Arthur Miller's Life and Times

In reading “Death of a Salesman”, I became intrigued about the 20th century travelling salesman. I was moderately aware that hotels of the prewar era featured suites that doubled as showrooms, but had the feeling that the travelling salesman faded into obscurity. In the play, Willy Loman was at the peak of his career at the dawn of World War One (when he named the infant Howard, who would become his future boss). I found statistical evidence that there was a decrease in the number of salesmen over the 1920s. There was the use of telephone in business (as the 84-year old Singleton did in the play), which allowed making many virtual sales calls per day. There was also the centralization of business, where buying decisions were no longer made by individual store managers, but within the offices of a conglomerate. On the selling side, there was a flight to high performers; quality and performance over quantity of sales personnel. Who can forget Ben Loman’s cryptic proclamation that “When I was seventeen I walked into the jungle, and when I was twenty-one I walked out. And by God I was rich”. It’s not really clear if Ben, at the turn of the 20th century, had ventured to the Yukon Territory or colonial Africa. But to a contemporary student, this is an appealing prospect of winning the American dream. There are still many salesmen working on commission today. They don’t lug around heavy valises, but will ring you up to sell software or other services.