Fuller Brush man

Fuller Brush man

A door-to-door salesman. (In the early 20th century, the Fuller Brush Company was well-known for its door-to-door sales tactics.) Who's that banging on my door? Ugh, I hope it's not a Fuller Brush man.
See also: brush, man
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

Fuller Brush man

Door-to-door salesman. The Fuller Brush Company, founded in 1906, employed salesmen who went from house to house selling a variety of brushes, including a hairbrush that carried a lifetime guarantee. Among the company's accomplishments was making selling door-to-door an acceptable and profitable technique, one that was used (as long as local ordinances allowed) by sellers of encyclopedias, cosmetics, insurance, Girl Scout cookies, and other goods and services. Through much of the first half of the 20th century, visitors would ring a friend's or neighbor's doorbell and then answer the query, “Who's there?” with “It's the Fuller Brush man!”
See also: brush, man
Endangered Phrases by Steven D. Price
See also:
  • brush over
  • brush with death
  • have a brush with
  • have a brush with (something)
  • daft as a brush
  • (as) daft as a brush
  • daft
  • brush by
  • brush by (someone or something)
  • run a brush through (one's) hair
References in periodicals archive
(After the Holocaust, the wolf was re-edited to become a Fuller Brush Man with an Irish accent.)
Seven Jewish Heroines Disney Should Make a Movie About
door-to-door Fuller Brush man. We knew Shakespeare of course and Hardy
On Being Dickens
Using colorful anecdotes to personalize the points he's making (including the story of the last working Fuller Brush Man in existence), Pink walks us through how economic and societal changes that began in the last century have affected how we define a "salesman." To start, where formerly there was an information asymmetry in favor of the salesman, now thanks largely to the mass of information available online, the balance of power has shifted to the consumer.
A new look at the world of sales
At regular intervals there appeared the Fuller Brush Man, the Avon Lady, and the Insurance Man.
Eyes
He remembers the job "as one of the most pleasant times of my life," although his next gig, as a Fuller Brush Man, also had its charms.
Doctor's second book takes readers back to the '40s
It is why the milkman and Fuller Brush man don't exist today.
Protecting your fine wine image
It's probably just a coincidence, but things don't seem to be as clean as they were since the Fuller Brush Man stopped coming around.
It's flag-waving time in Beijing, Denver
Loyalty to a particular company, particularly in the online arena, has gone the way of the Fuller Brush Man. (To prove it, ask the average 20-year-old what he or she knows about the Fuller Brush Man.)
The call center customer of the future
Marine Corps during World War II, he worked his way through law school at the University of Miami as a hotel clerk and Fuller brush man, receiving his law degree in 1948.
Justice Boyd remembered across Florida
She appeared opposite George Raft in the gangster movie "Broadway" and costarred with Cary Grant and a dancing caterpillar in the 1944 comedy-fantasy "Once Upon a Time." She was the love interest in "The Fabulous Dorseys," starring bandleaders Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey, and appeared opposite Red Skelton in the 1946 sleeper hit "The Fuller Brush Man."
Janet Blair
Now, we can either sit back and watch a profession we worked hard to build fade away to the annals of history like the blacksmith or Fuller Brush man, or we can take advantage of the opportunities that California's two new pathways to CPA licensure present and reach out to the next generation of CPAs.
Reach out: The profession's future depends on you. (Special Report)
It's also an area where I wore out several pairs of shoes as a literary Fuller Brush man.
Hacks gone, Fleet Street buttons up for business; an expatriate American journalist's guided tour of London's former ink-stained 'Street of Shame.'
They might wonder what happened to the Fuller Brush man, the encyclopedia peddlers, and the Avon Lady who used to knock at the door.
A retail revolution on the river
Resilience came more easily than expected, I discovered, maybe because I'd been a door-to-door Fuller Brush Man once, years earlier.
Going pro: the sales call; Our novice vintner savors acceptance in final part of series