Roscoe R. Rau

author

Roscoe R. Rau

Best known for a practical guide to furniture retailing, this mid-20th-century writer focused on helping salespeople understand customers, products, and the craft of selling. His work reflects a hands-on, training-oriented approach shaped by the business world he wrote for.

1 Audiobook

Selling Home Furnishings: A Training Program

Selling Home Furnishings: A Training Program

by Roscoe R. Rau, Walter F. Shaw

About the author

Roscoe R. Rau was an American business writer best known for Selling Home Furnishings: A Training Program, a book written with Walter F. Shaw. The book is aimed at people working in furniture and home-furnishings retail, and it presents selling as a skill that can be taught through product knowledge, customer understanding, and steady practice.

Reliable biographical details about his life are limited in the sources I could confirm. A memorial record identifies him as Roscoe R. Rau, born in 1896 and died in 1965, which places his writing in the context of the fast-growing American retail economy of the early and mid-20th century.

What stands out most about his legacy is the practical tone of his work. Rather than writing for a general audience, he appears to have written for people on the sales floor and in training programs, offering straightforward guidance for a specific trade.