In the 19th century many Jews left places like Germany, where their ancestors had lived for generations, to sell their wares in such far-flung places as Minnesota and Australia. In a recent book, the historian Hasia Diner tells the story of these peddlers with, Shari Rabin writes, much detail and perhaps a splash of romanticism:
While the United States was the most common and desirable destination for peddlers who left traditional areas of Jewish settlement, Diner argues that they pursued a similar occupation, with similar consequences, in numerous “New World” locations. . . . The pull of peddling and its promise of financial success, she argues, motivated these migrations much more than the push of anti-Semitism. Many Jews had experience peddling in the old world, but even if they did not, it proved a smooth path to stability because overhead was inexpensive and because they could usually rely on the assistance of coreligionist peddlers, merchants, and wholesalers. Peddling, though a humble profession, nonetheless contributed to national economic expansion and simultaneously greased the wheels of Jewish integration, shaping the trajectories of modern Jewish life.
The picture that emerges is notably celebratory, likely because so many of Diner’s sources are memoirs and local histories. . . . . [P]eddlers are portrayed almost as social workers who treated everyone humanely and blessed marginalized peoples with the transformative powers of consumer goods. Diner acknowledges that some of her sources “may have sounded a bit too positive,” but nonetheless insists that “empirical data, life histories, and communal biographies all tell the same story, regardless of time or place.” This “same story” included integration, patriotism, and economic success, toward which Diner’s stance is largely summarized as: “without peddling it might never have happened.” And yet surely Jewish integration took place in other kinds of occupations and settings as well.
Read more on Marginalia: http://marginalia.lareviewofbooks.org/peddler-on-the-hoof-by-shari-rabin/