robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

We have a family membership in the Southern California Railway Museum and I am in the operations department though these days I just go out and announce for major events.
In a grove of trees on the south side of the streetcar loop line in the middle of the museum some of the members constructed and maintained a depression era Hobo Camp and this structure is one of those in the camp. Note the old metal cracker box, the picture of FDR and other authentic era pieces in the display.
There is a group of reenactors and some folk singers who will sometimes come to the museum and camp out here during large events to make "hobo coffee" & "hobo stew" in pots over a campfire and sit around the fire singing all the old depression era folk and railroad songs. Seeing them in the grove at night you can feel you are back in the depression in a "Hobo Jungle".
Back in those days the ones who called themselves "Hobos" were very definite that they were not "Bums". They would tell you that Bums were thieves etc while Hobos were honest workers traveling around taking and doing any jobs they could find to send money home to their families. They did hop rides on trains. But that was because it was a way to get around looking for work.

6D, 24-105L @ 58, 1/125 @ f/6.3, ISO-100 hand held
I like the color for the warm tones added by the wood but some prefer "aged" B&W shots of this kind of subject.
You decide.

(Download)


(Download)

justhercamera Loc: NW Michigan

I can only imagine. Wonderful photos and telling of the story, so to speak. My mom (born 1936) used to tell us about hobos that would come by their house now and then, looking for food. When there was some to be spared, my grandparents shared. They lived near the train tracks.

L-Fox

RSPB Loc: New York

My mom (born 1916) and my aunt also remember the hobos coming up the back alley and to the side door to ask for something to eat in exchange for work. My grandmother would make them a sandwich served on the picnic table in the back yard. This was in Scranton,Pa. They did not live near the tracks, and someone later told my grandmother that they left some sort of mark in the alley that let others know "kind lady - will feed you" , or something on that order.

jaymatt Loc: Alexandria, Indiana

Interesting.

Quixdraw Loc: x

Nice - and the language of chalk RSBP mentioned Link https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/a25174860/hobo-code/

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

Thank you. Hopping a train was their way to get around, then walk or hitch hike. During harvest season and planting season they flocked to the agriculture areas. The rest of the year they scattered to find what ever they could. I have read of some railroad people who would either turn a blind eye to the freight hopping or have them clean freight cars to "earn" their rides.
At the museum we have a couple of cars that were set up for "cowboys" to ride along on cattle/stock trains to move the animals on and off for water etc on long trips. To make the work easier many of them would get a few hobos to ride along and help care for the animals in exchange for the ride and food.

The author Louis L'Amour lived the Hobo life for some time before getting his "ticket" as a seaman. I have many of his books including "Education of a Wondering Man" about that part of his life. He dropped out of school at 15 in 1923 and wondered the world looking for work or just gathering knowledge and memories for his writing (under several pen names). He tried to make it as a writer but his wondering life kept up until WW II when he was an officer in the US Army in Europe. After the war he became successful as a writer until his death in 1988 at age 80. "Wondering Man" was finished and published by his family the next year. They discovered that he had a huge volume of drafts, unfinished books and stories etc plus records of short stories etc done under numerous pen names and continued to finish and publish books and collections of those short stories for several years.
One of the statements he put in his books was that every place or historic person he wrote of actually existed and he had been to or met almost all of them - only his characters were fiction.

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

Yes they had a code of marks they left on fences etc as well as word-of-mouth knowledge passed around.

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

thanks

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

thanks and your link is very interesting

Harry0 Loc: Gardena, Cal

The original "hobo" moniker was a shortened version of "homeward bound".
The war was ending, and several austerity, autocratic and finance diversions were implemented.
Then- as now- a "financial crisis" meant huuge bail outs for the institutions that created it.
Many factory and farm workers who became soldiers found that their savings never made it home.
They disembarked- and no where to go. Properties were foreclosed, and families were disbursed.
So they wandered, looking for work, for families, for friends, for a future. Hoovervilles everywhere.
The pendulum swings, two presidents later and the country was recovering. Finally.
No they were not "bums". They were "us", put in a bad spot by our government overseers.
They were the original "forgottan man", portrayed in plays, songs and movies, before the term was recently perverted and diverted for political purposes by the people who created the problems to begin with.

Manglesphoto Loc: 70 miles south of St.Louis

Very nice images , I like the mono-tone image best
But the scene set is is just way too neat and clean!!
I remember being taken to a Shanty Town under the east approach of the McArthur Bridge in the early fifties by my father when he donated some salvaged Cork insulation he had taken out of some junk Ice Cream cabinets. On the way into the "town" we passed several Hobo encampments and there was nothing neat or clean about them.
I saw on TV about a year later the destruction of the Shanty Town by fire, the people were headed out with only the clothes on their backs. I know there was a lack sanitation in these areas but instead of helping the people they were just displaced and what little they did have went up in smoke.
I'M sorry I didn't mean to Hijack your thread, but the memory just got the better of me.

Blair Shaw Jr Loc: Dunnellon,Florida

I like that he had a photo of FDR on the upper strut of the lean-to. Classy Indeed

BudsOwl Loc: Upstate NY and New England

Your photo and story remind me of a 76 rpm record by “Hobo Jack (I think it was Turner)” who sang a couple of songs. One was “The Big Rock Candy Mountain” which Burl Ives later sang and on the flip side was a song that went “I’m glad I’m a bum ...” That also may have been its name. This was from records my grandfather played for us on his windup Victrola in the 1930s.
Bud