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." Jealously guarding the American road as the preserve of white manhood, hoboes swaggered onto center stage of the new urban culture. DePastino tells the epic story of hobohemia's rise and fall, drawing on sources ranging from diaries, letters, and police reports...

The Road is an autobiographical memoir by Jack London, first published in 1907. It is London's account of his experiences as a hobo in the 1890s, during the worst economic depression the United States had experienced up to that time. He describes his experiences hopping freight trains, "holding down" a train when the crew is trying to throw him off, begging for food and money, and making up extraordinary stories to fool the police. He also tells of...