Friends, enemies, partners, & entertainers: Craftsmen & peddlers
Despite occupying a prominent role within and between the rural households of "gamle Norge," traveling craftspeople and peddlers have received little attention in historical analyses of Norwegian culture. This is due in large part to the transient nature of these men, who stayed a few months here, a few months there, and were more likely than not to miss being registered during the taking of the census. Moreover many, if their earnings were adequate, eventually departed from their circuits to establish permanent shops of their own. Slowly following the quake of industrialization, the material need for mobile craftsman dwindled substantially in the late 1800s. They were obsolete by the 1920s.
Although it would appear that traveling craftspeople occupied only the margins of Norwegian society, they did in fact play an important part in the regulation and negotiation of Norwegian values concerning identity and proper behavior. Renowned gossips, their arrival was happily anticipated by the woman and servants of the household who could look forward to easing the tediousness of their daily work and sometimes overly familiar companionship. At the same time, craftsmen were treated cautiously, in such a way that was calculated to maximize the appearance of generosity and virtue within their dwelling. Finally, the products produced by the craftsmen lent themselves to the projection of social status and fashionability within the context of the larger social milieu of visiting friends and acquaintances.
As for the craftsmen themselves, many had elected to become skilled workers with some measure of professional independence rather than suffer progressive poverty as a crofter with but little land and many duties. They scorned harsh and unstable work as farm laborers, preferring the equally unstable but infinitely more adventuresome vocations of painter, tailor, or shoemaker, which allowed them to roam the area and establish an intimate acquaintance with the habits of some of the wealthier families of the region. The greater part of their day was taken up in pleasant chit-chat with the women and female servants of the house and they enjoyed equal status with their hosts, usually eating dinner at the same table.
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