THE PEDDLER FIGURE IN TH2 WORK OF HAMLIN GARLAITD by PATRICIA EZHLL HENRY, B.A. A THESIS IN ENGLISH Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Texas Tech University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requironents for tho Degree of MASTER or ARTS Approved Director Accepted ^M^y>^^i^^^dJ Dean of the Graduate(/^chool May, 1971 T3 )97l No.Z] ACKNOWLEDGMIMT I am grateful to Dr. Warren S. Walker for hie direction of tbie thesis. 11 TABLE OF CONTENTS Pago ACKNO'A'LEDGMENT ii CHAPTER I. A FOLK TYPE REFLECTING MILIEU 1 II. MEN ON THE MOVE 16 III. STROLLING PLAYERS 39 IV. BOOMERS 69 V. A SURRENDER TO ROMANTICISM 98 BIBLIOGRAPHY lO^ iii CHAPTER I A FOLK TYPE REFLECTING MILIEU Charming, cajoling, and bullying a bright path through Hamlin Garland's earlier fiction, the peddler figure, who appears as salesman, actor, and profiteer, is a broad folk type recast in the mold of Garland's milieu. At the author's hands the peddler, in his several guises, wins admiration for his ambition and punishment for his deceit. He deals in glittering illusions as he spreads civilization, for better or worse, along his route in the level land of the Middle Border. Then he disappears into the romantic haze of the mountain country of Garland's later fiction. Tin peddler or patent medicine faker, froa Doimeast or the Midwest, the peddler as a type displays distinctive characteristics. Students of American folklore recognize the peddler by his unabashed, often ruthless dedication to profit; by his shrewd wit, his clever masks, and his imperturbability in business transactions; by his colorful garb and hie charming ciannor (particularly with his women customers) which often win him hospitality as well as a sale. Traditioaally, the peddler cuts short his visit as soon as ho has exhausted his sales possibilities. Sometiaes he hastens to leave while his customers are still satisfied; but he is often reliable and honest, especially if his route is small. If he is sly, the peddler m:\y seem to keep company with the devil. This 1 means that he might read folks' minds or hypnotize them or tempt them into Satanic compacts. He might come and go mysteriously, perhaps in association with creatures like toads, snakes, cats, and Indians. Acquisitive, shrewd, adaptable, charming, poscibly Satanic—these characteristics appear in Garland's versions of the peddler type. To his large cast of peddlers. Garland assigns roles also characteristic of the typo. Wares and services hawked by Garland's peddlers are described by J.R. Dolan in The Yankee Peddlers of Early America; books, dry goods, patent medicine, mail delivery, entertainment, news, religion, and real estate. Garland, ambitious and adventurous himself, attempted several of these peddlers' roles. His autobiographies and diaries reveal a determined man of unusual physical and mental hardihood. These traits, which sustained him on vairious peddler routes of his youth, appear in his fictional peddlers. Toward the close of his life. Garland, having sought adventure from Mexico to Europe, reminisced: "I have had an 2 exceptionally varied and fortunate experience." Undoubtedly, he gained much of this experience on his peddler treks. Taking to the road seemed to Garland a logical start for an American. He admired James Whitcomb Riley's youthful escapade ^(New York, 196if). 2 Companions on the Trail (New York, 1931), p. k—subsequent references, Conn. traveling with "a patent medicine man who needed a painter"; to attract crowds, Riley pretended to be a blind sign painter. 3 G€U*land found the adventure "Western and democratic." Garland first attempted peddling during an Iowa winter: Nothing offered and so I turned (as so many young men similarly placed have done), toward a very common yet difficult job. I attempted to take subscriptions for a book. After a few days' experience in a neighboring town I decided that whatever else I might be fitted for in this world, I was not intended for a book agent.^ Although Garland missed his calling as a book agent, he allows his fictional peddler, James Hartley in "A Stop-Over at Tyre," unqualified success. Garland eilso failed in his next sales job as a clerk in his father's little general store on the Dcuvota frontier. Garland and his brother, Frank, temporarily operated the iso­ lated store in a situation like that of Rob Bailey and Jim Rivers in The Moccasin Ranch. Of this episode Garland ssiid that Frank "was a very bad salesman, but I was worse." If a man wanted to purchase an article and had the money to pay for it, we exchanged commodities right there, but as far as my selling anything—father used to say, "Hamlin couldn't sell gold dollars for ninety cents a piece," and he was right—entirely right. Hamlin reasoned that he "had nothing of the politician in me, I seldom inquired after the babies or gossiped with the old women •^RoaOf^ide Meetings (New York, 1930) > PP« 228-230—subsequent references, RM« ^A LiSJl 91 ^hl Middle Border (New York, 1917), p. 217-- subsequent references, Son. about their health and housekeeping" (Son, p. Z3S). Meanwhile, Frank, "much more gallant than I" and an attraction for "all the school ma'ams of the neighborhood," was playing a true peddler's part as mail carrier. The description of Frank's arrival at the general store with the mail is similar to that of mail carrier Rivers: "The raising of a flag on a high pole before the door was the signsd for the post which brought the women pouring in from every direction eager for news of tho eastern world" (Son, p. 259). Garland enjoyed a brief career as a traveling actor. With fellow seminary students he took a play on tour to neighboring towns of St. Ansgar and Mitchell, Iowa. "We played with 'artistic success'—that is to say, we lost some eighteen dollars" (Son, p. 180), Undoubtedly a talented entertainer. Garland proved a success on the lecture stage. During his dreary Dakota residence, he "dreamed of touring the west as a lecturer" (Son, p. 219). With Frank as his agent, he gave his first lecture at Cyone. "We attempted to do that which an older and fully established lecturer would not have ventured. We tried to secure an audience with only two days' advance work, and of course we failed" (Son, p. 220). In later years his readings and lectures on literature, politics, and the frontier 5 became "a large part of my potboiling activities." Reviewing a lifetime of platform appearances. Garland wrote, "Many of these trips were meager in money returns, but they were rich in 5 •^My Friendly Conto:nporaries (New York, 1932), p. 7. experiences" (Comp., p. 3)• Garland as a youth shared the exhilaration of the land boom atmosphere. The sale of his own Dakota homestead helped finance his initial study in Boston. "Out there is my share of the government Ismd—and, if I am to carry out my plan of fitting myself for a professor­ ship," I argued--"these claims are worth securing. My rights to the public domain are as good as any other man's" (Son, p. Z^3)> Land was a commodity to Garland, just as to his fictional boomers. To a man. Garland's fictional peddlers face situations peculiar to the author's milieu. Writing effectively, in Garland's opinion, mesint being "true to yourself, true to your locality, and true to your time.'' Garland conscientiously chose American settings for his work. His fictional spokesman, Albert Seagraves, echoes this idea of environmental influence: "No other climate, sky, plain, could produce tho same unnamable weird charm." Seagraves exclaims, "'It is American,'" adding, "'No other time can match this mellow aiir, this wealth of 7 color, much less the strange social conditions of life.'" The peddler figure in Garland's fiction is a representative of this special society. Garland incorporaten many aspects of milieu into his work, Crurabling Idols (Cambridge, Mass., I960), p. 30. 7 '"Among the Corn-Rows," Main-Travelled Roads (New York, 195'+), pp. 103-105—subsequent references to this edition, wiiich is tciken from the I89I first edition, M-TG-1. but his peddlers experience, to varying degrees, five distinct influences. First, a peddler, moral or immoral, accepts the responsibility for his ovai success. Headed east or west, he also shaxes an American fascination with optimism and luck. Whether or not he has an eye for the beauty of nature, he is subject to the overwhelming forces of the physical universe which maiy line his pockets or, like an avenging deity, convict him of his misdeeds. Even if the peddler lacks a social con­ science, he confronts social problems such as the poverty of farmers and the oppression of women. Finally, as a repre­ sentative of commercialism and other aspects of civilization, he contributes to tho disappearance of the frontier. Personal ambition motivates each of Garland's peddlers. For many peddlers itineracy was, in Richardson V/right's words, o "the first step in the amassing of a fortune." Thomas A. Bledsoe relates this quality of ambition to Garland and his work: "It is agaiinst the backdrop of tho American Dreajn, of the right and responsibility of every man to be free, to succeed, 9 that Gsirland's tragedies display themselves." To Garland the peddler type may have suggested "'the dominant type of man'" of Garland's own generation, "'the business man.'" Garland, on tho threshold of his career as fictionist, described this type as "'irresistible, restless, whose raiment fits him with Q Hawkers and Walkers in Early America (Philadelphia, 1927), p. ZZ.