The Whizbangs of Oohs and Ahs: America's Salesmen: Their Lore, Lives and Laughs

This comprehensive and generously illustrated collection is a lively and loving history celebrating the richness of America's traveling salesman tradition and the ways that the men and women of the road profoundly affected the American way of life through both word and deed. Composed of hundreds of tales, anecdotes, quotes, stories and thumbnail biographies, the author has compiled an entertaining historical pageant that has been more than 300 years in the making. Learn about the great and the infamous, their pitches and scams, successes and failures, and the humor both by and about them. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Ronald Solberg grew up as the son of a Fuller Brush Man. He went on to become a door-to-door salesman, himself, working his way through college by selling brushes, brooms, and waxes during the summer months on the sidewalks and roads of southern Minnesota. Although Solberg would become a high school English and journalism teacher, the salesman bug remained firmly planted. Later, he switched careers, and moved into Chicago-area association and corporate public relations, marketing, and advertising positions. Coincidentally, two of the associations-the Million Dollar Round Table and Institute of Real Estate Management-brought him in touch with some of the most successful salesmen in the world. Today, Solberg is a social studies and history teacher at a suburban Chicago private school for gifted children. That position would, however, reintroduce him to his salesman "self." In 2002 he was commissioned by the Newberry Library to prepare lesson plans on a Chicago turn-of-the-century labor movement. Because Chicago has been an important center for merchandising and retail activity, Solberg chose to focus on the salesman-probably not quite the "labor" activity the Newberry had in mind. While researching the topic, he came to realize that he was actually fulfilling a life-long dream-to compile the details and history of America's traveling salesmen, thus creating a portrait that exemplifies the country's best spirit of industry, sunny optimism and faith.