FORGOTTEN PIONEER
By
A versatile man is Harry Golden. But always the essential- and common -- hord struck is ""only in America"". His ""forgotten pioneers"" are the peddlers who made trails where there were none, followed new trails being opened, braved the wilderness and the frontier and welded the races and the people into a basic interest -- tiny reaks in the monotony and the limitations of life, which the peddlers brought them. He writes their story -- the human story of Jewish immigrants who found in taking up their packs and setting out one way to discover America. Their experiences are told through typical characters drawn from the peddlers who carried the packs, and sold oil-cloth, needles, toys, yard goods and the like through the countryside (he takes the Carolinas he knows for this phase). There were the city peddlers, with their pushcarts aden with vegetables. There were the iron mongers -- the Connecticut Yankees -- the pair that found a way to get rid of silver shoe buckles. There were the trunk peddlers- sophisticate among the tribe, wholesalers so to speak. Levi Strauss' story is one of those that will have a wide interest- for who does not know the copper-studded ""levis"" that still today bear his name. But this was an accident of fate- which saved his investment in denim out on the gold trails of California. All in all- here once again- arry Golden has shared in terms appealing to all ages -- an odd segment of America.