Customer Reviews

The Peddlers (Colonial Craftsmen)

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Leonard Everett Fischer both wrote and illustrated this wonderful book, The Peddlers, which brings to life the world of hard work and supply shortages for the American colonists.

Lack of money and real career choices combined with a real need for simple everyday items like combs, sewing needles or buttons. No English law prohibited a young man from filling a sack with a number of necessities and traveling a bit to find his welcoming customers. The port of Boston would be swarming with people awaiting the arrival of a new ship and see what could be purchased and resold. Prices could go sky-high when the need for something was great and there was no other way to purchase it. A smart peddler could become very rich at this new trade, many eventually going into importing of goods.

Make no mistake, this was not easy money. Travel on the roads (or what passed for roads) was dangerous, physically challenging and would take the peddler away from home for long periods of time. Most of the traveling was done on foot. Buying a horse was out of the question for the most part, because the expense of it would take away from inventory that brought profit. Sometimes, the need was so great for goods that the first customer he met would buy his entire collection of goods!

Peddlers were often welcomed for the stories they could bring from outlying areas. A visit from a peddler was often the way news would travel. Leonard Everett Fischer brings the story of those men and their lively trade to life with this wonderful volume -- an asset to any student of colonial history.