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Concept
Hawker (trade)
Summary
A hawker is a vendor of merchandise that can be easily transported; the term is roughly synonymous with costermonger or peddler. In most places where the term is used, a hawker sells inexpensive goods, handicrafts, or food items. Whether stationary or mobile, hawkers often advertise by loud street cries or chants, and conduct banter with customers, to attract attention and enhance sales.
A hawker is a type of street vendor; “a person who travels from place-to-place selling goods.” Synonyms include huckster, peddler, chapman or in Britain, costermonger. However, hawkers are distinguished from other types of street vendors in that they are mobile. In contrast, peddlers, for example, may take up a temporary pitch in a public place. Similarly, hawkers tend to be associated with the sale of non-perishable items such as brushes and cookware while costermongers are exclusively associated with the sale of fresh produce. When accompanied by a demonstration or detailed explanation of the product, the hawker is sometimes referred to as a demonstrator or pitchman.
Social commentator Henry Mayhew wrote, "Among the more ancient of the trades, then carried on in England, is that of the hawker or pedlar", and he notes, "the hawker dealt, in the old times, more in textile fabrics than in anything else." In several passages of his work, Mayhew categorises hawkers, hucksters, and peddlers as a single group of itinerant salesman, and claims that he is unable to say what distinction was drawn between a hawker and a huckster. Mayhew estimated the number of licensed pedlars in 1861 as 14,038 in England, 2,561 in Scotland, and 624 in Wales.
Hawkers have been known since antiquity and possibly earlier. Claire Holleran has examined literary, legal and pictorial sources to provide evidence for the presence of hawkers in antiquity, especially ancient Rome. Her findings indicate that the Romans had no specific term for hawkers – rather they went by a variety of labels including: ambulator (a person who walks around); circitor (to go around); circulator (a broad term which included itinerant entertainers) and institor (a business manager).
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