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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1876 | 1 |
| 1886 | 1 |
| 1888 | 2 |
| 1895 | 1 |
| 1899 | 2 |
| 1903 | 2 |
| 1904 | 1 |
| 1914 | 1 |
| 1915 | 1 |
| 1923 | 1 |
13 stories matching salesmen
- The Trust’s Empty Wallet: How Monopolies Are Starving Seattle’s Hotels and Stables
As giant combines fire thousands of traveling salesmen to boost profits, the ripple effect hits local businesses hard—yet consumers see only higher prices.
- The Labor of Living: A 1888 Plea for Early Closing
Seattle store clerks organize to secure a shorter workday, challenging the relentless 'open-until-late' culture of the booming city.
- The Shingle That Carried Washington Through the Panic of 1893
A year-end accounting of the state's sawmills and shingle mills shows a timber empire reaching twenty-two foreign countries — and a rail trade down 25 percent as the national depression bites.
- Seattle Admits It Let Portland Steal Walla Walla's Trade
A visiting Sound trade man says Seattle was too busy with Alaska to notice the Inland Empire — and that Portland salesmen took the cream of it.
- The Mail-Order Menace: How Catalogs Were Killing Kennewick’s Main Street
A fiery editorial in the 1914 Courier-Reporter warns that buying from Montgomery Ward’s catalog is a betrayal of local commerce, arguing that every dollar sent to Chicago or New York directly causes the death of small-town merchants.
- The Great Seattle Slot Machine Crackdown
Prohibition of gaming devices leads to a high-stakes test case in the Seattle courts.
- The $2,000 Apple Lesson: A Walk Down Seattle's Produce Row
A farm columnist tours Seattle's commission houses on Western Avenue, where a single packing mistake cost one grower a season's profit — and offers a cautionary tale for every farmer shipping to the city.
- An Overqualified Bookkeeper Answers a $3-a-Week Ad
A desperate job-seeker responds to a measly $3-a-week bookkeeping ad with a resume that includes everything from peanut roasting to dog-ear clipping.
- The City’s Crackdown on Traveling Salesmen
In 1886, Seattle’s City Council passed a strict licensing ordinance to curb 'peddling' and hawking, requiring vendors to pay steep daily fees or face jail time.
- The Unrelenting Doorbell: A Victorian Guide to Handling Salesmen
A satirical look at the day in the life of a beleaguered homemaker besieged by solicitors in 1870s Seattle.
- The Poultry and Pig Scam
Fly-by-night promoters are preying on Washington farmers with fraudulent 'poultry association' memberships and deceptive hog-buyback schemes.
- The Potato Market Slump
Despite a government quarantine on foreign imports, local potato growers are left wondering why prices remain in the dirt.
- The Global Hop Trade of 1888
While the farmers of Puyallup slept, their harvests were already changing hands in the high-stakes markets of London.
Also about this, in other words
- The Shingle Men Try to Tame the Market
Manufacturers meet in Seattle to cap production, set 1894 prices, and bind every mill to the plan—with forfeits for anyone who breaks ranks.
- The Shingle War: Mills vs. Middlemen
Washington shingle manufacturers declare a fight to the finish against brokers who control the market price, forcing local mills into indefinite closures.
- Longshoremen Walk Off Jobs in Tacoma
Workers refuse to handle cargo until wages are raised from $3 to $4 a day.
- The Shingle Men's Bitter End
Washington's powerful shingle manufacturers consider dissolving their association after being undercut by 'scalpers' and Eastern jobbers.
- The 'Lumberman' Who Swindled Seattle's Elite
A smooth-talking con man gains the trust of the city’s fashionable society before vanishing with thousands in unpaid debts.
- The Confidence Man of Front Street
A colorful encounter with a local schemer illustrates the 'get-rich-quick' fever that defined the early days of Seattle's business district.
- The Smooth Talker of Tacoma
A persuasive con man leaves a trail of bamboozled businessmen and empty wallets.
- The Traveling Salesman Who Out-Wrestled a Footpad
When an armed robber tried to hold up a local salesman late at night, he found himself in a Greco-Roman wrestling match instead of an easy mugging.