Boxcar politics : the hobo in U.S. culture and literature, 1869-1956 / John Lennon.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Lennon, John, 1975- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

American literature--19th century--History and criticism.

American literature.

American literature--20th century--History and criticism.

Tramps in literature.

Homelessness in literature.

Marginality, Social, in literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (236 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Amherst, [Massachusetts] ; Boston, [Massachusetts] : University of Massachusetts Press, 2014.

Summary:

"The hobo is a figure ensconced in the cultural fabric of the United States. Once categorized as a member of an army of people experiencing homelessness 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" -- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Introduction

Views from the boxcar: a historical and theoretical framing of boxcar politics

The cramped boxcar: Jack London and Kelly's industrial army

The polyphonic boxcar: the hobo in Jim Tully's Beggars of life

The radicalized boxcar: hobos, the "speech of the people," and John Dos Passos's U.S.A

The interracial boxcar: Scottsboro, the great Depression, and wild boys of the road

The spiritual boxcar: lostness in on the road and the end of the political hobo

Afterword: the end of boxcar politics.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Includes index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9781613763421

1613763425

OCLC:

933516762