Boxcar Politics: The Hobo in U.S. Culture and Literature, 1869-1956

by John Lennon

Overview

The hobo is a figure ensconced in the cultural fabric of the United States. Once categorized as a member of a homeless army who ought to be jailed or killed, the hobo has evolved into a safe, grandfatherly exemplar of Americana. Boxcar Politics reestablishes the hobo's political thorns.

John Lennon maps the rise and demise of the political hobo from the nineteenth-century introduction of the transcontinental railroad to the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956. Intertwining literary, historical, and theoretical representations of the hobo, he explores how riders and writers imagined alternative ways that working-class people could use mobility to create powerful dissenting voices outside of fixed hierarchal political organizations. Placing portrayals of hobos in the works of Jack London, Jim Tully, John Dos Passos, and Jack Kerouac alongside the lived reality of people hopping trains (including hobos of the IWW, the Scottsboro Boys, and those found in numerous long-forgotten memoirs), Lennon investigates how these marginalized individuals exerted collective political voices through subcultural practices.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781625341204
Publisher:	University of Massachusetts Press
Publication date:	10/14/2014
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	232
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.70(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

John Lennon is assistant professor of English at the University of South Florida.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments vii

Introduction 1

1 Views from the Boxcar: A Historical and Theoretical Framing of Boxcar Politics 12

2 The Cramped Boxcar: Jack London and Kelly's Industrial Army 59

3 The Polyphonic Boxcar: The Hobo in Jim Tully's Beggars of Life 85

4 The Radicalized Boxcar: Hobos, the "Speech of the People," and John Dos Passos's U.S.A. 105

5 The Interracial Boxcar: Scottsboro, the Great Depression, and Wild Boys of the Road 131

6 The Spiritual Boxcar: Lostness in On the Road and the End of the Political Hobo 157

Afterword: The End of Boxcar Politics 178

Notes 191

Index 217

What People are Saying About This

Mark Simpson

By advancing a more nuanced account of the range of political possibilities on offer in the U.S. hobo subculture, Lennon certainly develops the coordinates for a significant contribution to Americanist literary and cultural studies.

Todd DePastino

One shining achievement of this book is the way Lennon expertly weaves the story of Scottsboro into the narrative of hobo history and the history of transience and its representations in Great Depression America. The author treats the central issues of race and gender, as well as class, with great clarity and intelligence.

Editorial Reviews

"By advancing a more nuanced account of the range of political possibilities on offer in the U.S. hobo subculture, Lennon certainly develops the coordinates for a significant contribution to Americanist literary and cultural studies."—Mark Simpson, author of Trafficking Subjects: The Politics of Mobility in Nineteenth-Century America

"One shining achievement of this book is the way Lennon expertly weaves the story of Scottsboro into the narrative of hobo history and the history of transience and its representations in Great Depression America. The author treats the central issues of race and gender, as well as class, with great clarity and intelligence."—Todd DePastino, author of Citizen Hobo: How a Century of Homelessness Shaped America

"Lennon provides a unique discussion of the 1931 case of the Scottsboro nine as he presents both black men accused of rape and the white women who denounced them as representative of little-discussed subgroups within the larger hobo narrative, which has largely been the story of white males."—Journal of American History

"Insightful . . . this is a well-researched and well-written study. It is of use to anyone interested in American labor history, the history of U.S. transportation, and the Great Depression. It also contains nuanced insights into a wide array of fiction, music, and film concerned with the depiction of the American Hobo. Boxcar Politics is a valuable and recommended study."—American Studies

"Lennon's book reminds us how pervasive the hobo figure was in American life, surfacing not only to beg at the backdoor or work the fruit harvest, but also in the latest literary journal."—Grand Prarie Union News

From the Publisher

Lennon's book reminds us how pervasive the hobo figure was in American life, surfacing not only to beg at the backdoor or work the fruit harvest, but also in the latest literary journal.

Grand Prarie Union News

Insightful... this is a well-researched and well-written study. It is of use to anyone interested in American labor history, the history of U.S. transportation, and the Great Depression. It also contains nuanced insights into a wide array of fiction, music, and film concerned with the depiction of the American Hobo. Boxcar Politics is a valuable and recommended study.

American Studies

Lennon provides a unique discussion of the 1931 case of the Scottsboro nine as he presents both black men accused of rape and the white women who denounced them as representative of little-discussed subgroups within the larger hobo narrative, which has largely been the story of white males.

Journal of American History