One hundred years ago, an article in the New York Times asked a provocative question: “Are salesmen needless?” In the article, a marketing expert explains why societal shifts would render the door-to-door salesman obsolete. “Advertising is producing better results than the old method of personal solicitation,” the article reported. “Things were different once upon a time before the railroads turned farms into cities… The traveling [sales]man is a middleman and the evolution of business is gradually eliminating the middle man.”