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This chapter discusses conflicts that Jewish peddlers encountered in the new world. It specifically addresses anti-Jewish incidents. Jewish peddlers experienced spurts of political agitation, physical violence, public mockery, and jealousy from local merchants. This problem was a result of their own success.

This chapter describes what lay ahead for Jewish immigrant peddlers after peddling. In particular, it illustrates stories of the success of Jewish peddlers. Through peddling, some Jews were able to buy land in their adopted countries. In addition to running for office or serving on commissions, many peddlers used their economic resources to improve their communities. This chapter also shows that Jewish men were often provided with a path toward civic integration through peddling.

This chapter discusses new-world customers who traded with the Jewish peddlers. It shows that Jews and their customers influenced each other's lives despite differences in race, class, religion, language, and ethnicity. The peddlers offered attractive alternatives for their customers. These included an alternative to the larger stores and opportunities to barter for goods. Jewish peddlers were also often romantically involved with their female customers, which also led to marriage.

This chapter discusses increases in the Jewish peddler population in small towns and big cities. It shows that Jews have played a significant role in retail business in communities of all sizes. Peddling has enabled its practitioners to expand their economic reach and operation. The chapter also shows that peddling influenced Jewish marriage patterns around the new world.

This chapter addresses the migration of Jewish peddlers. Immigrant peddlers played a significant role in the establishment of regional, national, and local Jewish economic infrastructures and the spread of wares. Millions of Jews have migrated over time to foreign lands, driven by urbanization and industrialization, racially inflected nationalism, and a growth in the Jewish population.

This introductory chapter presents the story of how immigrant Jewish peddlers and the non-Jewish women made history through their ordinariness. The history of peddling has contributed to our understanding of Jewish modernity. This chapter reveals that immigrant Jewish peddling involved three different ideas: trade, hates, and conflicts.

Peddling opened a path for a crucial new chapter in modern Jewish history. Many Jews went to work in factories in new-world cities as the demand for clothing increased. Jewish peddlers suffered from verbal attacks, discrimination, and defamation. Jewish elites, specifically in the United States, tried to defend their fellow Jews. The peddler became a figure of modern Jewish history when the US finally opened its doors to mass European immigration.

This chapter discusses the rapid population and economic growth which happened along the Ohio River Valley, as communities were slowly founded and built. In response, the governments helped foster this growth with the development of public works. By 1811, the federal government began the construction of the National Road to connect the populous East Coast with the emerging trans-Appalachian West. It also discusses the success of Jewish peddlers and other marketing strategies the Jews employed during the time.

This chapter examines the history of Ashfield in Massachusetts and the essence-peddling business run by the Ranney family and their friends. It also looks into the development of a wholesale peppermint oil market and the expansion of the Ranney family across the western frontier. It also discusses how Ashfield's peppermint oil business grew rapidly from the time that Samuel Ranney first planted peppermint roots in the town around 1812. The chapter reviews the Yankee peddlers of Connecticut and the Jewish peddlers of the second half of the nineteenth century as the two well-documented groups of peddlers in most histories. It describes how essence peddlers became the subjects of songs, jokes, cartoons, and the source of a slang term for “skunk,” a contemporary search for the term “essence peddler” in historical writing.