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osprey_archerThomas Minehan’s Boy and Girl Tramps of America blew my tiny mind. It’s exactly the book I wanted Nels Anderson’s Hobos and Homelessness to be: an in-depth, up-close look at the lives of young tramps during the Great Depression (Minehan did his fieldwork from 1932-1934), rich with anecdotes and details about life on the road.
Minehan learns, for instance, that when begging, it’s best to “to ask for just a little. Hit a guy for a nickel or a couple pennies and he’ll give you a dime. Hit him for a dime and he’ll give youse a stony stare.” In the same vein, another boy advises, “I always ask if there isn’t something I can do for a meal or a piece of bread… The chances are she doesn’t want to be bothered having me work and if anything to eat is handy she will give it to me and say never mind the work.” He ought to know: he once got a whole raisin pie that way.
Begging is also the best way to get clothes - although you can also steal them off the clothesline, if you’ve got to, after dark is the best time for that. Any tramp who has been on the road for six months, Minehan reckons, has probably been forced into a little petty thievery - not least by the fact that relief agencies never give out clothes, only needles and threads and patches.
And the road’s damn hard on clothes, for all that the kids try to take care of them. Minehan notes one clothes-conscious young man’s routine as he prepared to flip a train: “Ole removed his tie and put it in his pocket, turned his coat and cap inside out to protect them from the inevitable soot, pulled the collar of his cleanest shirt down, his outer shirt and coat collar up, and fastened both with a large safety pin.”
But inevitably clothes are worn out by the dirt of the railway cars, the necessity of being out in all weathers, and the fact that tramps wear their clothes day and night with only occasional chance to wash them. And they really do wear all their clothes; you might carry a spare pair of socks and underwear in your pocket, but only greenhorns carry a bindle. (So much for the hobo costumes in Halloween costume books!)
For all that, though, “the condition of road rags worries either boy or girl just as much as high school clothing styles worry more fortunate youngsters. A boy is self-conscious about a dirty face, long hair, a fuzz-covered chin; a girl will be ashamed to appear on the streets in too poor clothing. Proud of a new pair of shoes or a new cap, a boy will strut, a girl will preen and bridle. If he is old enough to shave, a boy likes to carry a razor.”
There are, Minehan notes, a fair number of girls on the road, “dressed in overalls or army breeches and boys’ coats or sweaters - looking, except for their dirt and rags, like a Girl Scout club on an outing.” But it’s a hard life for a girl: the relief agencies where boys can go for food and a bed, whoever scant and hard, send girls directly to jail. Girls on the road are thus almost forced into prostitution - although Minehan does meet one girl who has taken up burglary instead. Occasionally girls leave home with a boy - sometimes it’s sort of a Romeo-and-Juliet thing, their families tried to break up the relationship but instead the kids ran away - but “the majority left home not in company with a boy, but with another girl.”
Naturally I was fascinated by this tidbit, but Minehan doesn’t expand on it. We do, however, get quite a lot of information about male homosexuality: Minehan notes, “One of the first lessons that a boy learns on the road is to beware of certain older men,” who will try to bribe them with tobacco and bananas or lure them to some dark corner of the railway yard and force them.
I could go on. I haven’t mentioned the time that Minehan and company get locked up in jail for the night and sleep on the floor while the actual criminals get beds in cells, or the fantastic hobo jungles he visits, like the river cave converted into a snug winter den. Or Peg-Leg Al, who lost his leg in an accident flipping a train, and made himself a new one out of two-by-fours; or Blink, who lost his eye when a live cinder flew in it. Or the food! God, the Dickensian food in the relief stations: the soup “thin, watery, lukewarm, tasteless, and served without even stale bread, and never with soda crackers. A portion equals a small cupful.”
But at some point there is nothing left to say, except that this book was a fascinating glimpse of a whole new world for me, and if you have any interest in the Depression or tramps then it’s well worth reading.
Minehan learns, for instance, that when begging, it’s best to “to ask for just a little. Hit a guy for a nickel or a couple pennies and he’ll give you a dime. Hit him for a dime and he’ll give youse a stony stare.” In the same vein, another boy advises, “I always ask if there isn’t something I can do for a meal or a piece of bread… The chances are she doesn’t want to be bothered having me work and if anything to eat is handy she will give it to me and say never mind the work.” He ought to know: he once got a whole raisin pie that way.
Begging is also the best way to get clothes - although you can also steal them off the clothesline, if you’ve got to, after dark is the best time for that. Any tramp who has been on the road for six months, Minehan reckons, has probably been forced into a little petty thievery - not least by the fact that relief agencies never give out clothes, only needles and threads and patches.
And the road’s damn hard on clothes, for all that the kids try to take care of them. Minehan notes one clothes-conscious young man’s routine as he prepared to flip a train: “Ole removed his tie and put it in his pocket, turned his coat and cap inside out to protect them from the inevitable soot, pulled the collar of his cleanest shirt down, his outer shirt and coat collar up, and fastened both with a large safety pin.”
But inevitably clothes are worn out by the dirt of the railway cars, the necessity of being out in all weathers, and the fact that tramps wear their clothes day and night with only occasional chance to wash them. And they really do wear all their clothes; you might carry a spare pair of socks and underwear in your pocket, but only greenhorns carry a bindle. (So much for the hobo costumes in Halloween costume books!)
For all that, though, “the condition of road rags worries either boy or girl just as much as high school clothing styles worry more fortunate youngsters. A boy is self-conscious about a dirty face, long hair, a fuzz-covered chin; a girl will be ashamed to appear on the streets in too poor clothing. Proud of a new pair of shoes or a new cap, a boy will strut, a girl will preen and bridle. If he is old enough to shave, a boy likes to carry a razor.”
There are, Minehan notes, a fair number of girls on the road, “dressed in overalls or army breeches and boys’ coats or sweaters - looking, except for their dirt and rags, like a Girl Scout club on an outing.” But it’s a hard life for a girl: the relief agencies where boys can go for food and a bed, whoever scant and hard, send girls directly to jail. Girls on the road are thus almost forced into prostitution - although Minehan does meet one girl who has taken up burglary instead. Occasionally girls leave home with a boy - sometimes it’s sort of a Romeo-and-Juliet thing, their families tried to break up the relationship but instead the kids ran away - but “the majority left home not in company with a boy, but with another girl.”
Naturally I was fascinated by this tidbit, but Minehan doesn’t expand on it. We do, however, get quite a lot of information about male homosexuality: Minehan notes, “One of the first lessons that a boy learns on the road is to beware of certain older men,” who will try to bribe them with tobacco and bananas or lure them to some dark corner of the railway yard and force them.
I could go on. I haven’t mentioned the time that Minehan and company get locked up in jail for the night and sleep on the floor while the actual criminals get beds in cells, or the fantastic hobo jungles he visits, like the river cave converted into a snug winter den. Or Peg-Leg Al, who lost his leg in an accident flipping a train, and made himself a new one out of two-by-fours; or Blink, who lost his eye when a live cinder flew in it. Or the food! God, the Dickensian food in the relief stations: the soup “thin, watery, lukewarm, tasteless, and served without even stale bread, and never with soda crackers. A portion equals a small cupful.”
But at some point there is nothing left to say, except that this book was a fascinating glimpse of a whole new world for me, and if you have any interest in the Depression or tramps then it’s well worth reading.
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Date: 2020-11-28 09:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-11-30 11:41 pm (UTC)