The marketing strategy of door-to-door salesmen hit the jackpot in the '50s era when many families had only one breadwinner.  Numerous women stayed home, especially those living in the suburbs and in one car families. Women were seen as soft sells for a slick sales pitch so this worked out well for the salesmen. My mother was a school teacher and was only home in the evenings or a few summer months but we had our share of encounters with peddlers.  My earliest memory of a delivery is the milk left on our doorstep by the milkman.  I don't recall him making a sales pitch, but somehow he knew to drop by in the mornings. Those deliveries didn't last long after my father was able to pick up milk from the drive-in dairy on the way home from work.  Sometimes he surprised us with chocolate milk, and Eggnog during the holidays.   

We were on the Fuller Brush man's list for several years.  He was dressed in a suit and carried a large black, specially designed case full of interesting brushes and other items.  He readily described in detail the features of his unique items, products you could not buy in a store.  Cleaning supplies and some cosmetics were also pitched. Occasionally he offered you a free item, such as a small basting brush, nail file, or spatula to get in the door.  I'm pretty sure one of those little pasty brushes is still in my mother's kitchen drawer. 

Another visitor was the vacuum cleaner salesman.  He didn't have much luck with us because we had hardwood floors and no carpet anywhere.  No amount of attachments would persuade my father to let us make that purchase.  

One of the most familiar salesman was a saleswoman, The Avon Lady.  Always dressed up in "Sunday best" she presented herself as a polished, fashionable woman.  Her free miniature lipstick samples were such fun to play with after she left.  She also gave small, one inch delicate glass vials of perfumes, most of which we really thought smelled terrible.  My mother was allergic to the lipstick and she didn't wear perfume, so we were not big spenders.  Mom hated to 'hurt her feelings' so we let the Avon Lady in and listened to her whole spiel.  Then Mother would usually decline any purchase and say 'nothing today, thank you.'  One time the saleswoman was someone from our church and Mother felt she just had to buy something.  Avon developed uniquely packaged items, such as re-usable decanters or jewelry, supposedly in limited supply.  Those made it difficult to say no.

The World Book Encyclopedia man hit pay dirt when he offered us a chance to buy a "world of information at our fingertips."  You have to imagine living in a time when there were no computers/laptops or internet connected cell phones and your television offered only three channels.  Getting information consisted of the newspaper, tv, word of mouth, radio, and if you were in school, the school library.  Also maybe the downtown library, but not very convenient in our case. So, having 20 volumes in your own home that covered every topic you would ever want to look up was an amazing phenomenon.  If you were a savvy shopper, you might ask the salesman about newer information that would not be included.  As Floridians, we were always following the Cape Canaveral/Kennedy space program, for instance.  World Book understood that marketing need, and began providing annual update volumes which could be purchased in the future.  My teacher-mother couldn't pass up this opportunity, and soon we received our white and gold volumes.  My favorite pages were about the human body, natural for a maturing kid I guess. The section had plastic type overlays that let you view the different systems of the body in their entirety, such as the nervous and circulatory.  Apart from a few school projects, I don't think we read many volumes over the years, but Mother could never part with them.  Can you believe there is still a current World Book 2015 hardback version, at $1,150?  They offer many specialty versions now online with an annual fee averaging $30 - $50.

The more successful salesman at our door was the magazine salesman.  My mother loved reading ever since she began at five years old.  National Geographic magazine was an absolute necessity for her, and we maintained the "wall of gold" from the 1950s until her last days.  In fact, we were able to pass them on to a history professor rather than send them to the landfill.  Somehow those fascinating photos over the years made an impression that was hard to forget, much less discard as trash.  Other magazines were popular, too, and home delivery was convenient.  The top issues for us were Reader's Digest, Family Circle, Woman's Day, Good Housekeeping, Ladies' Home Journal, McCall's Needlework and Crafts, and for the men in the family there was Field & Stream, and Outdoor Life.  

The Tupperware lady probably visited us a few times, but her goal was to have US host a party, where we would reap the rewards of "free" items based on how many total sales were made.  Mother wasn't interested in the party, but she did like the neat storage containers. 

Insurance salesmen also dropped by, and over the years a few policies were purchased.  I recently discovered a large notebook of my mother's where she had methodically recorded all the family purchases, and major events.  There were notations of final payments for various life insurances, so the salesmen had been successful.   

I guess you could include the March of Dimes solicitor in the door-to-door conversation.  It seemed like a simple task to collect a few dimes and the saver cards got kids interested in being charitable.

Besides the Gideon Bible salesman (which we always supported), religious door-to-door visitors usually were not selling anything or asking for donations.  My parents were strong believers in their faith and could not be swayed to the beliefs of what they considered to be false doctrines.  Rather than debate their religious differences, Mother usually just said, "no thank you."

Do you have a special memory of a door-to-door sales person?  

        "Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares."
                                                                                                                                               Hebrews 13:2

I grew up in the church, from birth.  (That's baby me in the photo.)  My maternal grandmother was Presbyterian and she had many ministers in her family tree. She and my grandfather, from a Baptist family, greatly influenced our religious upbringing. Grandmother played the piano at church and years later so did my mother.  When I was a toddler, my grandmother kept me quiet during services by breaking a Saltine cracker into little pieces and giving me one at a time.  I remember having a wonderful time at summer Vacation Bible School.  One memorable project was a paperweight made with little artificial flowers inside a baby food jar. 

We prepared for Sunday on Saturday by washing our hair, selecting our outfits and ironing them if necessary, polishing our shoes, and preparing some of the lunch dishes or desserts. My dad gave me 10 cents to polish his shoes, which I enjoyed doing.  I wore dresses of course, with hat and gloves even as a young girl.  One favorite pair of thin white gloves was embellished with small bluish-purple rhinestones.  The men wore suits, and shirts requiring cuff links.  Boys wore jackets and ties.  This attire made gift shopping a bit easy for the men in the family, buying ties, tie clasps, or cuff links.

If it was Easter or Mother's Day, my dad would pick roses from our bushes and pieces of fern for us to wear as small corsages.  We had pink, red, white, and a beautiful fragrant yellow and red variety of roses. We also had gardenias.   Dad liked to buy orchid corsages for my mother, too, a tradition started while living in Hawaii in the '40s and carried on until she was in her 80's.  

Mother was a Sunday School teacher and Dad was on many committees, including Building and Maintenance.  For those, he often had to arrive early at church to turn on the heat and in later years the air conditioner.  I often went with him when he was called in for problems and I got to roam around all the rooms.  I recall there was a cellar type door to the crawl space below the main building that kids were afraid of, having been told 'the Devil could be down there.'  

Several times a year we had Pot Luck dinners 'on the ground' as they called it.  Nothing was bought.  Everything was homemade from scratch - fried chicken, mashed potatoes, potato salad, and all kinds of pies and cakes.  Sometimes there was hand cranked ice cream.  The social hall tables were an amazing spread of temptation, and you felt you had to take a little of everything.  The dinners were a happy social event, one that you hated to see end.  The members seemed like one big family and some have remained friends for over 60 years now.