The Hobo: A History of America's First Climate Migrants - Hardcover

$29.95

The Hobo: A History of America's First Climate Migrants - Hardcover

Name: The Hobo: A History of America's First Climate Migrants - Hardcover
Brand: BooksCloud
SKU: 9780691284668
Price: 29.95 USD
Availability: InStock

by Robert Suits

$29.95

Book Overview

A panoramic history of America's first climate migrants

From the mid-nineteenth century through the dust bowl years of the Great Depression, a new kind of migrant worker became a familiar sight in communities across America. The Hobo traces the journeys of these homeless men and women, showing how hobo work was an adaptation to energy transitions and a harsh and unpredictable climate, and how the hobo played a central role in the histories of industrialization and westward expansion.

Challenging common depictions of the hobo as a world-weary, bearded man in ragged clothes, Robert Suits reveals how these wandering laborers were often fastidious and heartbreakingly young. Forever on the move due to economic hardship and climate disaster, they chased harvests and took seasonal jobs in industries like logging and mining. Too often they couldn't find employment at all. Suits describes the difficult, dangerous, and highly unstable jobs they worked while shedding light on the hobo life and philosophy, from their techniques for stowing away on railroads to their unique blend of socialist, anarchist, and anti-work thought. He traces the emergence of the hobo to the advent of steam and the need for manual laborers in places where this new technology couldn't reach and describes how a growing reliance on the internal combustion engine brought an end to hobo work.

Drawing on oral histories, environmental data, and cutting-edge digital methods, The Hobo paints an unforgettable portrait of an eclectic group of wandering radicals, troublemakers, poets, and writers, demonstrating how their experiences upend some of our basic assumptions about how environments and technologies shape society.

ISBN	9780691284668
Author	Robert Suits
Publisher	Princeton University Press
Genre	History and Business
Format	Hardcover
Published	June 2026
Language	ENG- English
Pages	296
Weight	1.0 lb
Target Audience	Adults
Print Size	Standard Print