An Exploration Of The Modern American Hobo Through Memoir

â€Å"Where have all the hobos gone to†: An Exploration of the Modern American Hobo Through Memoir Perhaps you have heard about them in songs like Harry McClintock’s â€Å"Big Rock Candy Mountain† or John Prine’s â€Å"The Hobo Song†. Maybe you’ve read about them in the stories like Horatio Alger’s Tony, the Tramp or seen them depicted in animated cartoon shorts like Merry Melodies â€Å"Hobo Gadget Band†. They go by a variety of names: hobo, tramp, vagabond, bum, traveler. When asked to describe a hobo perhaps you recall the Norman Rockwell painting â€Å"Hobo and Dog†- complete with patchwork clothes, stick and bindle. Maybe you imagine a depression era young man sitting in a box car or a villainous old transient out to cause harm. As John Prine’s â€Å"The Hobo†¦show more content†¦While this practice was somewhat tolerated, it was in contrast to the era’s idea of the hard-working, self-made man and was considered to be lazy and cowardly (995). Tramps were â€Å"demonized [by cultural elites who] failed to acknowledge the vital role [such a] mobile population played in the project of US industrialization† (997). A strange juxtaposition formed. The idea that hard work always paid off was in stark contrast with the fact that there was a real lack of consistent work opportunities. Instead of the upper class seeing the need for transiency in order for these workers to survive, the tramp was seen as willfully living on the fringe of society and â€Å"removing themselves from fundamental American institutions† (998). The upper and middle class viewed the tramp as lacking work ethic and morality, giving rise to the stereotype that they possessed the potential to be dangerous and wild (998). This was further epitomized by the railroad strike of 1877. The violence of these strikes created a perfect situation to further the stereotype of the dangerous and wild hobo, as Photinos describes in her article, â€Å"The Tramp in Gilded Age Success Narratives†: Eighty tho usand striking railroad workers were joined in the streets of the nation’s cities by thousands of other laborers suffering from repeated wage cuts as well as by throngs of homeless and jobless.