This sociological classic shows how the railroad tramp’s status as a deviant changed from frontier itinerant to post settlement vagrant; from class conscious proletariat in the Depression to the damaged post WWII vet. The third edition (with new photos) discusses how today the freights have become the milieu of violent gangs who transport drugs, human traffickers, and serial killers. Beating the odds against increased post 9/11 surveillance are yuppie adventure seekers, young travelers, crust punks and oogles. In the background is the same freight train―unforgiving and lethal―and cultures policed at times by honorable tramps and at times by sadistic enforcers of violent gangs. Features of the new edition: Eight previously unpublished photos that reflect new directions in visual ethnography. (90 photos altogether) A fuller integration of photos made during the author’s participant research with tramps over thousands of miles on the freights and while living homeless in urban America. New, nuanced edit of a narrative describing author’s five week immersion with the quintessential tramp of the era, Carl.

Presents a collection of essasys and short stories.

Product Description: Good Company: A Tramp Life, is a vivid portrait of a lifestyle long part of America's history, yet rapidly disappearing. The author traveled extensively by freight train to gain rich insights into the elusive world of the tramp. Richly illustrated with 85 photographs by the author, the book presents the homeless man as an individual who "drank, migrated, and worked at day labor" rather than the stereotype of a victim of alcoholism...read more

Product Description: Another wonderful slice of political, cultural, and social history. The work is full of the lyrics, art, and photographs of people and their times. “The music and poetry of black workers in motion - hoboing, hitchhiking, timbering, mining, railroading, loving, leaving, fighting back and searching for a new job, a new life and even a new world are brilliantly recorded and explained in this arresting collection...read more

Product Description: Drawn from intimate interviews with 14 modern-day "steel rail nomads," One More Train to Ride provides a revealing picture of today’s American hobo. Interspersed with their stories are original poems and songs echoing the ancient lyricism and loneliness of life on the road...read more

Through letters and photographs, profiles teenagers who hopped the freight trains during the Great Depression in order to find adventure, seek employment, or escape poverty. (view table of contents)

Nels Anderson was a pioneer in the study of the homeless. In the early 1920s Anderson combined his own experience "on the bummery," with his keen sociological insight to give voice to a largely ignored underclass. He remains an extraordinary and underrated figure in the history of American sociology.On Hobos and Homelessness includes Anderson's rich and vibrant ethnographic work of a world of homeless men. He conducted his study on Madison street in Chicago, and we come to intimately know this portion of the 1920s hobo underworld—the harshness of vagrant life and the adventures of young hobos who come to the big city. This selection also includes Anderson's later work on the juvenile and the tramp, the unattached migrant, and the family. Like John Steinbeck's Depression-era observations, Anderson's writings express the memory of those who do not seem entitled to have memory, whose lives were expressed in temporary labor. (view table of contents)

Profiles Montana Blackie, an elderly hobo who first hit the roads during the Great Depression, as he reminisces about his life and laments the changing attitude toward the homeless. By the author of And Their Children After Them.

In this account of the author's cross-country trek by freight train he explores the hidden, rapidly vanishing world of tramps, a world characterized by discomfort, monotony, and fierce independence