before automobiles shopping was a big trip that involved a long day of travel. They were often very happy to see a peddler walking towards their house loaded down with goods. It meant they could get the things they needed and wanted without the long trip. 

[Diane]In the interview with Mose Ginsberg, he tells about the route he took from town to town. It was common for peddlers to follow the same route every time they went out on a selling trip. This was good for them and for the people along that route. The peddler wouldn’t need a map, he would just know the way. Eventually he would get to know the people along the route and know what  they liked to buy. He would know where there was a homestead that would let him bunk down in their barn or if he would need to find a safe place along the trail.

[Taylor]The customers along the route liked getting to know the peddler and being able to count on him coming back at a certain time, say every month or so. They could ask him to bring specialty items the next time he came through. 

[Diane]If two peddlers used the same route, they would usually sell different items. Remember that we said they would specialize? If one peddler comes to your house selling sewing needles, then the next day another one comes to your door selling sewing needles. Only one of those peddlers is going to make any money, right? But, if a peddler comes to your house selling cloth then the next day another one comes selling sewing needles, then both peddlers hava chance to make some money and you get to buy more stuff. Which is always nice!!

[Taylor]But they didn’t all follow the same route. The Adirondack Mountain region is huge. So, there were many trails and roads and places a peddler could go. 

[Diane]Our museum has records of two brothers that lived in North Creek. They were both peddlers. One would take a route that went to towns east of North Creek and the other took a route that went to the north. That way they could sell the same stuff and still make money.

TRANSITION - sounds

[Taylor]Edna West Teall was an artist that grew up in the Adirondacks. In her book Adirondack Tales: A girl grows up in the Adirondacks in the 1880s she tells of meeting a peddler named Simon Cautin.

TRANSITION - another voice

Excerpt from Adirondack Tales by Edna West Teall 

Teall, Edna West. Adirondack Tales: a Girl Grows up in the Adirondacks in the 1880s. Adirondack Life, 2001. Pp 94-96.

The Pack Peddler 

Pack peddlers came and went back in the Adirondacks in the 1880s. Sometimes a certain one would come several times over a period of a year or so, only to be replaced by another. Generally the personalities were mildly repetitious. But this one was different. I must have been ten or twelve years old the first time he came trudging along the road. 

It was warm and dusty, near the end of the day, and he looked tired as he reached the porch where Mother and I were waiting for the men to come in to supper. He was bent over with the weight of his heavy packs, the big one in back, a smaller one in the front hooked to the broad leather strap that held them over his shoulders.

He could speak only a few words of English, but he had a most appealing smile, and asked if he could stay overnight, as many others had done. His name was Simon Cautin.

Mother hesitated. But this peddler looked respectable in her eyes though he was dusty from trudgin the country roads. Pack peddlers walked fast, almost a trot, for houses were far apart, and many had to be visited each day to keep up a standard number of sales.

But his genial smile was winning and she said, “Yes” So, Simon Cautin stayed and the next morning opened up his packs for us to see. The customary overnight fee for peddlers was fifty cents. Mother always bought something that came to more than the fee. The big pack usually held a variety of yard goods, but the smaller one often contained a tray of rings, some spectacles in addition to straight pins, needles, buttons, elastic, and other notions. These peddlers are said to have been the forerunners of our department stores.

As he pulled out the tray and held up a ring and pin, sparkling with brilliance, girlishly I would exclaim, “My gracious! They are lovely!” This amused him tremendously. In the following months, he stopped several more times at our house. 

It didn’t seem long, but in a year or so we saw a bright new peddler’s cart coming along the road, drawn by a plump, well-groomed horse. And down from the driver’s seat, allsmiles, who should alight but Simon, proud as a peacock.

There were many new things in the cart. It was much later that I learned of his background. He was born in Odessa. His father was a Russian grain merchant. He had schooling comparable to high school here, spoke five languages fluently, and was passionately fond of music. He came to America because he felt it offered opportunities, and he liked the Adirondack country and people. He decided to be a pack peddler because it would give him an intimate knowledge of the countryside.

Years later, I heard Simon had given up his cart and established a large dry goods store in a nearby village and was doing a flourishing business. He had become a well-recognized business man of the community and had a nice home and family. 

TRANSITION - sounds

[Diane]What became of the peddler? Of course we know that big stores and internet buying put a final end to door to door salesmen. But even before that they were going slowly away.

[Taylor]A person that became a peddler did it so that they could become something else. That doesn’t seem to make any sense, does it? What I mean is that a peddler with a pack on his back walking from sale to sale was successful if he made enough sales to buy a mule or horse to carry his pack. Then he was even more successful if he could purchase a wagon and ride with his merchandise from sale to sale. Ultimately a peddler would want to have a store of his own and not travel at all. For example, who you listened to earlier, Mose Ginsberg eventually opened a department store in Tupper Lake, New York and was a leader in his community. 

[Diane]Mail order catalogs also spelled the end for peddlers. A company called Montgomery Ward began sending people catalogs with a list of things they could order and they would mail it to them. Montgomery Ward started with a two page catalog. But ordering things through the mail became very popular and before long their catalog was 500 pages long and had thousands of items in it. Pretty much anything could be ordered through a catalog. Even a house!

[Taylor]As time went on, another big thing that made door to door sales a thing of the past was the automobile. As more people bought cars they relied less on a salesman coming to them. They could go to a store or go into a city and visit any store they wanted. 

[Diane]The next time you are in a big store like Target, think of the peddler of long ago. What merchandise would have filled your pack?

TRANSITION - ADKX Podcast conclusion