The Hobo: The Sociology of the Homeless ManAnderson, Nels
General
The Hobo: The Sociology of the Homeless Man
Anderson, Nels
Chicago (Ill.) -- Social conditions; Tramps
The homeless man is an extensive reader. This is especially true
of the transients, the tramp, and the hobo. The tramp employs his
leisure to read everything that comes his way. If he is walking
along the railroad track, he picks up the papers that are thrown
from the trains; he reads the cast-off magazines. If he is in the
city, he hunts out some quiet corner where he may read. The tramp
is a man with considerable leisure, but few books.
The libraries are open to them, but comparatively few use them.
Public libraries are generally imposing structures and, dressed as
he usually is, the tramp hesitates to enter them. Dan Horsley, who
is a newsdealer and runs a bookstore on West Madison, in an article
in the _Hobo News_ for October, 1922, writes:
Just as a hobo would feel out of place in a Fifth Avenue
church, so he would feel in the average library. He does
not make general use of the libraries because of the
menacing fear of the law. He is always watching lest he
be caught as a vagrant, and this prevents him seeking
recreative study; so he gets his own literature to read and
seeks some quiet place.
There are men in the hobo class who are not deterred by these
scruples. Some of the most persistent users of the library have
been initiated during the winter time when they were forced inside
for shelter. The newspaper reading-room of the Chicago Public
Library has become for them a favorite retreat during the cold
winter days. It is also a good resting place in the hot summer
months.
Lodging-houses sometimes have reading-rooms in which guests may
find the local newspapers and current periodicals. Such reading
material is usually extensively read and much thumb-marked. Most
lodging-houses and rooming-houses do not provide reading matter for
their guests. Seldom does a tramp throw away a paper. He passes
it on to someone else, and after it has served its usefulness
as reading matter, he may use it at night for a bed either in a
“flophouse” or a park, along the docks, or in box cars.
The hobo reads the daily papers but does not indorse them. He looks
with disapproval upon the so-called “capitalist” press. If he
belongs to the radicals he is sure that the press is against him.
But in spite of this he reads it. He reads it for the news.
Radical papers, to be sure, are steadfast in their efforts to
promote his interests and champion his cause, but it is a cause
that is so well known to the homeless man that it has lost its
novelty. There are many radical papers. Among them are the _Weekly
People_, the _Truth_, the _Industrial Solidarity_, the _Worker_,
the _Hobo News_, the _Liberator_, the _Voice of Labor_. These
are not printed primarily for the homeless man, but have a wide
circulation among the so-called “slum proletariat.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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