1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910459354103321

Autore

DePastino Todd

Titolo

Citizen hobo [[electronic resource] ] : how a century of homelessness shaped America / / Todd DePastino

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Chicago, : University of Chicago Press, 2005, c2003

ISBN

1-282-55586-3

9786612555862

0-226-14380-5

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (353 p.)

Disciplina

305.5/68

Soggetti

Tramps - United States - History

Homelessness - United States - History

Marginality, Social - United States - History

Subculture - United States - History

Electronic books.

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

pt. 1. The rise of hobohemia, 1870-1920 -- pt. 2. Hobohemia and homelessness in the early twentieth century -- pt. 3. Resettling the hobo army, 1920-1980 -- pt. 4. The enduring legacy : homelessness and American culture since 1980.

Sommario/riassunto

In the years following the Civil War, a veritable army of homeless men swept across America's "wageworkers' frontier" and forged a beguiling and bedeviling counterculture known as "hobohemia." Celebrating unfettered masculinity and jealously guarding the American road as the preserve of white manhood, hoboes took command of downtown districts and swaggered onto center stage of the new urban culture. Less obviously, perhaps, they also staked their own claims on the American polity, claims that would in fact transform the very entitlements of American citizenship. In this eye-opening work of American history, Todd DePastino tells the epic story of hobohemia's rise and fall, and crafts a stunning new interpretation of the "American century" in the process. Drawing on sources ranging from diaries, letters, and police reports to movies and memoirs, Citizen Hobo



breathes life into the largely forgotten world of the road, but it also, crucially, shows how the hobo army so haunted the American body politic that it prompted the creation of an entirely new social order and political economy. DePastino shows how hoboes-with their reputation as dangers to civilization, sexual savages, and professional idlers-became a cultural and political force, influencing the creation of welfare state measures, the promotion of mass consumption, and the suburbanization of America. Citizen Hobo's sweeping retelling of American nationhood in light of enduring struggles over "home" does more than chart the change from "homelessness" to "houselessness." In its breadth and scope, the book offers nothing less than an essential new context for thinking about Americans' struggles against inequality and alienation.