100 Years on the Road: The Traveling Salesman in American Culture

by Timothy B. Spears

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Summary

Even today, in Death of a Salesman and The Music Man, the traveling salesman is an intriguing, almost mythic figure. In this lively and vividly illustrated account - the first in-depth study of the traveling salesman, or "drummer" - Timothy Spears investigates the salesman's role in American culture during his heyday, between 1830 and 1920.
Drawing on such sources as diaries, advice manuals, autobiographies, and trade journals, Spears shows how traveling salesmen shaped the customs of life on the road, established the foundations of "scientific salesmanship," and helped to develop modern consumer culture. Spears reconstructs the cultural history of face-to-face sales during this period, describing the nature of traveling life, the development of strategies for selling to the trade rather than door-to-door, and the problematic relationship of the salesman to society - first as the agent of an emergent, intrusive market and later as a target for critics of "vulgar" commercialism. Throughout, Spears offers original and persuasive readings of works by Arthur Miller, Stephen Crane, Theodore Dreiser, Sherwood Anderson, Sinclair Lewis, and Eudora Welty and illuminates other cultural representations of the traveling salesman.

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