Rags! Rags!
He shuffles down city streets and town roads, pulling an old wooden cartweighed down with discarded rags. He might have a horsepulling thecart.One by one residentshear him calling out “Rags!” and theyemerge from their homeshanding over burlap sacks of ragsthey hadbeen collecting.
He tosses the remnantsontohislargecart.
His name escapes the minds of those today.
They simply remember him as the Ragman.
The Standard-Timesrecentlytook to social media and asked about this curious figure going about collecting rags.
Locals who remember the ragman
“I lived in the west end and the rag man there had a horse and carriage,” Wayne Ferreira of New Bedford responded. “When he rode down the streets he would yell, rags, rags. People would come out and fill his carriage.”
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“My grandmother lived on Bridge Street in South Dartmouth,” replied Lois Wiseman of New Bedford. “Hanging from her basement stairs was a big bag of rags for the rag man. He was a part of our lives, like the milk man and the Bond Bread man. This would have been in the 1950's.”
“We had one in Mattapoisett,” Betty Washington posted. “He would come to my grandmother’s house. That must have been in the early 50’s, beforeI started school. He would say Ragman, rags for sale.”
The origins of the ragman can be traced back to the Middle Ages in England, according to Library of Congress, where it is said that “The rags would be sold to rag merchants, who paid the rag and bone man by the weight and quality of the rags they collected.The rag and bone manwasnot held in high regard and his businesswas considered to beone of a disagreeable nature.”
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Rags were reused to create cloth, known as “shoddy,” and later became an important part of the paper making industry.
This actor was the son of a ragman
The late actor Kirk Douglas wrote anautobiographyin 1988 called The Ragman’s Son. “My father, who had been a horse trader in Russia, got himself a horse and a small wagon, and became a ragman, buying old rags, pieces of metal, and junk for pennies, nickels, and dimes,” Douglas writes in the book “The ragman was on the lowest rung on the ladder. And I was the ragman’s son.”
Terrified of the ragman
Adults can remember a time when they werechildren,and their parents would threaten to hand them over the ragman if theymisbehaved.
“If we were naughty my Mom would tell us if we didn't behave, she would give us to the Ragman,” remembered Pat Coast of New Bedford.
“I remember the rag man and his horse drawn wagon,” posted Lorraine Brodeur of Acushnet. “I was 4 or 5 and terrified by him. I would hide when he came down our street.”
“I lived on Division Street and so did the rag man,” recalled Susan Foster when she lived in New Bedford."My mother said if we were naughty, he would take us with him.”
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“My mom used to scare us with that story,” recalled Donna Gypsy Reed from the days when she lived in Fall River as a child.
“I remember one when I was a little girl in Fall River,” recalled Claudia Paiva. “I was terrified of him.”
“The first time I was ever punished was because of the rag man,” noted Dawn Hart of Fairhaven. “He went down Laurel Street yelling rags. I hid behind a bush and yelled rags back at him. He went and told my grandmother.I spentaweek inside for my punishment. It was 1960 and I was 5 years old. It seems like it was yesterday.”
The ragman was fascinating forsome kids
“Icould hear him coming down our road. [He was] very loud.I would love to watch him go by with his wagonand horse,” remembered Beverly Medeiros of Dartmouth.
David Mello recalled the ragman in theSouth Second Street when he was a child. The ragman had “a horse drawn wagon. It was a treat to see the horse. Oh, the days of our youth.”
“The ragman came up Aquidneck Street in the early 1950’s always with a little sing song to bring out your used clothing,” Dave Hall of New Bedford posted.
“My mother would give him old clothes and such, and he would give her pennies for them,” remembered Jeanne Ross of New Bedford.
Betsy Finch-Kaplan of New Bedfordgrew up on Willard Street and "when he’d come by my mother would give me a carrot and I would feed the horse."
Pam Debrosse remembered the ragman in the South End of New Beford. “He had a horse and wagon and would yell out rags. I would run home and get the rag bag and I think he would give me a quarter for the rags.”
Where did the ragman go?
There were several factors that caused the ragman to disappear over time.The advent of regular trash collection,concerns thatrags being collected might beunsanitary and unhealthy, and the ability to make paper from wood pulpinstead of ragsput a crunch in the ragman’s gig of collecting rags. He moved over to collecting a better, more profitable item– scrap metal.
