The hobo

the long version

"This is an account, written with insight and sympathy, of the life of the hobo, life in "Hobohemia," a frontier that was already beginning to vanish when this study originally appeared in 1923. The author, drawing from his own experiences as a hobo, pictures life in the 'main stem' of Halsted and State Streets in Chicago. Here are the customs and class distinctions, language, songs, moral and intellectual life of this body of men who, for widely varying reasons, chose the migratory life. A new introduction by the author places the hobo in historical perspective and explains his disappearance from the American scene"--Back cover.