Youth Riding the Rails

kingsley davis …171

john e. fawcett …183

By 1932 an army of 250,000 boys and a scattering of girls were wandering about the United States on the railways. The hardships of the Great Depression pushed ever-increasing numbers of young people to join this vagabond army. The Depression, the worst economic crisis in U.S. history, was at its peak in 1932 and 1933. At least 25 percent of America's workforce was unemployed, and almost all families had experienced a significant decrease in income. For some Americans the only solution was to take to the road and search for work in another town or state. By 1933 the size of the transient population (people traveling around without work or homes) was estimated to be between two and three million, including hundreds of thousands riding the rails.

Before the Depression, in the prosperous 1920s, there were two types of transients on the rails: hoboes and seasonal workers. Hoboes were not in search of work, instead choosing to remain outside of mainstream American lifestyles. Seasonal workers, following the agricultural harvest, rode the trains from state to state in search of work on farms. On any given freight train, five or six transients would be on board. By 1932 train agents reported up to ten thousand transients a month passing through the rail yards. Up to several hundred would be on a single freight train. It was estimated that at least 75 percent were between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five, and a considerable number were younger than fifteen. These young people often began their adventure with optimism and a thrill of freedom. But as the days turned into weeks and months—even years—the excitement gave way to hunger, boredom, despair, and the realization that danger lurked around each curve. Who were these wandering youths, and why had they left home?

Some of the most interesting accounts that answer this question can be found in magazines from the early 1930s. For example, in the September 1933 issue of Ladies' Home Journal an article by Maxine Davis, titled "200,000 Vagabond Children," describes three boys: Red, Mike, and Tom. Red was a freckled fifteen-year-old boy from Carthage, Missouri. He lived with relatives since both of his parents were dead. His relatives lost their jobs when hard times hit, and he lost his job delivering for a butcher. Knowing his relatives had no money, he felt he was no longer wanted, so he struck out on his own. Red had been on the road for seventeen months, was weary and frightened, and looked much older than his fifteen years. Mike, a bit older than Red, was from a small Southern town. His father, a police officer, had such a small salary that he could no longer afford to support Mike. The father gave Mike fifteen dollars and told him to try to find work somewhere else. Mike had not heard from his family in the last six months. Tom was the adventurer of the three. He had worked in a mill in Providence, Rhode Island, but when it closed, he decided it would be exciting to see the country. Tom was lucky—when he decided to return home, there would be a home to go back to. These three descriptions by Davis represent the type of young people who were riding the rails. Three out of four of America's wandering youths said the hard times of the Great Depression caused them to "hit the road." The first excerpt in this chapter is from Youth in the Depression, a pamphlet written by Kingsley Davis and published in 1935. It describes what life "on the bum" was like for youngsters who left home for economic reasons.

The second excerpt is taken from "A Hobo Memoir, 1936" by John E. Fawcett, published in the December 1994 issue of Indiana Magazine of History. Fawcett was part of the other one-fourth of wandering young people, who were merely seeking adventure and had homes to return to when they tired of life on the rails. The education Fawcett received while riding the rails for three weeks in June 1936 directed the course and philosophy of his adult life.