On Hobos and Homelessness (Heritage of Sociology Series) Review

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(More customer reviews)I used this book in 1985 for a grad school paper. I was shocked that it had been funded with public money because it was such a good book. Anderson describes and analyzes the hobo jungle in Chicago, making it come alive as he does. An excellent book.

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Nels Anderson was a pioneer in the study of the homeless. In the early 1920s Anderson combined his own experience "on the bummery," with his keen sociological insight to give voice to a largely ignored underclass. He remains an extraordinary and underrated figure in the history of American sociology.On Hobos and Homelessness includes Anderson's rich and vibrant ethnographic work of a world of homeless men. He conducted his study on Madison street in Chicago, and we come to intimately know this portion of the 1920s hobo underworld—the harshness of vagrant life and the adventures of young hobos who come to the big city. This selection also includes Anderson's later work on the juvenile and the tramp, the unattached migrant, and the family. Like John Steinbeck's Depression-era observations, Anderson's writings express the memory of those who do not seem entitled to have memory, whose lives were expressed in temporary labor.

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Down and Out, on the Road: The Homeless in American History Review

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(More customer reviews)Dr. Kenneth L. Kusmer teaches history at Temple University, and his scholarly background is very evident in this carefully researched work on the history of homelessness in the U.S. Though there have been examples of 19th- and 20th-century tramps romantically eschewing the world of work (Sherwood Anderson, James Michener, Louis L'Amour, et al.), over the past almost 150 years since the Civil War, most of the homeless did not voluntarily seek out their condition. There have been many waves of economic recession and depression, layoffs and industrial accidents which have predictably swelled the ranks of the homeless across many generations. Dr. Kusmer's book does an outstanding job of describing the different constituencies of the homeless in the U.S. over the years, up to and including the present day, where about a third are now women, half are people of color and many are children.
This book is well-documented enough to please the most exacting scholar, but so clearly written as to be very accessible to interested lay persons. There is not a huge body of literature on hoboes, and this book will greatly enhance what is currently out there. It helps to explain how our country which, though it doesn't (presumably) put a ceiling on potential economic and social growth of any given individual, consistently fails to put a floor beneath all its citizens.

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