Birth of the American Salesman

There were many reasons for this: The emergence of salesmanship in the U.S. depended on a stable currency, the rule of law, the protection of private property, and the availability of credit. These were all aspects of the American economic system. But what made the U.S. unique was the scale of American firms that were founded in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. These massive manufacturing concerns, which produced tremendous numbers of business machines, appliances, and cars, hired salesmen in the hundreds in some cases, and even thousands in others, to create demand for their products. These goods, all pushed by aggressive salesmanship, distinguished the American economy by their early appearance and widespread purchase. British industry, which produced on a smaller scale, and German manufacturers, which were rooted in craftwork traditions, seldom exhibited a similar interest in mass selling campaigns.
Salesmanship flourished in America for cultural reasons as well. In a country that, from the outset, held democratic elections and had no established church or hereditary aristocracy, salesmanship provided political and religious groups with a way to compete against their rivals for followers. Moreover, with more fluid class boundaries than in European countries, the skills of salesmanship, especially beginning in the late nineteenth century, offered a pathway to personal success. By the early twentieth century, Americans read how-to-sell books and turned Bruce Barton's The Man Nobody Knows (1925), which portrayed Jesus Christ as a successful sales and advertising executive, into a bestseller. Books on salesmanship skills still sell well today. Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People, published originally in 1937, remains one of the most popular and draws in part on lessons the author learned working as a salesman for Armour.