When I imagine how most Arkansans lived a century ago, a rural setting immediately comes to my mind. Only in the modern era have most Arkansans lived in what is defined as urban areas. For many rural Arkansans prior to World War II, travel was slow and trips to town were infrequent. This relative isolation was occasionally relieved by the visit of a peddler.
Peddling took many forms and was practiced in a variety of ways. I am not including "drummers" in this column--though certainly the names were often interchanged. I define peddlers as selling directly to the public, often in isolated areas, while drummers usually represented a single company or a line of products and mostly sold to businesses.
The earliest peddler I could document was wheelchair-bound Thomas Fayette Jeffries, who journeyed from New Orleans to Hot Springs in 1860. He was seeking treatment for his afflictions at the bath houses in Hot Springs, but he paid his way by peddling a small trunk of books, paper, pens, and notions. Once in Hot Springs, Jeffries broadened his stock to include a local newspaper and pictures of the hot springs.
It was the rural peddler who performed a service that was eagerly awaited by farm families across the state and much of the nation. One 19th-century Ozark peddler was described as dismounting from his cart and carrying into the house "armloads of tinware, pots and skillets ... which were so much in demand in the early part of the century." An occasional luxury item, such as a scented soap, had special appeal.
Beginning in the late 1800s, a growing number of Jewish peddlers traversed the state, the poorest ones often carrying their wares on their backs. This phenomenon resulted from the influx of poor east European and Russian Jewish immigrants from 1880-1900. One fondly recalled Jewish peddler in the Ozarks was Barney Lottle, who traveled in a cart pulled by two calico ponies. His "amazing cart" was designed to display his wares: "Tinware, laces, silks, and calicoes as well as 'Arabian jewelry' and mystic articles which had come from far-off India were hung on the posts and crossbars and spread on the shelves and the floor of the cart."
Undoubtedly the most successful peddler in Arkansas history was Iser Hiram Nakdimen, a native of Russia, who settled in Fort Smith in 1894. A religious Jew and Zionist, Nakdimen had peddled tinware before his arrival in Arkansas. He prospered in Fort Smith, engaging in manufacturing, newspaper publishing, and banking. By 1914 Nakdimen owned 16 banks in Oklahoma and three in Arkansas.
Not all peddlers prospered. Especially during lean economic times, sales were hard to make. Otto Ernest Rayburn wrote in his book Ozark Country about the thrifty nature of the rural poor: "One day a peddler came along selling matches, 12 in a little wooden box for a dime. We purchased some of them, but they were used only on special occasions or when we 'lost fire.'"
Hard work, long hours, and small profits were not the only drawbacks to peddling. Until the 1950s, roads in Arkansas were infamous for their poor condition. Peddlers drove their carts through deep mud, along rock-strewn paths, and across innumerable streams. A peddler in Izard County in the early 1900s claimed he crossed the same creek 32 times between Melbourne and Guion.
Since peddlers often carried cash, they were robbery targets from time to time. One peddler on the Cotton Belt Railroad to Texarkana strapped his valise to the seat and stuffed his cash down his shirt collar. Piney Page recalls in his memoirs that a peddler was robbed and murdered in northern Pope County during his youth.
During the early 20th century peddling began to change, with the independent marketer being replaced by company agents. The best examples of these peddling corporations were W.T. Rawleigh Company and J.R. Watkins Medical Company. Both were headquartered in the upper midwest. W.T. Rawleigh got his start selling his wife's patent medicines, while Watkins started out making a liniment.
By 1920 both Rawleigh and Watkins had built a network of factories across America to supply their peddling workforce. Historian Lu Ann Jones in her study of Southern farm women noted that in 1921, the Rawleigh Company manufactured 125 products: "During a visit by 'the Rawleigh man' customers could buy everything from blood-purifying tonics to vanilla flavoring and lemon extract, cinnamon and nutmeg, White Rose and Anna May Bouquet perfumes, shampoo and face lotion, and a powder to rid chickens of lice."
During economic downturns, especially during the Depression of the 1930s, the number of peddlers increased dramatically as unemployed people tried to make ends meet. Fishermen peddled their catch from door to door. Two boys from Malvern even tried to peddle eels they caught in the nearby Ouachita River: "We had no scales, but sold them for 10 cents per foot."
Another Hot Spring County man, Bully McClain, supplemented his income by "selling toilet articles from a large suitcase--hand soap, Brilliantine hair oil, shampoos, etc."
Improved economic conditions and the better road system after World War II brought a gradual end to corporate peddling. Independent peddling continues to this day.
The late novelist Donald Harington of Fayetteville introduced readers to a quintessential frontier peddler in his The Architecture of the Arkansas Ozarks (1975). Eli Willard of Connecticut plied a settler's wife, Sarah Ingledew, with compliments and sold her a pair of scissors. Jacob Ingledew convinced the peddler to bring him some "winder lights," the first glass in that part of Newton County--at least in Donald Harington's fictional Ozarks.
Tom Dillard is a historian and retired archivist living in Hot Spring County. Email him at [email protected]. An earlier version of this column was published April 13, 2008.
Editorial on 08/27/2017