Good Company: A Tramp Life / Edition 1

by Douglas Harper

Overview

Good Company: A Tramp Life, is a vivid portrait of a lifestyle long part of America's history, yet rapidly disappearing. The author traveled extensively by freight train to gain rich insights into the elusive world of the tramp. Richly illustrated with 85 photographs by the author, the book presents the homeless man as an individual who "drank, migrated, and worked at day labor" rather than the stereotype of a victim of alcoholism. The tramps with whom Harper shared boxcars and hobo jungles were the labor force that harvested the crops in most of the apple orchards in the Pacific Northwest. They were drawn to the harvest from across the United States and migrated primarily on freight trains, as had hobos in the 1930s. Although not without its problems, the tramp way of life is a fierce and independent culture that has been an integral part of our American identity and an important part of our agricultural economy. Since the first edition of this classic book was published by the University of Chicago Press, the tramp has virtually disappeared from the American social landscape. The agricultural labor force is now made up of Hispanic migrants. This significantly revised and updated edition contrasts this disappearing lifestyle with the homelessness of the modern era, which has been produced by different economic and sociological forces, all of which have worked against the continuation of the tramp as a social species. The new edition richly documents the transition in our society from "tramps" to urban homelessness and the many social, political, and policy changes attendant to this transformation. It also includes an additional thirty-five previously unpublished photographs from the original research.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781594511844
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	11/15/2006
Edition description:	Expanded
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 10.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Douglas Harper is currently professor and chair of sociology at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His previous academic appointments include guest professorships at the University of Amsterdam and the University of Bologna, where he taught visual sociology to European students. Harper’s current work is a co-authored study of food culture in contemporary Italy. He is also co-author of a forthcoming study of expatriate cultures in Hong Kong. He continues to experiment with photography and sociology, notably in panoramic photos of urban landscapes in several locations around the world.

Table of Contents

Introduction Part One: On the Road 1 Waiting for a train 2 An old tramp 3 You can’t trust everybody you meet 4 Two cans of beans 5 Another ascent of the Rockies 6 We arrived in Wenatchee 7 A tall thin tramp 8 Boston Blackie 9 One-Eyed Jack 10 The ride up the branch 11 Riffraff 12 Rubber tramp 13 Harvest jungle 14 To the orchard 15 As Golden’s ripen 16 Going home Part Two: The Rise and Fall of the Tramp 17 How tramp life was transformed 18 Whither the tramp? Notes Bibliography Glossary Afterword, About the Author