The American vagrant in literature : race, work and welfare / Bryan Yazell.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Yazell, Bryan, author.

Series:

Edinburgh scholarship online.

Edinburgh scholarship online

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Rogues and vagabonds in literature.

Tramps in literature.

Citizenship in literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (vii, 184 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Edinburgh : Edinburgh University Press, 2023.

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

This book argues that the rapid development of anti-vagrancy laws in the late nineteenth century, which were written alongside widespread public fascination with 'tramps', facilitated a transatlantic dialogue between sources eager to modernize the state's ability to describe, catalogue, and manage this roving population. Almost always depicted as white, solitary, and artistic, the tramp character was once a menacing threat to society only to disappear from the public eye by the postwar period. This book brings to light the often-surprising lines of influence between authors, sociologists, and government authorities who alike seized on the social panic around tramping in order to reimagine the relation of work to national citizenship.

Contents:

Cover

Half Title

Dedication

Title Page

Copyright

Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction: Who Was the Tramp?

1. The Internationalism of American Vagrancy: Mark Twain and Josiah Flynt on the Tramp

2. Vagrant Nationalism: Jack London and W. H. Davies on the Super-­Tramp

3. Tramps in the Machine: Interwar British Vagrancy

4. Steinbeck's Migrants: Families on the Move and the Politics of Resource Management

Epilogue: Tramping's Afterlife

Works Cited

Index.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 29 Nov 2023).

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9781399506748

1399506749

9781399506731

1399506730

OCLC:

1373016344