By Clint Weiler
Screaming Toilet
August 13th, 2018
From
the 1870s until the Second World War, millions of Americans left their
homes to board freight trains that would carry them vast distances,
sometimes to waiting work, often to points unknown. Congregating in
skid rows, socializing around campfires, and bringing in the nation’s
crops, these drifters were set apart from conformist America by a
lifestyle possessing its own haunts, vocabulary, and cultural, sexual,
and ethical standards. Alternately derided and lionized for their
footloose ways and nonconformity, hoboes played a crucial and largely
neglected role in the creation of not only America’s infrastructure,
industry, and agriculture but also its culture, politics, and music.
The first anthology of its kind, On the Fly!
brings forth the lost voices of Hobohemia. Dozens of stories, poems,
songs, stories, and articles produced by hoboes are brought together to
create an insider history of the subculture’s rise and fall.
Adrenaline-charged tales of train hopping, scams, and political
agitation are combined with humorous and satirical songs, razor sharp
reportage and unique insights into the lives of the women and men who
crisscrossed America in search of survival and adventure.
From
iconic figures such as labor martyr Joe Hill and socialist novelist Jack
London through to pioneering blues and country musicians, and little
known correspondents for the likes of the Hobo News, the authors and songwriters contained in On the Fly!
run the full gamut of Hobohemia’s wide cultural and geographical
embrace. With little of the original memoirs, literature, and verse
remaining in print, this collection, aided by a glossary of hobo
vernacular and numerous illustrations and photos, provides a
comprehensive and entertaining guide to the life and times of a uniquely
American icon. Read on to enter a world where hoboes, tramps,
radicals, and bums gather in jungles, flop houses, and boxcars; where
gandy dancers, bindlestiffs, and timber beasts roam the rails once
more.
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