The Decline of Hobohemia: The Last of the Hobos

For the past fifty years, hobos have been romanticized. Movies, songs, books, and cartoons have depicted them falsely. Portrayed as lovable, clown like alcoholics, hopping trains with their colorfully patched coats and bindles, it's easy to see how the hobo has passed into the country's shared fancy.

Gone from our minds, is the possibility that hobos were ever useful members of society. While characters like, "Weary Willie" and "Freddie the Freeloader" are permanently etched in our minds, the fact remains that hobos were, for a short time, functioning members of society.

The general definition of a hobo is an itinerant person that's willing to work. There are many possible origins for the word hobo. Some have suggested that it derived from the term "hoe-boy" which meant farm hand. Others believe that it came from the greeting, "Ho, Beau!" Still others think it's the contraction of one of four possible phrases, Homeward Bound or the Manhattan intersection of Houston and Bowery where "hobos" used to congregate.

It could come from the hobo's method of transportation, Hopping Boxcars or the Latin phrase Homo Bonus which means "good man." Another theory is that the term comes from the city of Hoboken, New Jersey, a stopping point for many railroad lines of the 19th century.

While freight train hopping became a popular mode of transportation for soldiers after the Civil War, no one knows for certain when the advent of the hobo truly began. However, it is known that during the time of the Great depression, hobos had reached their peak.

As unemployment rates in the big cities rose, migrant work became popular, and hopping boxcars became the preferred method of travel for the poor and jobless. Whole tent cities, known as "jungles," sprang up along tracks. In addition, the Western states began to rely on the hobo as a necessary member of the work force.

As the migrant labor force rose, society increasingly looked at the hobo lifestyle as inappropriate. In more and more towns, hobos were exiled to their jungles. These jungles became known as "Skid Row" to the rest of society, but to hobos, it was simply known as "hobohemia."

Hobohemia was its own community, complete with its own code of ethics. These areas were very important to hobos. They provided, not only a place to get food and shelter, but also a means of communication. They even devised a code of symbols to warn and inform each other.

The decline of hobos came as more and more illegal immigrants began taking the migrant jobs. The consolidation of railroad ownership further decreased their population, as the railroads became increasingly less tolerant of freight hopping and more antagonistic towards hobos.

Today, all that remains of the lifestyle of the hobo is the romanticized caricatures of hobohemia. The last bits of evidence disappeared by the late seventies. Only one shred remains. In Britt, Iowa, each year is held The National Hobo Convention. Mulligan Stew is served and stories are told round campfires in the "hobo jungle."

The word hobo doesn't often spark images of migrant workers. When hearing the word, people don't often think of viable members of society. However you see hobos, drunken bindle toting clowns, or freight hopping vagabonds, the fact remains that they are forever interwoven into the fabric of American history.