Hard Travellin'A&C Black, 2011 M09 28 - 444 pages It was the railway system which moulded the American hobo into the legendary figure he became, especially in the depression years, but surviving until today. His origins, however, go back to the early pioneer days. He is in fact a unique and indigenous American product, 'capriciously used and discarded by a callous but dynamic system'. Revered and romanticized by some as the prototype of free man, he is hated and feared by others for his nonconformity. In order to trace the origins of the various types of hobo and their effect on American life, Kenneth Allsop travelled 9,000 miles across the continent, following old hobo routes, interviewing and researching as he went along. |
Contents
Leatherstocking of the freight cars | |
The phantom deer arise | |
The pot of gold | |
Weary Willy and Tired | |
Father fix the blinds so the bums cant ride | |
The wandring boys | |
Roosevelt roosts | |
The abyss the charnelhouse | |
Sex and the single | |
Hobotrekkers that forever search | |
Voices calling in the night | |
In God we trusted in Kansas we busted | |
Out into the kindly sunlight | |
Strict beauty of locomotive | |
A little strychnine or arsenic | |
The curse of our Yankee nation | |
The dream cinder dick | |
Men without allegiances | |
The Great Harp | |
Feet got to rolling like a wheel yeah like a wheel | |
The freezin ground was my foldin bed last night | |
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agricultural ain’t American beat became belt bindle bindle stiff blues boxcar boys California camps can’t cars cent Chicago Cimarron County crop Dakota dollars Dust Bowl economic factory farm farmers feel fields freight train frontier gang girls Grapes of Wrath hard highway hobo hobo’s homeless Hooversville I’ve industrial jail Jimmy Rodgers jocker jungle Kansas kids labour land later living look man’s migrant migratory migratory worker miles million Minehan mobility Mountains move Negro never night nomadic North North Dakota Oklahoma Panhandle perhaps pick Pinkerton police poor poverty rail railroad ride road rode says skid row social society song South Street Texas There’s Thirties town track tramp transients travelling truck Tully unemployed Union vagrants W. H. Davies wandering Wanderlust West wheat wild Wobbly Woody Guthrie young