Sheena Morrison is writing a three part history of the American Hobo. Follow this link for part one.
“Missing Inventor Found in Reno Hobo Jungle,” read the 1958 headline of the Tucson Daily Citizen. Elmer Meukel, a 41-year-old self-taught engineer, who deserted his wife and three children, was found by a reporter after three months of life as a hobo, hitchhiking and freight-hopping in one of the transient hobo communities. “Bills were piling up,” explained Meukel. From the article it is not clear whether he intended to drift indefinitely or – like the hobo of the late nineteenth century – left his home in search of work.
“Missing Inventor Found in Reno Hobo Jungle,” read the 1958 headline of the Tucson Daily Citizen. Elmer Meukel, a 41-year-old self-taught engineer, who deserted his wife and three children, was found by a reporter after three months of life as a hobo, hitchhiking and freight-hopping in one of the transient hobo communities. “Bills were piling up,” explained Meukel. From the article it is not clear whether he intended to drift indefinitely or – like the hobo of the late nineteenth century – left his home in search of work.
Hundreds of thousands of displaced Americans, mainly young, white, single, and unskilled or semiskilled men, traveled by freight cars in search of seasonal employment, marking the beginning of an unprecedented culture of transience. Although women, African-Americans, and immigrants could be counted among them, there were comparatively few.
In clothing layered with dust, a bundle tied to a stick, and calloused hands, hoboes were a familiar sight in towns and cities located near railroads during the first half of the twentieth century. The shift from an agricultural to industrial society, completion of the Union Pacific Railroad in 1869, which connected the West and East Coasts of the US to promote commerce, followed by the depressions of 1873, 1879 and later The Great Depression of 1929, created the social conditions for a migratory lifestyle that was romanticized by some, ruled perilous and unjust by others.