I can recall door-to-door salespeople with products including vacuums, brushes, cosmetics, and encyclopedias. They were always well-dressed and polite. Not at all pushy like stereotypical timeshare and used car salespeople. We were raised to be HOSPITABLE toward them, though we rarely bought anything. Nowadays, most people react to a knock at the door as if the person had broken into their house. It sure is a different world!
Examples of why we might get rude. I tell them without knowing what they are selling that I am not interested. They always ask why. Isn't it enough I said I don't want it? SoI tell them this I never buy anything from someone selling door to door. I ask them if they have a card so If I am ever interested I can remember they came. You know what? They never ever do. Then many if not most will then try to dig in a little more and I reiterate my disinterest and wouldn't use them. I really won't buy anything from door to door. The main door to door I get is solar panel. I will go to someone local. Someone who can be reached and touched should they screw someone over.
People don’t realize that up until 2018 college kids were still selling Encyclopedias! I would see college boys walking and on their bikes on the East Side of Indianapolis back then, either walking or riding their bikes and, some of them would try to hit up people passing by in their cars and, some would be pushing them in the pouring down rain. I thought eeek, if the ruin them, I’d hate to see how much they are charged!
@@budc6246 How do you know you're not interested if you don't even know what they're selling? Their job is to get you interested. And most of these people are local. The AVON lady probably lives just two blocks over.
@@budc6246Sir, unbeknownst to you I find this comment encouraging as I just started a marketing job. Homeowners tell me they are not interested and if they want a card, I leave it with them and thank them for their time. At the very least, maybe they will call the company I work for because I respected their disinterest, real or not.
@@sonyafox3271 Hope they had sense enough to cover them in plastic to protect them on rainy days. The tactic there is to garner sympathy because they have to be out selling in bad weather, and maybe that would result in more sales for them. Playing on human nature ....
My mother sold World Book encyclopedias door-to-door in order to afford a set for us. She also got us dictionaries, atlases...you name it it! When other kids had to go to the library for information, we had them at our fingertips. It was great. Also, 50 years later, I still have my mother's vacuum, Fuller brushes and Tupperware. Can't beat it.
My grandmother collected World Book Encyclopedias as long as I can remember, as well. I used to love lying down on the bed reading every volume and loving the overlay pages, the Atlas and the Yearbooks. I remember being very careful to put them back in their correct order because I loved them so much. Great memories.
My parents purchase the World Book Encyclopedia and that set was used by all four of us kids. A wonderful addition to the house for sure. Much preferred the World Book over the the Encyclopedia Britannica because it had pictures. It was the pictures, a lot of the time, that would invite one to read the article.
Oh, yes. Tupperware was a big thing, especially when it became available in bright colors. Initially, it wasn't. My family had Tupperware, and so do we.
@@donnaallen9863 My girlfriend and I went to a saladmaster party in 1970 or 71. It looked like good cookware but we didn’t buy it. The food was very good though. I’m 71 now and my friends are still together and still have most of the cookware. Thanks for the memories.
I bought my SaladMaster cookware in 1970 and still use it till this day. It was $300 which included a set of 'china' and stainless flatware. Along the way, I ditched the 'china' and flatware but I highly recommend the SaladMaster cookware.
The only ones I remember were in the 70's since I was born in '65. I remember one selling the Bible story books like the drs officie had in their waiting rooms. And the encyclopedias a vacuum salesman and Tupperware and Avon! Thanks for the memories! I wish we could go back to the good old days just for a little while!
Did you hear the one about a salesman going door to door trying to sell the New American Standard Bible? Try as he might he could not get an old man sitting on his porch to buy one. When he finally asked why: the old man said "if the King James was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for me".
I remember a local cemetery going door to door to sell plots. It always upset my mother. The Rose Hills cemetery was in Southern California and all its vehicles were painted a soft pink so you always knew when they were around selling unless they were picking up a dead neighbor. We always laugh because we buried Mom in Rose Hills which she would have hated if she had known.
Door to door salesman jokes were the thing back in the day. Remember all that stuff Kirby vacuum , encyclopedia salesman, Tupperware and ding-dong Avon calling
@patrickryan1515 Yes. I was thinking Ed Norton on the Honeymooners was one, but I was wrong. He worked for the sewer department. I use to cut Jackie Gleasons grass when I was a kid. He was one of the nicest people you would ever meet.
I liked that you included a photo of Red Skelton as the Fuller Brush man. As late as the late 80s one of these gentleman rang my doorbell and for years later I was still using the caret sweeper he sold me. Somehow quite a memorable moment for me, probably because it took me back to the 50s when such events were so taken for granted.
Avon is still popular, my sister actually orders from the catalog since she’s working full time! And when I was a kid, door to door magazine subscription sales were also part of school fundraisers! I had Nintendo Power, TV Guide, Seventeen subscriptions from the salesman!
Back in the 50's in my hometown, we had men in trucks that came around selling things like dishes/glasses; seafood; fruit/vegetables; and one who sold knives but also sharpened your knives and scissors.
In Baltimore in the 50s we had what were called Arabs going down the alleys in horse drawn wooden wagons with watermelons, strawberries etc vocalizing in strange sounding words (stroowabarries). They would "plug" the melons for a sample. It seemed so exciting for a little kid.
Our neighbor on the second floor in our 3-family house spoke French. Whenever a salesman walked into our yard Jeanette would come out onto her porch and speak to him in French and tell him she didn’t understand English. My mother and the other mothers would keep quiet and pretended they didn’t speak English either. Us kids would think it was so funny.
Oh My Gosh. The Tupperware parties that I was witness to in the late 1960's and early 70's. My grandmothers and my mum and aunt all had cabinets FULL of Tupperware, and those nifty Tupperware counter canisters for Flour, Sugar, and Coffee. When I was very little I somehow got onto the counter top, dragged all the Tupperware containers and the boxes of tea over to the sink, took off my diaper and got into the sink, and poured the contents of all into the sink, AND, I somehow had learned how to un-staple tea bags too. So I had this mixture in the sink, and when my mum found me in the sink, covered in flour, she asked me "What are you doing in the sink??" I answered, Making Daddy a cake . (One of my more laughable stories from the 60's. My family swore by their Electrolux vacuums. Every house had a pull along Electrolux, with the main machine and the extended tube that attached to the beater head attachment. The attachment had a wire plug that plugged into the end of the tube connected to the main machine, or to the other smaller cones or brushes. Here in Montreal, up on the Plateau, there are still knife sharpeners, that to this day, drive around the neighborhoods there, they ring a bell outside the truck, and housewives come out with their knives.
I recall the same scenario for the Fuller Brush man and the Watkins man. Biggest problem was the time they spend selling their wares. Mom didn't had that kind of time to spend.
I remember my dad sitting the front steps reading the paper and the Fuller Brush man came , my dad told him his wife didn't need anything, then the salesman said he had a free gift for her and proceeded to go around my dad wrong move dad stood up grabbed him and escorted him to the side walk with an incentive to not come back buy placing a foot in his ass and then came the manager wanting to fight my dad but dad was 6'3 and 225lbs didn't work out as he left to call the police who never came. True story about 1959.
Eventually people's doorbells were ringing all day so municipalities started passing no solicitation zoning rules. I was born in 1960 and by the mid to late 60's a lot of these salespeople disappeared.
Well, they really didn’t disappear, even a few yrs back in my small town of Indiana they were coming around every so often. As the internet has gained more popularity and the way we use it to buy goods and, services the door to door sales and, services are going away. Up until 2018 college kids were still going around selling Encyclopedias, yep, I’d see them walking and, riding their bikes on the East Side of Indianapolis when, I had to be over on that side of town and, these boys would even go out and, sell them in the pouring rain and, yeah, I’d be sitting on the passenger’s side and, some of them would try to get me to roll the window down trying to push me and, others to buy them. They never could really get anybody who wanted to buy them!
We had the kitchen products, Avon lady, encyclopedia, fresh veges and fruits sales people coming to the door. And we were always polite to them, after all they are doing a service and for most its either a bridge job or part-time job. 🐞
Bought an encyclopedia set in the 60's and 90's. I think it was the 90's when the last salesman at my door was pushing a vacuum cleaner.The shelf that held the books was indestructible and long outlived the books.
They were still doing it till about 2018 if College kids still don’t continue to sell them now! The reason, I say 2018 that’s the last time, I had seen them loaded down on the East Side of Indianapolis and, on occasion some of them were trying to sell them and, they even would get out and, do it in the pouring rain.
These days, people are so scared to answer their front door. They would rather talk to someone through a video camera than to actually speak face-to-face.
Either they didn't have instances at all, or there wasn't immediate dissemination of video footage that spreads widely, of someone knocking on a door & then 3 armed people come running up as soon as you open the door. I don't live in a bad area, but I ain't opening my door for anyone. Times have changed, as unfortunate as that is. I'm not old, but I'm old enough to remember when it wasn't this way...
@pame1799 That's terrible, I'm sorry to hear that. I have NOT had that experience, but I watch enough videos that had an instance caught on camera to know that a) it often happens in what appear to be "safe" neighborhoods, and b) it only happens to those who open their door. That's enough for me to not answer my door for anyone. I'm really don't think I'm paranoid, I think I'm just a realist.
The Avon lady Still Comes to our Apt Building and drops off a few books each week but, you never see the Avon Ladies today loaded down with their suit cases anymore giving out free samples! I remember clear up in the mid 90s that she had the majority of her adult life, we all knew and loved her well and, she even came to grandma and, grandpa’s funeral and,came for the after funeral and ate with our family!
The main reason you don't see them with cases full of product anymore is they can't afford them. They have to buy everything. Reps get a discount on products, which is their profit. What they don't sell comes out of their pockets. Even the books and samples they hand out have to be paid for. They even pay for shipping from the fulfillment centres, even if the order ships directly to the customer.
One of my grandmothers sold Avon door-to-door, after my grandfather passed away. She also worked as a waitress during the same time. She did both, for about 15 years, until she was old enough to get social security.
My mom was an Avon Lady for nearly 50 years, beginning in the late 1960s. She started out going door-to-door in our neighborhood and I believe she carried samples.
I had agreed to sell Avon, and later, Mary Kay products. In both cases, I had legitimate questions about some of the procedures in the literature they left with me. When I called and asked about it, I couldn't get straight answers to save my life! They kept blowing off my questions, calling them "irrelevant." I found that very disrespectful, and I declined to sell their products as a result.
One of my favorite memories is the home delivery of milk. The milkman also had other treats like donuts, chocolate milk, cream. That was before homogenized milk with the cream floating to the top. The local stores such as 7-11 under cut them ultimately putting them out of business.
I still have a cutco knife purchased in the 70’s. And it’s still the sharpest knife in the drawer. As far as magazine substitutions are concerned, TV Guide always comes to mind first.
I was born in `63, and my mom was an Avon Lady. Sometime in the early 70s I found her lipstick sample kit in the pantry in the basement. I know she also went to Tupperware parties, and we had a lot of Tupperware in the kitchen. That was real high quality stuff. We also had a 1964 edition Americana encyclopedia set. But I have no idea if my parents bought it after a salesman had come to the house. They also had a very nice Cutco knife set. Again I don't know if they bought it through a door to door salesman.
My grandfather sold cutco. So when he married my grandmother, he gave her cutco knives, cooking pots and cooking utensils. When she passed I got part of her collection. And cutco still stands behind their lifetime warranty. ❤️❤️❤️
Cutco is still rockin' and we have them. They are wonderful knives and were sold to us through a college student 15 plus years ago. Always loved the Fuller brush man and their products. Great video, thank you.
My dad met my mom in 1932 while selling encyclopedias door to door. She chased him away by turning the garden hose on him. If they hadn’t met again later I wouldn’t be here.
In my old neighborhood during the 60s, Hoover vacuum cleaner salesmen would come around frequently. My mom & dad bought quite the fancy vacuum cleaner from one older salesman in the late 60s. Had it for many years without any issues.
Ah, yes, the good old days. Now we have ring doorbell cameras, people stealing packages and are warned to be cautious and never open our doors to people we don't know,
@@masonparker302 HA! For the last several decades I've been TRYING to get my husband to FINALLY finish installing our doorbells. He keeps promising to do so, but never does. We'll probably die with our doorbells STILL not installed. I've heard every excuse he could think of for dragging his feet on this. He's a licensed electrical contractor, very skilled and experienced, but I can't even get him to finish something as simple as doorbells! Go figure!
I had a guy going door to door selling home security systems, I told him , you could just send me something in my email and I would watch videos and let him know , I didn’t need him coming in my home to show me anything. There nothing anyone could try to sell me in that I can’t see on the internet or social media. So anyone going door to door these days is automatically considered suspicious.
I remember all of these except the knife 🔪 salesman. We also had a pot set salesman that came around and would cook us supper to demonstrate his cookware. Mom could always count on the Fuller Brushman atleast one a year..
1982 newly married and just bought our first home. An Electrolux salesman came to the front door and offered a monthly payment plan. That canister vacuum still works to this day.
@@kmiller0402 AND, people were more honest. Today, answering the doorbell can put your life in danger. i also recall Girl Scout cookies being sold door-to-door. We always bought some, as they were pretty good and we wanted to help the Girl Scouts. There was always an adult accompanying the girls. Today, they set up stands outside of supermarkets and sell from there. I always pass on the mints and buy the chocolate chip cookies. More expensive, sure, but for a worthy cause.
Thank you for bringing back so many memories of the Culture a lot of us grew up in. My Mother bought a set of Rena Ware Triple Thick Stainless Steel Cook Ware about 1955, I, Her Son still have several pieces of that Cook Ware.
The Fuller Brush man, Watkins man and the Avon lady used to come around regularly as did the Insurance man to get his premium. We had an Electrolux vacuum. Those days went by so fast.
You missed the Jewel Tea Salesman.....I remember going thru the basket when he came to the house, and then going out to his big step-van to see what he had on the truck. My dad also sold Jewel Tea for a period of time.
🛑🛑 I remember “Black Salve” 💯 If you got a thorn in your hand, you put Black Salve on it, covering it with a band aide. You would wake up the next morning, and the thorn was out of your hand; stuck to the band aide. 🤷♂️😆💯 My grandfather used that stuff on everything. 💯👍
Sayman Salve was like that too. If you had a burn and put the salve on it, it would stop hurting right away. You know how hard it is to find something now to do that. Well I haven't found it yet.
In the 1970’s I was a door-to-door vacuum cleaner (Rainbow) salesman. Met my wife-to-be doing that! She was also selling vacuum cleaners. If you can do that and make a living, you can sell anything!
Stanley Park in Westfield Mass is beautiful to this day. Love it and during the summer the bells of the carillon on Sunday at noon made for an amazing picnic. The town took it over years ago and I hope it endures today.
Omg our Electrolux vac was the only one we had until I was in my preteens. I wasn’t a fan because of its heft ( I was a teeny person even then). We finally got rid of it when we bought a tri level in the early seventies
The first couple of topics - Avon and Fuller Brush were two my mom used for many years! I don't think she ever really stopped buying Avon products and as for Fuller Brush, she had refill supplies she would get for her red metal handled dust mop and spaghetti mop! We got a really nice and useful dictionary from a college sales gal and I bought my very first Christmas ornaments for myself from the "Little Chimer" collection!
As a young boy in the mid 1950’s I remember the Fuller Brush man coming to our house. An older man(at least he seemed to me) he would spend an hour talking to my Mom who usually bought one or two cheaper items. I am surprised he could make a living if most of his customers were like my mom.
The wives wore dresses and high heels to clean house!!Yikes!!I couldn't wear a dress or heels... Nowadays I wear a scrubie!! And jeans & sketchers...thank you for the video..☺️☺️☺️
Lol I bought one of those Electrolux cannister vacuums at the worlds longest yardsale years ago. It still works, just the cord retractor doesn't work anymore.
I'm old enough to remember all of these. That said, today I can't imagine anything more annoying than to have people coming to my door to sell me things. Worse yet, I can't imagine having a more miserable job than selling door to door.
When I was a kid I had a morning paper route. Once a month all the carriers in the area would gather and have new sign up nights. The kid with the most new subscribers would win a prize and then the route manager would take us to the go kart track.
We had a Kirby salesman come to our house in the 80s, and they gave our living room carpet a “free” cleaning. My wife couldn’t get them to leave, as they tried every sales tactic in the book. Finally, she had them come talk to me as I was up on a ladder painting the house. I never came down from the ladder, and continued to paint the house. They talked for about 5 minutes, and then went silent and then quietly left.
There is still a Kirby outfit on Barbur Blvd. here in Portland that operates that way. I was at my friends house when they came to give a demo. They even kicked over his currant vacuum while saying you can't be happy using this garbage". He'd had enough and told them to "get the fuck out" and he's no small man.
@@ivanleterror9158 Tactics like those are what turn people off to door-to-door salespeople today. Being rude and disrespectful usually get them nowhere. Neither does kicking people's property.
The last thing my mom bought from a door-to-door salesperson was some stuff from Stanley Home Products back in the late 70's. Can't recall what she bought, though. 😅
Back in 1950, when I was 5, my mom was cleaning the house, and I guess at one point, a "Fuller Brush Man" came to the door. I opened it and let him in to my mom's surprise. She walked into the living room and "there" he was, waiting. To top it off, my mom says he was BLIND ! Oh, you kid ! By the way, she bought a broom and a dust mop from him !
We had Avon Ladies and Fuller Brush men, and later on, Amway and Shacklee distributors. Some of our neighbors did really well selling those products, mainly because they were well known in the neighborhood. There were also magazine salespeople. One needed a gift for gab and an outgoing personality to do that kind of work. And also perseverance and good business acumen. Today, we have Mary Kay cosmetics, a competitor of Avon. I've used both products, and most of them are pretty good. Our mother bought Avon and Fuller Brush. They had and have some useful products. My only beef with today's Mary Kay is that their selection of colors in is no longer as wide as a few years ago, when I could get their mascara in blue as well as in black or brown. And they had a lot of nice mini-lipsticks in sets, and blushers and foundations that worked very well for me. Seems their product lines have changed, and there aren't the choices we once had.
We still have and use the same Tupperware bowls shown here. My FIL drove a Helms Bakery truck (curb to curb) for 30 years in Venice (LA) Ca. I tried my hand at magazine sales door to door but it wasn't for me.
In my early twenties, in the 1980s, I was out of work and I found an ad for selling Fuller brush. I had a blast selling it for a few months. Even made 15-20 bucks an hour back then. Learn some lessons.
@@annettepora8091 Yes I did really well. I couldn't make that kind of money anywhere else in those days. But I just couldn't keep up that kind of work and I went back to a regular job.
When was a kid my dad always got rid of insurance salesman by telling them he had a deal with the city they tell him there's no way he said if lay around and stink long enough somebody will pick you up
I remember an insurance salesman coming to our house when I was a kid. Also there was someone who sold s set of books that presented the Bible in storybook form. Oncce a photographer came to our house to take a family portrait of my family.
My parents bought my sister and I a full set of encyclopedias (Collier's?) in 1958 when I was 10. Read the entire set of about 26 books. I gave away the set to neighbors in the 1980's to a family with kids. I liked the picture of Red Skelton as a brush salesman. He was so funny.
I remember the Electrolux vacuum salesman coming to my house even as late as the early 1990's (up to maybe 9 years old at this point).. My mom always flirted with the guy and got a deal on it. Memories.
I knew about encyclopedias, Fuller Brush, Watkins, Avon but we never had them at our house. Maybe because my mom worked and wasn’t home. When I was in high school some classmates sold Avon. I bought a lot of stuff from them. Never had magazines at our house except TV Guide. Our vacuum cleaners were bought at retail stores. We had Kirby salesmen but no one I knew had one. I guess too expensive. I always had a Hoover until the 90’s. There was one canister style vacuum out in the 60’s that had water in it. No one I knew had one but I remember ads for them. Now, my robo vacuum does the vacuuming for me. I have a couple uprights for special jobs.
I remember a rainbow vacuum that had water in it and I would borrow it from my neighbor to vacuum my shag carpet in my living room. Some nasty stuff was left in the water I had to dump out, but my carpet got clean and fresh. I hated shag carpet.
My hometown had an ordinance against door to door sales. However, since Avon and Tupperware sales ladies and all the other women already knew each other, they were exempt.
Anyone remember Tydee Dydee Diaper Service? We had that for our oldest son who was allergic to disposable diapers as a baby. But by the time the service guy came to take care of the dirty diapers, our house would stink to high heaven!
With the internet and online sales, going around door-to-door selling products and wares seems obsolete and labor-intensive. Today, it's mostly canvassers on behalf of some type of home improvement company, or services for the home, like pest control or security monitoring.
Each summer we would have college students selling bibles and cookbooks door to door to help pay for their college tuition. They worked for the Southwestern Company out of Nashville.
I tried selling Kirby Vacuum Cleaners, Fuller Brushes, and Sherrif-Goslin Roofs in the early 1970s. I was not very successful. I also worked for Commonwealth Life Insurance. I was successful in collecting the insurance premiums of policies that other agents had sold but was not successful in selling additional policies. All of these jobs did not last very long.
Yeah, well, when I was trapped in the straight commission life insurance pyramid scam in 2010-2011 my con artist sales manager forced me to do some door-to-door soliciting. I'd sooner clean bus station toilets during an amoebic dysentery outbreak. Without a brush.
Kirby was a BIG door-to-door in military communities, also encyclopedias. My father bought not just a set of Grollier, but every other set offered: Popular Science, Book of Knowledge, classical novels, and got the "free" bookshelf as a result. My mother was so upset! As my siblings and I got older, we had to go to the library, anyway. The set he bought in the late 1950s was out-of-date by 1970. Why did you use so many photos from the 1930s? The Watkins guy showing his wares around the dining room table was very clearly 1930s. The guy with the Watkins van was mid-50s to early 60s.
I can recall door-to-door salespeople with products including vacuums, brushes, cosmetics, and encyclopedias. They were always well-dressed and polite. Not at all pushy like stereotypical timeshare and used car salespeople. We were raised to be HOSPITABLE toward them, though we rarely bought anything. Nowadays, most people react to a knock at the door as if the person had broken into their house. It sure is a different world!
Examples of why we might get rude. I tell them without knowing what they are selling that I am not interested. They always ask why. Isn't it enough I said I don't want it? SoI tell them this I never buy anything from someone selling door to door. I ask them if they have a card so If I am ever interested I can remember they came. You know what? They never ever do. Then many if not most will then try to dig in a little more and I reiterate my disinterest and wouldn't use them. I really won't buy anything from door to door. The main door to door I get is solar panel. I will go to someone local. Someone who can be reached and touched should they screw someone over.
People don’t realize that up until 2018 college kids were still selling Encyclopedias! I would see college boys walking and on their bikes on the East Side of Indianapolis back then, either walking or riding their bikes and, some of them would try to hit up people passing by in their cars and, some would be pushing them in the pouring down rain. I thought eeek, if the ruin them, I’d hate to see how much they are charged!
@@budc6246 How do you know you're not interested if you don't even know what they're selling? Their job is to get you interested. And most of these people are local. The AVON lady probably lives just two blocks over.
@@budc6246Sir, unbeknownst to you I find this comment encouraging as I just started a marketing job. Homeowners tell me they are not interested and if they want a card, I leave it with them and thank them for their time. At the very least, maybe they will call the company I work for because I respected their disinterest, real or not.
@@sonyafox3271 Hope they had sense enough to cover them in plastic to protect them on rainy days.
The tactic there is to garner sympathy because they have to be out selling in bad weather, and maybe that would result in more sales for them. Playing on human nature ....
My mother sold World Book encyclopedias door-to-door in order to afford a set for us. She also got us dictionaries, atlases...you name it it! When other kids had to go to the library for information, we had them at our fingertips. It was great. Also, 50 years later, I still have my mother's vacuum, Fuller brushes and Tupperware. Can't beat it.
My grandmother collected World Book Encyclopedias as long as I can remember, as well. I used to love lying down on the bed reading every volume and loving the overlay pages, the Atlas and the Yearbooks.
I remember being very careful to put them back in their correct order because I loved them so much. Great memories.
@@elizabethwitt2621 Wonderful memories, indeed. 🥰
My parents purchase the World Book Encyclopedia and that set was used by all four of us kids. A wonderful addition to the house for sure. Much preferred the World Book over the the Encyclopedia Britannica because it had pictures. It was the pictures, a lot of the time, that would invite one to read the article.
Oh, yes. Tupperware was a big thing, especially when it became available in bright colors. Initially, it wasn't. My family had Tupperware, and so do we.
In my early 20's I bought "waterless" cookware at a dinner party put on by the door-to-door salesman. I'm now 70 and still use them!
Was it saladmaster?
@@donnaallen9863
My girlfriend and I went to a saladmaster party in 1970 or 71.
It looked like good
cookware but we didn’t buy it.
The food was very good though.
I’m 71 now and my friends are still together and still have most of the cookware.
Thanks for the memories.
@@donnaallen9863 It is Kitchen Craft. West Bend was another popular brand.
@@donnaallen9863 On doing a little more research, Kitchen Craft was made by West Bend.
I bought my SaladMaster cookware in 1970 and still use it till this day. It was $300 which included a set of 'china' and stainless flatware. Along the way, I ditched the 'china' and flatware but I highly recommend the SaladMaster cookware.
My young parents bought four cemetery plots from a door salesman before they had kids !
Did the plots hold up well. Were you able to get your money back if they didn't.
The only ones I remember were in the 70's since I was born in '65. I remember one selling the Bible story books like the drs officie had in their waiting rooms. And the encyclopedias a vacuum salesman and Tupperware and Avon! Thanks for the memories! I wish we could go back to the good old days just for a little while!
Did you hear the one about a salesman going door to door trying to sell the New American Standard Bible? Try as he might he could not get an old man sitting on his porch to buy one. When he finally asked why: the old man said "if the King James was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for me".
I remember a local cemetery going door to door to sell plots. It always upset my mother. The Rose Hills cemetery was in Southern California and all its vehicles were painted a soft pink so you always knew when they were around selling unless they were picking up a dead neighbor. We always laugh because we buried Mom in Rose Hills which she would have hated if she had known.
Door to door salesman jokes were the thing back in the day. Remember all that stuff Kirby vacuum , encyclopedia salesman, Tupperware and ding-dong Avon calling
And these sales persons were often featured in Hollywood comedies, e.g., Red Skelton and Lucille Ball.
@patrickryan1515
Yes. I was thinking Ed Norton on the Honeymooners was one, but I was wrong. He worked for the sewer department. I use to cut Jackie Gleasons grass when I was a kid. He was one of the nicest people you would ever meet.
My dad sold encyclopedias. I have the set that he got. They took you to places that you had never even heard of.
I liked that you included a photo of Red Skelton as the Fuller Brush man. As late as the late 80s one of these gentleman rang my doorbell and for years later I was still using the caret sweeper he sold me. Somehow quite a memorable moment for me, probably because it took me back to the 50s when such events were so taken for granted.
Avon is still popular, my sister actually orders from the catalog since she’s working full time! And when I was a kid, door to door magazine subscription sales were also part of school fundraisers! I had Nintendo Power, TV Guide, Seventeen subscriptions from the salesman!
@1:25 fuller brush man is Red Skelton
Back in the 50's in my hometown, we had men in trucks that came around selling things like dishes/glasses; seafood; fruit/vegetables; and one who sold knives but also sharpened your knives and scissors.
In Baltimore in the 50s we had what were called Arabs going down the alleys in horse drawn wooden wagons with watermelons, strawberries etc vocalizing in strange sounding words (stroowabarries). They would "plug" the melons for a sample. It seemed so exciting for a little kid.
Our neighbor on the second floor in our 3-family house spoke French. Whenever a salesman walked into our yard Jeanette would come out onto her porch and speak to him in French and tell him she didn’t understand English. My mother and the other mothers would keep quiet and pretended they didn’t speak English either. Us kids would think it was so funny.
Oh My Gosh. The Tupperware parties that I was witness to in the late 1960's and early 70's. My grandmothers and my mum and aunt all had cabinets FULL of Tupperware, and those nifty Tupperware counter canisters for Flour, Sugar, and Coffee.
When I was very little I somehow got onto the counter top, dragged all the Tupperware containers and the boxes of tea over to the sink, took off my diaper and got into the sink, and poured the contents of all into the sink, AND, I somehow had learned how to un-staple tea bags too. So I had this mixture in the sink, and when my mum found me in the sink, covered in flour, she asked me "What are you doing in the sink??" I answered, Making Daddy a cake . (One of my more laughable stories from the 60's.
My family swore by their Electrolux vacuums. Every house had a pull along Electrolux, with the main machine and the extended tube that attached to the beater head attachment. The attachment had a wire plug that plugged into the end of the tube connected to the main machine, or to the other smaller cones or brushes.
Here in Montreal, up on the Plateau, there are still knife sharpeners, that to this day, drive around the neighborhoods there, they ring a bell outside the truck, and housewives come out with their knives.
We had a knife sharpener in our area until he retired a few years ago. We need a new one. He was the best!
William H. Macy starred in the movie "Door to Door" with Kera Sedgwick. Great movie about DTD salesman.
Watkins had great lemon and orange drink mixes. I still buy their petro-carbo ointment.
I remember hiding with my mom when the Avon lady came to the door, because she felt so bad when she couldn’t buy anything (we were poor)
We hid from bill collectors!!! Seriously.
I recall the same scenario for the Fuller Brush man and the Watkins man. Biggest problem was the time they spend selling their wares. Mom didn't had that kind of time to spend.
I remember my dad sitting the front steps reading the paper and the Fuller Brush man came , my dad told him his wife didn't need anything, then the salesman said he had a free gift for her and proceeded to go around my dad wrong move dad stood up grabbed him and escorted him to the side walk with an incentive to not come back buy placing a foot in his ass and then came the manager wanting to fight my dad but dad was 6'3 and 225lbs didn't work out as he left to call the police who never came. True story about 1959.
😆
So the Fuller Brush man wanted to give her the same "free gift" that Fuller Brush men gave housewives in the old "Tijuana bibles"?
Today, your dad would have been sued or arrested for assault for doing what he did. Different world, today.
Eventually people's doorbells were ringing all day so municipalities started passing no solicitation zoning rules. I was born in 1960 and by the mid to late 60's a lot of these salespeople disappeared.
Well, they really didn’t disappear, even a few yrs back in my small town of Indiana they were coming around every so often. As the internet has gained more popularity and the way we use it to buy goods and, services the door to door sales and, services are going away. Up until 2018 college kids were still going around selling Encyclopedias, yep, I’d see them walking and, riding their bikes on the East Side of Indianapolis when, I had to be over on that side of town and, these boys would even go out and, sell them in the pouring rain and, yeah, I’d be sitting on the passenger’s side and, some of them would try to get me to roll the window down trying to push me and, others to buy them. They never could really get anybody who wanted to buy them!
Watkins is a great product and still can be purchased.
We had the kitchen products, Avon lady, encyclopedia, fresh veges and fruits sales people coming to the door. And we were always polite to them, after all they are doing a service and for most its either a bridge job or part-time job. 🐞
I loved our Fuller Brush man....and I still have two of the brushes. They were of the highest quality and I still use them.
Tupperware and Fuller Brush offered excellent products.
I still use two of the Fuller Brushes (I'm 76)....and they are much better quality than what is offered today.
Bought an encyclopedia set in the 60's and 90's. I think it was the 90's when the last salesman at my door was pushing a vacuum cleaner.The shelf that held the books was indestructible and long outlived the books.
They were still doing it till about 2018 if College kids still don’t continue to sell them now! The reason, I say 2018 that’s the last time, I had seen them loaded down on the East Side of Indianapolis and, on occasion some of them were trying to sell them and, they even would get out and, do it in the pouring rain.
These days, people are so scared to answer their front door. They would rather talk to someone through a video camera than to actually speak face-to-face.
Either they didn't have instances at all, or there wasn't immediate dissemination of video footage that spreads widely, of someone knocking on a door & then 3 armed people come running up as soon as you open the door. I don't live in a bad area, but I ain't opening my door for anyone. Times have changed, as unfortunate as that is. I'm not old, but I'm old enough to remember when it wasn't this way...
I wondered if the crazy Stanley bottle craze was from Stanley home products from way back. Indeed! ❤
@pame1799 That's terrible, I'm sorry to hear that. I have NOT had that experience, but I watch enough videos that had an instance caught on camera to know that a) it often happens in what appear to be "safe" neighborhoods, and b) it only happens to those who open their door. That's enough for me to not answer my door for anyone.
I'm really don't think I'm paranoid, I think I'm just a realist.
The Avon lady Still Comes to our Apt Building and drops off a few books each week but, you never see the Avon Ladies today loaded down with their suit cases anymore giving out free samples! I remember clear up in the mid 90s that she had the majority of her adult life, we all knew and loved her well and, she even came to grandma and, grandpa’s funeral and,came for the after funeral and ate with our family!
The main reason you don't see them with cases full of product anymore is they can't afford them. They have to buy everything. Reps get a discount on products, which is their profit. What they don't sell comes out of their pockets. Even the books and samples they hand out have to be paid for. They even pay for shipping from the fulfillment centres, even if the order ships directly to the customer.
One of my grandmothers sold Avon door-to-door, after my grandfather passed away.
She also worked as a waitress during the same time.
She did both, for about 15 years, until she was old enough to get social security.
My mom was an Avon Lady for nearly 50 years, beginning in the late 1960s. She started out going door-to-door in our neighborhood and I believe she carried samples.
I had agreed to sell Avon, and later, Mary Kay products. In both cases, I had legitimate questions about some of the procedures in the literature they left with me. When I called and asked about it, I couldn't get straight answers to save my life! They kept blowing off my questions, calling them "irrelevant." I found that very disrespectful, and I declined to sell their products as a result.
One of my favorite memories is the home delivery of milk. The milkman also had other treats like donuts, chocolate milk, cream. That was before homogenized milk with the cream floating to the top. The local stores such as 7-11 under cut them ultimately putting them out of business.
Mmm...the cream that floated to the top of the milk bottle... So yummy 😋
Thanks again for an enjoyable video of tghe past..... I remember the Charles Chips man with those big cans of chips, etc.!!
Thank you. My mother was an Avon lady.
nice touch adding red skelton to the fuller brush part 😁 i still have a cutco paring knife and use it every day...love it!
I still have a cutco knife purchased in the 70’s. And it’s still the sharpest knife in the drawer. As far as magazine substitutions are concerned, TV Guide always comes to mind first.
I was born in `63, and my mom was an Avon Lady. Sometime in the early 70s I found her lipstick sample kit in the pantry in the basement. I know she also went to Tupperware parties, and we had a lot of Tupperware in the kitchen. That was real high quality stuff. We also had a 1964 edition Americana encyclopedia set. But I have no idea if my parents bought it after a salesman had come to the house. They also had a very nice Cutco knife set. Again I don't know if they bought it through a door to door salesman.
My grandfather sold cutco. So when he married my grandmother, he gave her cutco knives, cooking pots and cooking utensils. When she passed I got part of her collection. And cutco still stands behind their lifetime warranty. ❤️❤️❤️
Cutco is still rockin' and we have them. They are wonderful knives and were sold to us through a college student 15 plus years ago. Always loved the Fuller brush man and their products. Great video, thank you.
My dad met my mom in 1932 while selling encyclopedias door to door. She chased him away by turning the garden hose on him. If they hadn’t met again later I wouldn’t be here.
In my old neighborhood during the 60s, Hoover vacuum cleaner salesmen would come around frequently. My mom & dad bought quite the fancy vacuum cleaner from one older salesman in the late 60s. Had it for many years without any issues.
Hoover Celebrity probably. The flying saucer vacuum that hovered on a cushion of its own exhaust. By the mid 60s, Hoover was owned by Maytag.
Ah, yes, the good old days. Now we have ring doorbell cameras, people stealing packages and are warned to be cautious and never open our doors to people we don't know,
Remember when most doorbells actually worked?
@@masonparker302 HA! For the last several decades I've been TRYING to get my husband to FINALLY finish installing our doorbells. He keeps promising to do so, but never does. We'll probably die with our doorbells STILL not installed. I've heard every excuse he could think of for dragging his feet on this. He's a licensed electrical contractor, very skilled and experienced, but I can't even get him to finish something as simple as doorbells! Go figure!
@ Here’s an idea, say that a working doorbell is the one and only next year’s birthday present you want.
I had a guy going door to door selling home security systems, I told him , you could just send me something in my email and I would watch videos and let him know , I didn’t need him coming in my home to show me anything. There nothing anyone could try to sell me in that I can’t see on the internet or social media. So anyone going door to door these days is automatically considered suspicious.
I remember all of these except the knife 🔪 salesman. We also had a pot set salesman that came around and would cook us supper to demonstrate his cookware. Mom could always count on the Fuller Brushman atleast one a year..
1982 newly married and just bought our first home. An Electrolux salesman came to the front door and offered a monthly payment plan. That canister vacuum still works to this day.
That was back when products were built to last
@@kmiller0402 AND, people were more honest. Today, answering the doorbell can put your life in danger.
i also recall Girl Scout cookies being sold door-to-door. We always bought some, as they were pretty good and we wanted to help the Girl Scouts. There was always an adult accompanying the girls. Today, they set up stands outside of supermarkets and sell from there. I always pass on the mints and buy the chocolate chip cookies. More expensive, sure, but for a worthy cause.
Thank you for bringing back so many memories of the Culture a lot of us grew up in. My Mother bought a set of Rena Ware Triple Thick Stainless Steel Cook Ware about 1955, I, Her Son still have several pieces of that Cook Ware.
The Fuller Brush man, Watkins man and the Avon lady used to come around regularly as did the Insurance man to get his premium. We had an Electrolux vacuum. Those days went by so fast.
We had Amway salesman stop by occasionally, and my mom bought his products. We bought a set of encyclopedias that way too.
You missed the Jewel Tea Salesman.....I remember going thru the basket when he came to the house, and then going out to his big step-van to see what he had on the truck. My dad also sold Jewel Tea for a period of time.
Tupperware can last forever. I have my Mom's from the 60's and 70's. 👍
🛑🛑 I remember “Black Salve” 💯
If you got a thorn in your hand, you put Black Salve on it, covering it with a band aide.
You would wake up the next morning, and the thorn was out of your hand; stuck to the band aide.
🤷♂️😆💯
My grandfather used that stuff on everything. 💯👍
Sayman Salve was like that too. If you had a burn and put the salve on it, it would stop hurting right away. You know how hard it is to find something now to do that. Well I haven't found it yet.
Prid Drawing Salve is still available in drugstore shops.
In the 1970’s I was a door-to-door vacuum cleaner (Rainbow) salesman. Met my wife-to-be doing that! She was also selling vacuum cleaners. If you can do that and make a living, you can sell anything!
Nothing better than Watkins pepper!!!
Stanley Park in Westfield Mass is beautiful to this day. Love it and during the summer the bells of the carillon on Sunday at noon made for an amazing picnic. The town took it over years ago and I hope it endures today.
Omg our Electrolux vac was the only one we had until I was in my preteens. I wasn’t a fan because of its heft ( I was a teeny person even then). We finally got rid of it when we bought a tri level in the early seventies
The Jewel Tea Company was one that came around to our house back in the day. My memory is a little fuzzy but I think it was late 50s early 60s.
I remember the Fuller Brush man well growing up in the 60's. I actually still have the hair brush my mom bought me back then.
The first couple of topics - Avon and Fuller Brush were two my mom used for many years! I don't think she ever really stopped buying Avon products and as for Fuller Brush, she had refill supplies she would get for her red metal handled dust mop and spaghetti mop! We got a really nice and useful dictionary from a college sales gal and I bought my very first Christmas ornaments for myself from the "Little Chimer" collection!
In the 80's, it was the Schwan's Man. Love the channel ❤
As a young boy in the mid 1950’s I remember the Fuller Brush man coming to our house. An older man(at least he seemed to me) he would spend an hour talking to my Mom who usually bought one or two cheaper items. I am surprised he could make a living if most of his customers were like my mom.
The wives wore dresses and high heels to clean house!!Yikes!!I couldn't wear a dress or heels... Nowadays I wear a scrubie!! And jeans & sketchers...thank you for the video..☺️☺️☺️
Door to door sales was fun and exciting 👍 my personal best was 143 insurance policies in one week👍
Lol I bought one of those Electrolux cannister vacuums at the worlds longest yardsale years ago. It still works, just the cord retractor doesn't work anymore.
I'm old enough to remember all of these. That said, today I can't imagine anything more annoying than to have people coming to my door to sell me things. Worse yet, I can't imagine having a more miserable job than selling door to door.
How about Jehovah's Witnesses?
When I was a kid I had a morning paper route. Once a month all the carriers in the area would gather and have new sign up nights. The kid with the most new subscribers would win a prize and then the route manager would take us to the go kart track.
We had a Kirby salesman come to our house in the 80s, and they gave our living room carpet a “free” cleaning. My wife couldn’t get them to leave, as they tried every sales tactic in the book. Finally, she had them come talk to me as I was up on a ladder painting the house. I never came down from the ladder, and continued to paint the house. They talked for about 5 minutes, and then went silent and then quietly left.
There is still a Kirby outfit on Barbur Blvd. here in Portland that operates that way. I was at my friends house when they came to give a demo. They even kicked over his currant vacuum while saying you can't be happy using this garbage". He'd had enough and told them to "get the fuck out" and he's no small man.
@@ivanleterror9158 Tactics like those are what turn people off to door-to-door salespeople today. Being rude and disrespectful usually get them nowhere. Neither does kicking people's property.
Have you done a video on the Swans delivery company..they STILL only do door to door...
But they changed their name to Yelloh. Still same food.
The last thing my mom bought from a door-to-door salesperson was some stuff from Stanley Home Products back in the late 70's.
Can't recall what she bought, though. 😅
Back in 1950, when I was 5, my mom was cleaning the house, and I guess at one point, a "Fuller Brush Man" came to the door. I opened it and let him in to my mom's surprise. She walked into the living room and "there" he was, waiting. To top it off, my mom says he was BLIND ! Oh, you kid ! By the way, she bought a broom and a dust mop from him !
We had Avon Ladies and Fuller Brush men, and later on, Amway and Shacklee distributors. Some of our neighbors did really well selling those products, mainly because they were well known in the neighborhood. There were also magazine salespeople. One needed a gift for gab and an outgoing personality to do that kind of work. And also perseverance and good business acumen.
Today, we have Mary Kay cosmetics, a competitor of Avon. I've used both products, and most of them are pretty good. Our mother bought Avon and Fuller Brush. They had and have some useful products. My only beef with today's Mary Kay is that their selection of colors in is no longer as wide as a few years ago, when I could get their mascara in blue as well as in black or brown. And they had a lot of nice mini-lipsticks in sets, and blushers and foundations that worked very well for me. Seems their product lines have changed, and there aren't the choices we once had.
We still have and use the same Tupperware bowls shown here. My FIL drove a Helms Bakery truck (curb to curb) for 30 years in Venice (LA) Ca. I tried my hand at magazine sales door to door but it wasn't for me.
My father worked for Stanley Home Products in the late 1960s-70s.
It is bad enough we have You Tube ads without three of yours.
In my early twenties, in the 1980s, I was out of work and I found an ad for selling Fuller brush. I had a blast selling it for a few months. Even made 15-20 bucks an hour back then. Learn some lessons.
If you sold that much you did well.
@@annettepora8091 Yes I did really well. I couldn't make that kind of money anywhere else in those days. But I just couldn't keep up that kind of work and I went back to a regular job.
When was a kid my dad always got rid of insurance salesman by telling them he had a deal with the city they tell him there's no way he said if lay around and stink long enough somebody will pick you up
Kirby and Rainbow vacuums in the 50-60s, Mary Kay cosmetics in the 70s.
It be cool if there is a episode on old vintage magazines. Also thanks for all the cool videos. Very relaxing to watch
The theme song to this video should be "Creep"
Thank you !
I still have my moms dust mop from the late 50,s 😊 still dusting the wood floor
Door to door sales still happen in my neighborhood.
I remember an insurance salesman coming to our house when I was a kid. Also there was someone who sold s set of books that presented the Bible in storybook form. Oncce a photographer came to our house to take a family portrait of my family.
My parents bought my sister and I a full set of encyclopedias (Collier's?) in 1958 when I was 10. Read the entire set of about 26 books. I gave away the set to neighbors in the 1980's to a family with kids. I liked the picture of Red Skelton as a brush salesman. He was so funny.
I think Daffy Duck was in a cartoon that parodied the “Filler Brush Man.”
I remember the Electrolux vacuum salesman coming to my house even as late as the early 1990's (up to maybe 9 years old at this point).. My mom always flirted with the guy and got a deal on it. Memories.
Barney Fife sold vacuum cleaners door to door after he quit his deputy job. They slammed the door on him, too!
I knew about encyclopedias, Fuller Brush, Watkins, Avon but we never had them at our house. Maybe because my mom worked and wasn’t home. When I was in high school some classmates sold Avon. I bought a lot of stuff from them. Never had magazines at our house except TV Guide. Our vacuum cleaners were bought at retail stores. We had Kirby salesmen but no one I knew had one. I guess too expensive. I always had a Hoover until the 90’s. There was one canister style vacuum out in the 60’s that had water in it. No one I knew had one but I remember ads for them. Now, my robo vacuum does the vacuuming for me. I have a couple uprights for special jobs.
I remember a rainbow vacuum that had water in it and I would borrow it from my neighbor to vacuum my shag carpet in my living room. Some nasty stuff was left in the water I had to dump out, but my carpet got clean and fresh. I hated shag carpet.
My parents had a great set of Cutco knives that hung on the wall. I have it now. You can't get a better set today!
You have obviously never owned a good knife.
Terrible you dumb person
Great video! Good movie called Door to Door based on a true story of a salesman Bill Porter.Thanks for sharing.
Thank you very much for this video,,,❤❤👍👍❤❤👌👌❤❤
My mom did Tupperware, back in the 60's..
My hometown had an ordinance against door to door sales. However, since Avon and Tupperware sales ladies and all the other women already knew each other, they were exempt.
Sometime around 1960, a vacuum cleaner salesman came and spent close to 2 hours showing mom his machines. I can't remember if she bought or not.
I think Cutco is still around. We have a nice set- my niece sold them several years ago.
I grew up in Chicago and we used to have Home Juice Orange juice delivered at a weekly basis door-to-door.
Anyone remember Tydee Dydee Diaper Service? We had that for our oldest son who was allergic to disposable diapers as a baby. But by the time the service guy came to take care of the dirty diapers, our house would stink to high heaven!
My Dad tried to sell Kirby vacuums in the '50s. They were so heavy but more reliable.
My Mom bought her coffee from the Stanly Man in his White 1964 Ford Econoline Van.
Can you imagine someone coming to your door today selling you knives??
@TerryCloth oh they still do, in my area.
Had some knock on my door just a few weeks ago.
Selling knives, or using them on you? I'd be very hesitant to open my door to anyone with knives in their possession.
With the internet and online sales, going around door-to-door selling products and wares seems obsolete and labor-intensive. Today, it's mostly canvassers on behalf of some type of home improvement company, or services for the home, like pest control or security monitoring.
Each summer we would have college students selling bibles and cookbooks door to door to help pay for their college tuition. They worked for the Southwestern Company out of Nashville.
I tried selling Kirby Vacuum Cleaners, Fuller Brushes, and Sherrif-Goslin Roofs in the early 1970s. I was not very successful. I also worked for Commonwealth Life Insurance. I was successful in collecting the insurance premiums of policies that other agents had sold but was not successful in selling additional policies. All of these jobs did not last very long.
Those are difficult jobs that require a knack. And, decent people up the ladder to work with and under.
Yeah, well, when I was trapped in the straight commission life insurance pyramid scam in 2010-2011 my con artist sales manager forced me to do some door-to-door soliciting. I'd sooner clean bus station toilets during an amoebic dysentery outbreak. Without a brush.
RR videos are creeping up in commercialization to the point where 1/2 of each video is an ad. I'm about to abort.
It’s so sad that , copper party, Tupperware, Avon , Stanley …. My mother was a librarian, no worries on that❤️
My Mother would always buy something from the Fuller Brush Man.
Kirby was a BIG door-to-door in military communities, also encyclopedias.
My father bought not just a set of Grollier, but every other set offered: Popular Science, Book of Knowledge, classical novels, and got the "free" bookshelf as a result. My mother was so upset! As my siblings and I got older, we had to go to the library, anyway. The set he bought in the late 1950s was out-of-date by 1970.
Why did you use so many photos from the 1930s? The Watkins guy showing his wares around the dining room table was very clearly 1930s. The guy with the Watkins van was mid-50s to early 60s.