What you see here are hobo signs. Travelers today use cell phones, but during the Great Depression tramps, hobos, and even migrating familes used signs like these to communicate. Signs, unique nicknames, language, and even dress are all part of the hobo culture.
The word hobo has been in the popular lexicon since the 1890’s and many believe the word originated from the term “hoe boy,” but no one is sure. Hobo culture sprang from the merging of two events: the civil war and the development of cross country rail lines in the late 1860’s. The original hobos were unemployed and homeless veterans. These displaced men became rail riders. Later on, jobless men looking for work in the wheat fields of the Mid-West joined the ranks. In the 1920’s hobo towns or “jungles” became a familiar sight beside railroad tracks and many elected their own King and Queen.
Although hobo culture has not completely disappeared, changes in the rail system such as railway consolidation, locomotive speed, and railroad police have all contributed to the demise of American rail riding. We don’t hear much about hobos any longer, but some people are still interested. I met a poet the other day who has just completed a book of poems inspired by hobo signs.
Many of us have seen a little rail riding in the movies: ‘O Brother, Where Art Thou, Emperor of the North Pole, and Boxcar Bertha all have train hopping sequences. Boxcar Bertha was one of Martin Scorses’s earliest films, an adaptation of a fictionalized autobiography, “Sister of the Road.” Boxcar Bertha was made on a $600,000 budget and looks like any other low budget exploitation movie. The film tells the story of Bertha Thompson and her lover, two train robbers who get caught up in in the plight of Southern railroad workers. The character Bertha Thompson, (Boxcar Bertha) long popularly thought to have been a real person, was actually a writer’s creation.
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