![]() ![]() Bruns’ 1980 book Knights of the Road: A Hobo History, hoboes helped build the very railroads they traveled on, as well as the sewer systems, water lines, roads, bridges, and homes that have filled up the West. ![]() Which is a shame, because those townspeople obviously didn’t understand that hoboes have actually been essential to the rapid growth of America’s economy. When they first emerged in the United States in the late 1800s, hoboes-like bums and tramps-were often vilified as useless vagrants by the communities they traveled to, where they might be beaten up, badgered by cops, or chased out of town. The web site “ In Search of the American Hobo,” researched by Sarah White for the University of Virginia’s American Studies program in 2001, reveals that the path of the hobo, who is basically just a migratory laborer, has never been an easy one. Wandering and working in this autonomous way was, by and large, a privilege that belonged to able-bodied white men around the turn of the 20th century. (From the Bain Collection, Library of Congress) (Photo by Alan Fisher, New York World-Telegram and the Sun Newspaper Photograph Collection, Library of Congress) Above: Three tramps play cards in a boxcar in 1915. Top: Lightweight boxer Lou Ambers mounts the ladder of a train car with a large bag over his shoulder in 1935. Woody Guthrie, Jack London, Ernest Hemingway, James Michener, Louis L’Amour, Clark Gable, and multi-millionaire Winthrop Rockefeller were all drawn to this untethered lifestyle and told stories about their time on the rails, burnishing the legend. The other is a fantasy about living free on the fringes society: jumping boxcars despite the danger, wandering from town to town with no roots or commitments, sleeping under the stars with fellow hoboes who trade banjo tunes and wild stories. Today, the word “hobo” tends to call up one of two caricatures deeply ingrained in our collective imagination: One is a sad sack with saggy pants, five-o’-clock shadow, and a bindle stick, probably passed out in some alley with a bottle of whiskey-an image that’s interchangeable with that of a bum. ![]() So-called bums, who might be too old, disabled, or ill to work, tend to stay in one place. But free-loading tramps and hard-working hoboes have one thing in common: Both have traveled the rails, starting in the 19th century, much to the chagrin of the railroad owners. Hoboes fully embrace the Protestant work ethic, bouncing from place to place, looking for short-term jobs to earn their keep, while bums and tramps want to just bum everything-money, food, or cigarettes. The first and foremost thing to understand about hoboes is that hoboes are not bums. All one had to do was hop a train to a new town and declare himself a hobo. But back then, a safety net existed in the form of the newly laid railroad, which promised hope to workers willing to trade the comforts of hearth and home for a chance at gainful employment. Roughly 140 years ago, American workers faced a different set of economic uncertainties, as machines began to replace able-bodied men in factories and on farms. ![]() “If you broke the Hobo Code of Ethics, you would be punished by other hoboes.” In fact, for many workers in today’s economy, attaining middle-class status is exactly that-a dream-while digital technologies have pushed enormous numbers of steady-paycheck employees into the unpredictable “gig economy,” where contracts are the norm. Despite the ever-widening wealth gap, most of us continue to grasp at the American Dream, which promises financial security in exchange for hard work. ![]()
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