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Hard Travellin': The Hobo and his History
Of interest for the excellent bibliography. 1"" V chip at bottom dj corner, else very good and protected by a Mylar dj cover. A clean, unmarked copy.
- GenresHistoryNonfiction
Paperback
First published September 1, 1967
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
January 2, 2014
THE BUMPER BOOK OF BUMS
Kenneth Allsops 1967 book "Hard Travellin': The History of the Migrant Worker" has sadly been out of print for over a dozen years. It is a lyrical account of the American migrant worker from the early years of American independence to the period when the author put pen to paper.
Allsop weaves his way between the idealised myth of the Hobo and the shadowy depictions of him as a threat to the established order to get at the real man or woman, or not infrequently the boy or girl, and the reality of their lives. Main Street U.S.A. has always had a love/hate relationship with the Migrant worker or Hobo, it has envied them their "freedom" and required them for seasonal labour at harvest time, or for heavy and temporary labour such as the laying of the railroads. But when the work is finished the response is to drive them elsewhere, often with the threat of or indeed actual violence. One article that exemplifies the brutal attitude towards the Hobo that the author quotes from at length includes the advice - "The simplest plan, probably, where one is not a member of the Humane Society, is to put a little strychnine [rat poison] or arsenic in the meat and other supplies furnished the tramp. This produces death in a comparatively short period of time, is a warning to other tramps to keep out of the neighbourhood. . ." Such are the ways of civilization, and this sage advice is not in some anonymous pamphlet but the Chicago Tribune.
The book captures the precarious existence of the Hobo, from the excitement and danger of "riding the rods" (climbing onto the support beams under a railroad wagon of which there is a photograph in the book and frankly it doesn't look either comfortable or safe- one slip and you are under the wheels) to the more mundane such as sitting through a three hour sermon at a mission in order to get some grub.
Other subjects the author goes into are the music, poetry and the writing that originated from the hobo culture - from Woody Guthrie to the Blues, the autobiographies of tramps to the apologetics of Carnegie and Pinkerton. Each chapter is generally prefaced by an account of a modern (1960's) migrant worker in their own words before the author delves into the past. Amongst the most fascinating parts of book is that on the Wobblies (members of the International Workers of the World); they organised the migrant workers in the period prior to World War One. They had considerable success in improving pay and conditions for the harvest hands, particularly when the surplus of man-power was curtailed during World War One; but were eventually broken, during the "red-scare" that followed on the footsteps of the war. Broken by the extreme violence that was a feature of American labour relations until recent times. Being shot, beaten up, judicially executed or being dropped off in the Nevada desert are some of the methods of the forces of law and order.
There is much more to the book than I can cover in a short review and though out of print it can still be picked up 2nd hand and I wouldn't hesitate for a second to recommend this lyrical account of the Migrant Worker which will fire your imagination and indignation for many a long hour.
Kenneth Allsops 1967 book "Hard Travellin': The History of the Migrant Worker" has sadly been out of print for over a dozen years. It is a lyrical account of the American migrant worker from the early years of American independence to the period when the author put pen to paper.
Allsop weaves his way between the idealised myth of the Hobo and the shadowy depictions of him as a threat to the established order to get at the real man or woman, or not infrequently the boy or girl, and the reality of their lives. Main Street U.S.A. has always had a love/hate relationship with the Migrant worker or Hobo, it has envied them their "freedom" and required them for seasonal labour at harvest time, or for heavy and temporary labour such as the laying of the railroads. But when the work is finished the response is to drive them elsewhere, often with the threat of or indeed actual violence. One article that exemplifies the brutal attitude towards the Hobo that the author quotes from at length includes the advice - "The simplest plan, probably, where one is not a member of the Humane Society, is to put a little strychnine [rat poison] or arsenic in the meat and other supplies furnished the tramp. This produces death in a comparatively short period of time, is a warning to other tramps to keep out of the neighbourhood. . ." Such are the ways of civilization, and this sage advice is not in some anonymous pamphlet but the Chicago Tribune.
The book captures the precarious existence of the Hobo, from the excitement and danger of "riding the rods" (climbing onto the support beams under a railroad wagon of which there is a photograph in the book and frankly it doesn't look either comfortable or safe- one slip and you are under the wheels) to the more mundane such as sitting through a three hour sermon at a mission in order to get some grub.
Other subjects the author goes into are the music, poetry and the writing that originated from the hobo culture - from Woody Guthrie to the Blues, the autobiographies of tramps to the apologetics of Carnegie and Pinkerton. Each chapter is generally prefaced by an account of a modern (1960's) migrant worker in their own words before the author delves into the past. Amongst the most fascinating parts of book is that on the Wobblies (members of the International Workers of the World); they organised the migrant workers in the period prior to World War One. They had considerable success in improving pay and conditions for the harvest hands, particularly when the surplus of man-power was curtailed during World War One; but were eventually broken, during the "red-scare" that followed on the footsteps of the war. Broken by the extreme violence that was a feature of American labour relations until recent times. Being shot, beaten up, judicially executed or being dropped off in the Nevada desert are some of the methods of the forces of law and order.
There is much more to the book than I can cover in a short review and though out of print it can still be picked up 2nd hand and I wouldn't hesitate for a second to recommend this lyrical account of the Migrant Worker which will fire your imagination and indignation for many a long hour.
August 23, 2018
I have read this book a few times in the 50 odd years I’ve had it. It’s the story of the migrant workers who hopped freight trains seeking work or following the harvest work. Most of these migrant workers were called “bums” but many weren’t. Many were seasonal workers who weren’t paid enough wages to afford to pay for transportation. They became known as “hoboes”. This book is a terrific read about their history from the years following the Civil War on. Unfortunately, this book is out of print but can be purchased from second book dealers.
When I was a child I used to ride my bike to a hill overlooking the Southern Pacific railroad line (the old “Espee”) the mail line across the Mojave Desert going east from Los Angeles. I loved to watch those big trains. There was a “Hobo Jungle” at the bottom of the hill and I would sit and watch the hobos coming and going and wonder what they saw and experienced out there ridin’ the rails. I wanted to walk down the hill and go ask them but I was “chicken.” One day my family loaded in the station wagon sometime in the 1950s to go for Sunday dinner at my grandmother’s house and I saw an old hobo walking down the tracks and I blurted out “Wow, look at that hobo! That’s what I want to be, a hobo.” My father who was driving said dryly “That figgers.” Reading this book every few decades fills seems to satisfy my yearning for the romance of the rails.
When I was a child I used to ride my bike to a hill overlooking the Southern Pacific railroad line (the old “Espee”) the mail line across the Mojave Desert going east from Los Angeles. I loved to watch those big trains. There was a “Hobo Jungle” at the bottom of the hill and I would sit and watch the hobos coming and going and wonder what they saw and experienced out there ridin’ the rails. I wanted to walk down the hill and go ask them but I was “chicken.” One day my family loaded in the station wagon sometime in the 1950s to go for Sunday dinner at my grandmother’s house and I saw an old hobo walking down the tracks and I blurted out “Wow, look at that hobo! That’s what I want to be, a hobo.” My father who was driving said dryly “That figgers.” Reading this book every few decades fills seems to satisfy my yearning for the romance of the rails.
August 30, 2011
Indispensable--as is the hobo history by Roger Bruns.
November 2, 2020
Packed with info about every aspect of hobohood. :)
February 9, 2011
Okay let's face it with this one, too. More so, even, than the JEOPARDY! book that I just, at long last, marked as "read" to get it out of my "currently-reading" list. I got to page 186 of 436 in this, and it was reasonably interesting reading. However, I wasn't making much progress on it, and I don't have my own copy, so it went back to the library eventually and I didn't manage to get it again. If I did own a copy, I'd be much more inclined to finish it. I guess I was looking more for depictions of the hobo life, and this book was more a history text about trends in hobodom and the like over the course of 19th- and 20th-century hobo history. Naturally it did focus, here and there, on some very interesting characters (perhaps chief among these was Saint Louis native and "Hobo Millionaire" James Eads How, grandson of that *other* widely known Saint Louisan James Eads)--or maybe I'm confusing it with some of the other hobo literature I was checking out around that time. I'm sure this book mentioned him too; it was quite thorough and seems more its style than that of some of the others. If you're looking for slice-of-life-style hobo stuff, at least three much-better recommendations spring immediately to mind ahead of this book, though (all of which I recommend without reserve). Someday, Mr. Allsop...
February 11, 2015
There is some very interesting material in this book, and Allsop's analysis of the hobo as a byproduct of the American economic system is well-presented. His overview of how migratory workers - farmhands, lumberjacks, railroad workers, miners and others - are used by industry and then discarded is compelling reading. Similarly his discussion of the tension between the American need for rootedness and stability and the seemingly equal imperative for mobility and the desire to discover what lies beyond the next mountain or over the next state line is insightful.
Unfortunately, many parts of the book are overwritten and at times Allsop's verbose prose distracted me from the points he was making. This is a real shame because there is much to learn in this book about how people came to the hobo life, how they lived on the road, and their feelings about their lives. Allsop also overdoes it with quotations - he frequently cites the work of sociologists, novelists, and ex-hobo memoirists, but it is not unusual for him to quote four or five consecutive paragraphs from a study or book. This seemed unnecessary to me.
If the book had been better written or had been more tightly edited, I would have awarded it more stars.
Still, I'll never hear Big Rock Candy Mountain the same way again!
Unfortunately, many parts of the book are overwritten and at times Allsop's verbose prose distracted me from the points he was making. This is a real shame because there is much to learn in this book about how people came to the hobo life, how they lived on the road, and their feelings about their lives. Allsop also overdoes it with quotations - he frequently cites the work of sociologists, novelists, and ex-hobo memoirists, but it is not unusual for him to quote four or five consecutive paragraphs from a study or book. This seemed unnecessary to me.
If the book had been better written or had been more tightly edited, I would have awarded it more stars.
Still, I'll never hear Big Rock Candy Mountain the same way again!
November 10, 2012
Not what I thought it was going to be. Not really on my recommend to others list.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews