Hawkers were major suppliers of goods and services and a feature of Peking street life in the 1930s and 1940s. They identified themselves by a distinctive call or sound produced by a musical instrument such as a gourd, drum or pair of clappers. Morrison photographed a wide variety of street traders, including knife grinders, makers of reed toys, rose-hip vendors, barbers, dealers in secondhand goods, fruit sellers, fortune-tellers and entertainers.