Boy and Girl Tramps of America by Thomas Minehan (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Boy and Girl Tramps of America by Thomas Minehan James Wunsch Boy and Girl Tramps of America. By Thomas Minehan. Introduction by Susan Honeyman. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2023. xxii + 162 pp. Cloth $99.00, paper $30.00. At the beginning of the Depression, Thomas Minehan, a University of Minnesota graduate student in sociology, began interviewing the unemployed men who were lining up at soup kitchens and flop houses in Minneapolis. Eventually he came to feel that if he was to gain a genuine understanding of those men, then [End Page 505] he should make an effort to live among them. "One evening in November, 1932," he wrote, "I disguised myself in old clothes and stood in a bread line in the cold and rain" (xix). He then began visiting hobo encampments ("jungles") beyond downtown, and on weekends, vacations, and during the summer, he stowed away in boxcars to join those seeking work or handouts in various Midwestern cities. Among those stealthily boarding or departing from boxcars––tramps were subject to arrest and beatings at the hands of the railway police––were a surprising number of school-age boys and even some girls. Those kids became the subject of Minehan's Boy and Girl Tramps of America, published in 1934. Minehan's Depression-era study finds a place within the stories of runaways and castaways from Hansel and Gretel and Joan of Arc to Ben Franklin and Huck Finn. If what allowed Huck and Jim to escape was the river, then for Minehan's vagabonds it was the railroad. In the decades after the Civil War, the veterans, the drifters, and the unemployed who began riding the rails would be joined by youngsters whose numbers during the Depression swelled to 250,000. In 1933, the Civilian Conservation Corp was established to provide outdoor work opportunities for young men, but since the program was limited to those eighteen and older, it was of little help for the majority of runaways. Riding the rails was dangerous. Cops ("bulls") could knock out teeth. During the winter, fingers, toes, and ears might be lost to frostbite. Arms and legs were fractured or severed when kids fell, jumped, or were pushed from moving trains. Minehan interviewed 882 boys and 72 girls (the majority between thirteen and nineteen) and compiled 509 case histories. If the kids had been living at home, then they would have been chatting about sports and school; on the road the talk was mostly about food, clothing, and shelter. Later, round a campfire or riding in a boxcar, the talk would turn to fighting with bulls and other kids, or the best towns and places for a handout. Since girls were vulnerable to sexual assault, it was no surprise that they made up only a fraction of the tramp population. But by disguising themselves as boys, travelling in groups and bestowing sexual favors as needed or desired, they made their way with a measure of security. The particular concern of younger boys was "wolves," predatory adult males. Among the older boys and adults, gay sex was widespread and a recognized if not a wholly accepted part of the culture. Minehan acknowledged that Black kids also rode the rails but felt that racism was not much of a problem, noting that "white and black are brothers on the road" (99). Why he failed to mention the sensational trial in 1931 where nine Black teens riding the rails—the Scottsboro boys––were framed for raping two white girls is not clear. [End Page 506] In Minehan's descriptions of the stench and squalor of flop houses, the vagabond life seems a perfect hell. Yet he also depicted the joy of riding from Maine to Florida, venturing to New Orleans and San Francisco and standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon. What also comes across is his genuine warmth and affection toward the young wanderers. His conclusion, however, is unsparing: "[Having] . . . lived with child tramps, eaten with them, slept with them for two years, [I] . . . find little that is wholesome and nothing that is good" (135). Why, then, did so many kids hit the road? Frequent beatings, abuse by parents and...