Two hoboes, one carrying a bindle, walking along railroad tracks after being put off a train (c. 1880sโ1930s)
A hobo is homeless in the United States.[1][2] Hoboes, tramps, and bums are generally regarded as related, but distinct: a hobo travels and is willing to work; a tramp travels, but avoids work if possible; a bum neither travels nor works.[3][4]
Etymology
The origin of the term is unknown. According to etymologist Anatoly Liberman, the only certain detail about its origin is the word was first noticed in American English circa 1890.[2] The term has also been dated to 1889 in the Westernโprobably NorthwesternโUnited States,[5] and to 1888.[6] Liberman points out that many folk etymologies fail to answer the question: "Why did the word become widely known in California (just there) by the early Nineties (just then)?"[2] Author Todd DePastino mentions possible derivations from "hoe-boy", meaning "farmhand", or a greeting "Ho, boy", but that he does not find these convincing.[7]Bill Bryson suggests in Made in America (1998) that it might come from the railroad greeting, "Ho, beau!" or a syllabic abbreviation of "homeward bound".[8] It could also come from the words "homeless boy" or "homeless Bohemian". H. L. Mencken, in his The American Language (4th ed., 1937), wrote:
Tramps and hobos are commonly lumped together, but in their own sight they are sharply differentiated. A hobo or bo is simply a migratory laborer; he may take some longish holidays, but soon or late he returns to work. A tramp never works if it can be avoided; he simply travels. Lower than either is the bum, who neither works nor travels, save when impelled to motion by the police.[9]
History
Two men riding underneath a freight train, 1894
While there have been drifters in every society, the term became common only after the broad adoption of railroads provided free, though illegal, travel by hopping aboard train cars. With the end of the American Civil War in the 1860s, many discharged veterans returning home began to hop freight trains. Others looking for work on the American frontier followed the railways west aboard freight trains in the late 19th century.
In 1906, Professor Layal Shafee, after an exhaustive study, put the number of tramps in the United States at about 500,000 (about 0.6% of the US population at the time). His article "What Tramps Cost Nation" was published by The New York Telegraph in 1911, when he estimated the number had surged to 700,000.[10]
The number of hoboes increased greatly during the Great Depression era of the 1930s.[11] With no work and no prospects at home, many decided to try their luck elsewhere by freight train.
Hobo life was dangerous. Itinerant, poor, far from home and support, hoboes also faced the hostility of many train crews and the railroad police, nicknamed "bulls", who often dealt violently with trespassers.[12] British poet W. H. Davies, author of The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp, lost a foot when he fell under the wheels trying to jump aboard a train. It was easy to get trapped between cars, and one could freeze to death in cold weather. When freezer cars were loaded at an ice factory, any hobo inside was likely to be killed.[13]
Around the end of World War II, railroads began to move from steam to diesel locomotives, making jumping freight trains more difficult. This, along with postwar prosperity, led to a decline in the number of hoboes. In the 1970s and 1980s hobo numbers were augmented by returning Vietnam War veterans, many of whom were disillusioned with settled society. Overall, the national economic demand for a mobile surplus labor force has declined over time, leading to fewer hoboes.[14][15]
Culture
Expressions used through the 1940s
Hoboes were noted for, among other things, the distinctive lingo that arose among them. Some examples follow:
Many hobo terms have become part of common language, such as "big house", "glad rags", "main drag", and others.
Hobo signs and graffiti
1920s guide to a supposed traditional beggar's code in France 1. Poor unwelcome, disagreeable people. 2. Danger. 3. Beware of prison. 4. Nothing doing. 5. Eats. 6. Can get anything by threatening. 7. Do not threaten the people in the house. 8. Take vengeance. 9. Might give in. 10. Look out for the dog. 11. Brutal owner. 12. Money given here. 13. Men and dogs ready to attack. 14. Woman alone with child or servant. 15. Hard luck stories are profitable. 16. Charity given. 17. Insist and they'll give in. 18. Talk religion
Almost from the beginning of the existence of hoboes, as early as the 1870s,[17] it was reported that they communicated with each other by way of a system of cryptic "hobo signs", which would be chalked in prominent or relevant places to clandestinely alert future hoboes about important local information. Many listings of these symbols have been made. A few symbols include:
A triangle with hands, signifying that the homeowner has a gun.[18]
Reports of hoboes using these symbols appeared in newspapers and popular books straight through the Depression, and continue to turn up in American popular culture; for example, John Hodgman's book The Areas of My Expertise features a section on hobo signs listing signs found in newspapers of the day as well as several whimsical ones invented by Hodgman,[20] and the Free Art and Technology Lab released a QR Hobo Code, with a QR stenciler, in July 2011.[21] Displays on hobo signs have been exhibited in the Steamtown National Historic Site at Scranton, Pennsylvania, operated by the National Park Service, and in the National Cryptologic Museum in Annapolis Junction, Maryland,[22][23] and Webster's Third New International Dictionary supplies a listing of hobo signs under the entry for "hobo".[24]
Despite an apparently strong record of authentication, however, there is doubt as to whether hobo signs were ever actually in practical use by hoboes. They may simply have been invented early on by a writer or writers seeking to add to the folklore surrounding hoboes soon after they acquired the name, an invention perpetuated and embellished by others over the years, aided occasionally by amenable hoboes themselves.[17] Several hoboes during the days that the signs were reportedly most in use asserted that they were in fact a "popular fancy" or "a fabrication".[17]Nels Anderson, who both hoboed himself and studied hoboes extensively for a University of Chicago master's thesis,[17] wrote in 1932,
Another merit of the book [Godfrey Irwin's 1931 American Tramp and Underworld Slang] is that the author has not subscribed to the fiction that American tramps have a sign language, as so many professors are wont to believe.[25]
Though newspapers in the early and peak days of hoboing (1870s through the Depression) printed photos and drawings of hoboes leaving these signs, these may have been staged in order to add color to the story.
Nonetheless, it is certain that hoboes have used some graffiti to communicate, in the form of "monikers" (sometimes "monicas"). These generally consisted simply of a road name (moniker), a date, and the direction the hobo was heading then. This would be written in a prominent location where other hoboes would see it. Jack London, in recounting his hobo days, wrote,
Water-tanks are tramp directories. Not all in idle wantonness do tramps carve their monicas, dates, and courses. Often and often have I met hoboes earnestly inquiring if I had seen anywhere such and such a "stiff" or his monica. And more than once I have been able to give the monica of recent date, the water-tank, and the direction in which he was then bound. And promptly the hobo to whom I gave the information lit out after his pal. I have met hoboes who, in trying to catch a pal, had pursued clear across the continent and back again, and were still going.[26]
The use of monikers persists to this day, although since the rise of cell phones a moniker is more often used simply to "tag" a train car or location. Some moniker writers have tagged train cars extensively; one who tagged under the name Bozo Texino during the 1970s and โ80s estimated that in one year ("where I went overboard") he marked over 30,000 train cars.[27] However, not all moniker writers (or "boxcar artists") are hoboes; Bozo Texino in fact worked for the railroad, though others such as "A No. 1" and "Palm Tree Herby" rode trains as tramps or hoboes.[27][28]
Ethical code
Hobo cultureโthough it has always had many points of contact with the mainstream American culture of its dayโhas also always been somewhat separate and distinct, with different cultural norms. Hobo culture's ethics have always been subject to disapproval from the mainstream culture; for example, hopping freight trains, an integral part of hobo life, has always been illegal in the U.S. Nonetheless, the ethics of hobo culture can be regarded as fairly coherent and internally consistent, at least to the extent that any culture's various individual people maintain the same ethical standards. That is to say, any attempt at an exhaustive enumeration of hobo ethics is bound to be foiled at least to some extent by the diversity of hoboes and their ideas of the world. This difficulty has not kept hoboes themselves from attempting the exercise. An ethical code was created by Tourist Union #63 (a hobo union created in the mid-1800s to dodge anti-vagrancy laws, which did not apply to union members)[29] during its 1889 National Hobo Convention:[30]
Decide your own life; don't let another person run or rule you.
When in town, always respect the local law and officials, and try to be a gentleman at all times.
Don't take advantage of someone who is in a vulnerable situation, locals or other hoboes.
Always try to find work, even if temporary, and always seek out jobs nobody wants. By doing so you not only help a business along, but ensure employment should you return to that town again.
When no employment is available, make your own work by using your added talents at crafts.
Do not allow yourself to become a stupid drunk and set a bad example for locals' treatment of other hoboes.
When jungling in town, respect handouts and do not wear them out; another hobo will be coming along who will need them as badly, if not worse than you.
Always respect nature; do not leave garbage where you are jungling.
If in a community jungle, always pitch in and help.
Try to stay clean, and boil up wherever possible.
When traveling, ride your train respectfully. Take no personal chances. Cause no problems with operating crew or host railroad. Act like an extra crew member.
Do not cause problems in a train yard; another hobo will be coming along who will need passage through that yard.
Do not allow other hoboes to molest children; expose all molesters to authorities โ they are the worst garbage to infest any society.
Help all runaway children, and try to induce them to return home.
Help your fellow hoboes whenever and wherever needed; you may need their help someday.
If present at a hobo court and you have testimony, give it. Whether for or against the accused, your voice counts!
Conventions
General
There are numerous hobo conventions throughout the United States each year. The ephemeral ways of hobo conventions are mostly dependent on the resources of their hosts. Some conventions are part of railroad conventions or "railroad days"; others quasi-private affairs hosted by long-time hoboes; still others surreptitious affairs on private land, as in abandoned quarries along major rivers.[citation needed]
Most non-mainstream conventions are held at current or historical railroad stops. The most notable is the National Hobo Convention held in Britt, Iowa.[citation needed] The town first hosted the Convention in 1900, but there followed a hiatus of thirty-three years. Since 1934 the convention has been held annually in Britt, on the second weekend in August.[31]
Bertha Thompson, a.k.a. "Boxcar Bertha", was widely believed to be a real person. Sister of the Road was penned by Ben Reitman and presented as an autobiography.
Jim Tully, an author who penned several pulp fiction books, 1928 through 1945.
The Areas of My Expertise by John Hodgman - Humor book which features a lengthy section on hoboes, including a list of 700 hobo names which spawned an online effort to illustrate the complete list.
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair contains a section in which the main character, Jurgis Rudkus, abandons his family in Chicago and becomes a hobo for a while.
USA Comics #2 (1941) introduced Vagabond, a police officer named Pat Murphy who created an alter ego, Chauncey Throttlebottom III, a well-spoken hobo, to fight crime.
USA Comics #5 (1941) had a character, Butch Brogan, alias Fighting Hobo, that helps save a kidnapped puppy in "The Dog-Nappers".
The Human Experience, (2008), a documentary by Charles Kinnane. The first experience follows Jeffrey and his brother Clifford to the streets of New York City where the boys live with the homeless for a week in one of the coldest winters on record. The boys look for hope and camaraderie among their homeless companions, learning how to survive on the streets.
Vagabond (1985) (French title: Sans Toit Ni Loi), directed by Agnรจs Varda, tells the story of a traveling woman's untimely death through flashbacks and interviews with the people who met her.
Man of Steel (2013) depicts Clark Kent living as a homeless itinerant worker before ultimately taking the mantle of Superman and finding work as a reporter at the Daily Planet.
Many animated cartoons depict hoboes as main or secondary characters, hobo-related activities such as traveling by train, with a bindle, or in the company of hoboes. For example, Warner Brothers' Box Car Blues (1930) with Bosko, Hobo Gadget Band (1939), MGM's Henpecked Hoboes (1946) with George and Junior in their first appearance, Mouse Wreckers (1948), 8 Ball Bunny (1950) with Bugs Bunny, and The Easter Bunny Is Comin' to Town (1977).
King of the Hobos (2014), a one-man musical that premiered at Emerging Artists Theatre in New York City, is centered around the death of James Eads How, known during his lifetime as the "Millionaire Hobo".[46]
Shameless (Season 9), Episode 10 and 11. Frank Gallagher becomes part of a hobo competition, a competition looking for the best hobo in Chicago.
Reacher (Season 1), Episode 2. Reacher insists he is not a vagrant, but a hobo.
Murdoch Mysteries (Season 16), Episode 17 "The Ballad of Gentleman Jones" (2023). Murdoch investigates a series of murders of hobos in 1910 Toronto. Crabtree and Watts pose as hobos in an effort to find the killer.
^Van Ronk, Dave. The Mayor of MacDougal Street. 2005.
^"Dale Wasserman, 94; Playwright Created 'Man of La Mancha'" obituary by Dennis McLellan of the Los Angeles Times, printed in The Washington Post December 29, 2008.
Brady, Jonann (2005). "Hobos Elect New King and Queen". ABC Good Morning America, includes Todd "Ad Man" Waters' last ride as reigning Hobo King plus hobo slide show with Adman's photo's taken on the road.
Davis, Jason (2007). "The Hobo", On The Road 30 minute special. KSTP television. Covers "Ad Man" Waters taking his daughter out on her first freight ride.
