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Life of Peddler
Peddlers are required to communicate in its local culture and language because of its distinctive way of approaching customers by literally knocking their doors and convincing them to buy their goods. While immigrants from other ethnic group went into a farming, lived in proximity to people who shares ethnic origin and formed homogenous communities, Jewish people, as a result of distinctive characteristic of peddling, tended to intermingle with variety of ethnic groups. According to Hasia Diner’s article, the peddlers operated on a weekly cycle. They peddled all week and on Friday they head back to the town where they bought their goods. On Sunday, scattered Jewish communities provided them a great shelter and satisfied their cultural demands. Another weekend started with peddler loading their wagons with goods from the local store.
Most goods sold by Jewish peddlers are not just an everyday item. The peddlers were sensitive to the most recent demands by their American customers and changed items they carried from time to time. Therefore, it were not just a common goods but instead those items were considered quasi-luxury items:
“The peddlers did not sell food or fuel. Rather they sold a jumble of goods that might be considered quasi-luxuries. In their bags they carried needles, threads, lace, ribbons, mirrors, pictures and picture frames, watches, jewelry, eye glasses, linens, bedding, and other sundry goods, sometimes called “Yankee notions”” (Diner)
Accordingly, Jewish peddlers with its economic mobility take important role as a supplier of raw goods and distribution of merchandized good between local people and its unique social status as white and minority make them possible to supply goods to all different variety of ethnic groups.
Peddlers are required to communicate in its local culture and language because of its distinctive way of approaching customers by literally knocking their doors and convincing them to buy their goods. While immigrants from other ethnic group went into a farming, lived in proximity to people who shares ethnic origin and formed homogenous communities, Jewish people, as a result of distinctive characteristic of peddling, tended to intermingle with variety of ethnic groups. According to Hasia Diner’s article, the peddlers operated on a weekly cycle. They peddled all week and on Friday they head back to the town where they bought their goods. On Sunday, scattered Jewish communities provided them a great shelter and satisfied their cultural demands. Another weekend started with peddler loading their wagons with goods from the local store.
Most goods sold by Jewish peddlers are not just an everyday item. The peddlers were sensitive to the most recent demands by their American customers and changed items they carried from time to time. Therefore, it were not just a common goods but instead those items were considered quasi-luxury items:
“The peddlers did not sell food or fuel. Rather they sold a jumble of goods that might be considered quasi-luxuries. In their bags they carried needles, threads, lace, ribbons, mirrors, pictures and picture frames, watches, jewelry, eye glasses, linens, bedding, and other sundry goods, sometimes called “Yankee notions”” (Diner)
Accordingly, Jewish peddlers with its economic mobility take important role as a supplier of raw goods and distribution of merchandized good between local people and its unique social status as white and minority make them possible to supply goods to all different variety of ethnic groups.