Good morning Forum Members,

The Railroad Museum of Long Island is well on it's way to organizing a "Hobo Homecoming" at our Riverhead Restoration Site in September 2006. I would appreciate hearing any experiences or anecdotes you might share about "Hobo Events" you have held at your Museums or Tourist Railroads.

One specific question: What has been the reaction of nearby "class one" or shortline railroads, (pro or con), to your event?

Thanks for your time and interest,
de Don n2qhvRMLI

If I were in charge of anything, which I am not, I would stay away from hobo events. I would not want to give anyone (railroads & law enforcement) the impression of promoting the hobo image. I would, however, allow a hobo display as part of a larger exhibit or event. Maybe if I did an eating on the rails event I would present it from the perspective of the passenger, crew, and sneak in a bit about the hobo.

I'd advise likewise. If you absolutely MUST do something hobo-related, make it historical and include some sort of exhibit that strongly discourages being a modern hobo, emphasizing the danger and illegal nature of the lifestyle while downplaying the romance.

Promoting hoboes is really about the same as promoting tagging, if you think about it. Some hoboes are very interesting characters, and some taggers are darned good artists. But both are breaking the law and are engaging in risky activities which should be actively discouraged by the museum/preservation community.

The "hobo" image is really a negative one, not a positive "good-old-days, colorful-knights-of-the-steel-rails" sort of thing. The posters above have certainly covered the modern-day implications.

Promoting a railroad museum through a hobo event would be like a Long Island Chamber of Commerce holding a Joey Buttafuoco-Amy Fisher Festival--- not what one would want visitors to take away as the image of the region (or museum, in the case of the hobo thing).

Why accentuate the negative (and minor) story of hobos as part of railroading, when there are so many more interesting and positive stories to tell?

He have occasionally done a Hobo event, but it is historically based, not a gathering of (contemporary) Hobos.

There was a hobo jungle on or near our site, and the owner of the farm, which is now Ardenwood historic farm hired hobos as seasonal farm laborers.

Our program set just before the turn of the century, (i.e. 1900) differentiates between hobos, bums, and tramps. Many of the hobos in that era were former railroad workers, who were black-listed after the 1894 Pullman strike.

Guests are thrown off our train due to a ticketing mishap, and are befriended by a hobo who takes them back to the camp where they are fed and entertained. The people they meet tell their stories, in first person.

We also use a hobo sign hunt as a child’s game during our railfair.

Good morning Forum Members,

Thank you, please keep the comments coming. I am taking each and every one seriously.

To clarify, our event is being designed to be historic/educational and entertaining. The focus is on the historical significance of men traveling across the country after the Civil War (albeit illegally) through the Great Depression and WWII looking for work. We differentiate between the men and women who travelled to work vs. the men and women who travelled to be a bum. Musical performances, storytelling, poetry reading and a "hobo jungle" are all part of the event's experience.

Looking forward to your comments,
de Don n2qhvRMLI

Invite my old friend Todd DePastino to do a lecture and book signing:

http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/hfs.cgi/00/15803.ctl

At its annual "Railroad Days" civic festival, the GTW junction town of Durand, Michigan used to invite an entertainer who seemed to make a show of convening a hobo jungle and cooking a stew. I never quite got the point, but it never seemed to offend the GTW/CN, either. But maybe they never noticed. I haven't heard of this being done in the last 10 years or more.

I treasure my dad's tales of hoboing across the NP in 1938 between Minnesota the northwest, before finally finding work in Astoria and enlisting in the Navy. In the 1970's from behind the wheel of his Oldsmobile he could still spot the points at the throats of NP yards where he'd hopped freights from the cover of section sheds. But that has everything to do with the economics of the Depression, and not much to do with railroads.

I agree with the comparison with hoboes and “taggers.” Sure, the common perception of the older hoboes of the depression era is that of folks just trying to get from A to B looking for a job. When in reality, they really weren’t like that. Years ago, I read a great book that was written by an FBI agent after WW2 about hobo culture. Oh how I wish I could recall the name and author, but it had all kinds of statistical data that talked about the rates of crimes ranging from arson, vandalism to murder by their hands. The take I took from it was pretty much the “homeless” people you see today. Hoboes have always for the most part wanted to be that way and usually had no interest in making any kind of living. The word, “parasite” comes to mind. The guy who wrote had no love lost for them as a group.
I recall hearing stories from an uncle of mine who lived in the Virginia coal fields when he was a kid in the late 20s, and he had not too many kind words for hoboes. He told me they’d often steal in towns where the hopped off and would get out before they got caught. Back in those days, he said hoboes that were caught by the company security folks often had “accidents” on the high iron soon afterward. I was about 10, but I remember vaguely a story about how he and a buddy found what was left of one of them, scattered along the tracks one day. I think he told me he had heard screaming before the last train had come by as well. Real creepy stuff.
But hey, if you wanna have a hobo event, show the film, “Emperor of the North.” God knows it’s not 100% accurate, but it shows these guys largely for the human by-products they really were.

I have little direct information about hoboes other than the stories of two uncles and two of their cousins. They were raised in Saskatchewan, Canada and attended college and professional school in Southern California. They always talked of the hobo trip from school home to the farm for the summer work and back to school again in the fall. This was during the depression and there was always work to be done on the family farm and thus a decent summer job. The travelers didn't all turn out bad as the four ended up as 3 M.D.'s and a dentist. They had many stories of their trips and spoke of them as if most of their fellow travelers were decent people.

I think the big problem with hoboes is that they are by no means extinct. I did a paper on the hobo culture back in college for an anthropology class. Modern "hoboes" are usually criminals on the lam. There was a case of a serial killer a few years ago who managed to escape detection for some time by travleing via freight train.

During the late '80s and early '90s, the railroads were having a real problem with "weekend hoboes." These were folks with normal jobs (some pretty profitable and prestigious, like MDs) who hopped freights for fun on the weekends. Stupid, stupid, stupid! I haven't heard much on the subject since, but even then it was something of a dirty little secret and I haven't been looking.

Even country music star Boxcar Willie, whose entire career was built on the romantic hobo image, advised against doing what he'd done. The image and the reality are very, very different, and I still feel that if you're going to do a hobo event you need to be sure to emphasize the reality over the romance.

As long as we are talking about hoboes, I thought I might relate something I just heard; the origin of the name. After the Civil War, many men in the South returned to find their homes and farms destroyed and the economy ruined. These young men headed west in search of work and a new life. They found that the one thing they could carry fairly easily, and one that they had some experience with, was a hoe. They quickly became known as Hoe Boys. You can see how this turned into Hoboes.

Related in a recent sermon by my minister.

Les

And I heard it on "Car Talk", delivered by Click and Clack, the Tappet Bros., this past Saturday morning, on the PBS network. Ask your Minister about that! Imagine, getting your sermon material from Tom and Ray Mallazzi!

NPR, Hmmm.
I too am click and clack fan almost as much as my railroading.

But, here's the question do you think one could have a hobo display for a RR days describing the life of hobos much like PBS did some years ago, tying in the dangers involved with being a hobo to discourage this activity without losing the history of this social phenomenon.

Scott

That is more to my liking. I would think having a local folk group sing "Brother, can you spare dime?", "Wabash Cannonball", and few like that would be a good touch, as would selling bowls of Mulligan stew straight from the cauldorn. I suggested to the original poster in a private email that even having the Shriners bring in their Keystone Cops might be an event. I would hate to encourage bums to show up at a museum, looking a free meal and a place to stay indefinitely.
What others have contributed in terms of describing the dangers of the hobo life, the aimless wanderings of social outcasts is relevant as well. In the 30's, Hobos were largely just guys looking for work anywhere. Today, the character of the railroad bum is one of criminals on the lam, un-housed mental patients, runaway kids, alcoholis, drug addicts, and general miscreants. Times have changed, and this is not the life we want our youth to aspire to.
In fact, what the original poster was talking about is a day of Grandparents who would convey stories about their youth on the railroad in hard times.
The Hobo days can be celebrated, but I think a museum has a mission, and education is at the top of the list.