On Hobos and HomelessnessNels Anderson was a pioneer in the study of the homeless. In the early 1920s Anderson combined his own experience "on the bummery," with his keen sociological insight to give voice to a largely ignored underclass. He remains an extraordinary and underrated figure in the history of American sociology. On Hobos and Homelessness includes Anderson's rich and vibrant ethnographic work of a world of homeless men. He conducted his study on Madison street in Chicago, and we come to intimately know this portion of the 1920s hobo underworld—the harshness of vagrant life and the adventures of young hobos who come to the big city. This selection also includes Anderson's later work on the juvenile and the tramp, the unattached migrant, and the family. Like John Steinbeck's Depression-era observations, Anderson's writings express the memory of those who do not seem entitled to have memory, whose lives were expressed in temporary labor. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
Introduction to the Phoenix Edition of the Hobo | 21 |
Hobohemia Defined | 32 |
The Jungles The Homeless Man Abroad | 42 |
The Lodging House The Homeless Man at Home | 50 |
The Hobo and the Tramp | 61 |
Summary of Findings and Recommendations | 68 |
Summary of a Study of Four Hundred Tramps Summer 1921 | 80 |
An Old Problem in New Form | 120 |
The Unattached Migrant | 140 |
Migrancy and the Labor Market | 161 |
A Family in the Hobomania Era | 185 |
The Sort of Jobs the Hobo Brought | 202 |
Some Dimensions of Time | 219 |
The Trend of Urban Sociology | 241 |
Urbanism as a Way of Life | 268 |
How and the Hobos Character Sketch of J E How Millionaire Hobo | 90 |
The Slum A Project for Study | 95 |
The Juvenile and the Tramp | 99 |
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Common terms and phrases
agencies agriculture American Anderson areas Army become boy tramp Burgess California camps cents Chicago Press Clearing House clock Coxey's Army earnings economic effort employment farm Farm Security Administration Father Federal Transient freight trains frontier Grant Park Hobo College Hobohemia immigrants individual industrial interest James Eads jungle land later learned leisure less Lewiston living Lodging House ment migrants migratory migratory workers Migratory-Casual mobility months Mother move movement Municipal occupations organization Park percent perhaps persons police population problem railroad Regenstein Library Reitman relations reported road rural seasonal slum social science society TABLE tempo tends tion town tramp tramp class types University of Chicago urban sociology usually vagrant W. I. Thomas wagon wandering Webb welfare West Madison Street winter York York City
References to this book
Sister of the Road: The Autobiography of Boxcar Bertha Box-Car Bertha,Ben Lewis Reitman No preview available - 2002 |
Homelessness in American Literature: Romanticism, Realism, and Testimony John Allen Limited preview - 2004 |