Ed Will Call at Your Print Shop – Selling Ink, 1911
The distribution and sale of goods was very different in the early years of the 20th century.
America was far more rural.
Cities were beginning to see the five-and -dime store (Woolworths), and the department store (J.C.Penny), but many customers relied upon catalogue sales (Sears) delivered by the USPS on the railroad.
Specialty goods and industrial supplies were still sold primarily by commercial travelers.
An earlier postcard story discussed the feed salesman who sent postcards to announce his travel schedule. (His customers would have noticed the illustration of his face on a large, colorful chicken).
If you ran a local newspaper or print shop (sometimes the same business), you probably bought your supplies from a traveling salesman.
Ed Hanff sold inks and dyes to printers.
Based in Cincinnati, Ohio, Ed traveled as far as St. Louis on his circuit of sales calls.
In April of 1911, Ed sent a postcard to Mr. Meyer of the Eden Publishing Company in St. Louis to announce his intended visit near May 2.
(Having driven to a big box store twice in the last year to pick up ink cartridges for my printer, I wish that Ed was still making personal calls to deliver goods.)
The lot of a traveling salesman was not easy.
Apart from the alienation and uncertainty of the job (“Death of a Salesman”), life on the road was even more unpredictable and hazardous than it is for business travelers today.
One hopes that Ed Hanff had success in his career.
Note: The Eden Publishing Company was a major publisher of religious works and Church materials.
The firm was affiliated with the Evangelical Reformed Church, but their publication list includes many works for the Lutheran Church.
(They printed Reinhold Niebuhr!)
Their large headquarters in St. Louis has now been converted into loft apartments.
