Riding The Rails

Through letters and photographs, profiles teenagers who hopped the freight trains during the Great Depression in order to find adventure, seek employment, or escape poverty.

This erratic account of the 250,000 "boxcar boys and girls" who traversed the country during the Great Depression amounts to an oral history of the seldom-studied lives of teenage hoboes. Using material gathered for a documentary film of the same title (made by Michael Uys and Lexy Lovell, the author's son and daughter-in-law), Uys draws on interviews, letters and other fragments from thousands of former rail-riders who answered an announcement in Modern Maturity magazine seeking reminiscences about their lives. A number of anecdotes offer insight into the desperation that led teens to leave impoverished homes. A sign at a Louisiana cafe, for example, stated succinctly: "Dishwasher WantedAonly college graduates need apply." Jobs were so scarce that one 18-year-old climbed eagerly on a locomotive in Ohio after hearing there might be work at a Los Angeles hotdog stand. The poignancy of such moments is diminished, however, because the various episodes are hitched together like random cars on a freight train and the text takes on the aimless movement of its young subjects as they drift in search of a hot meal. The most accomplished passages frame the vicissitudes of hobo life within the larger context of Depression-era politics. For many former hoboes, New Deal programs such as the Civilian Conservation Corps offered the only alternative to hunger, jail and degrading hardship. Most remarkably, perhaps, this book shows how the occasional generosities encountered on the road instilled in these wanderers a lifelong ethos of humility and compassion toward others. (July)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

When Uys's son and daughter-in-law solicited reminiscences for a documentary film on teenagers' lives on the rails between 1929 and 1941, some 3000 people replied, often at length. Many looked back fondly on a time when they truly felt free: "There is no feeling in the world like sitting in a side-door Pullman and watching the world go by, listening to the clickety-clack of the wheels, hearing that old steam whistle blowing for crossings and towns." Yet the overall tone of their memories is somber. "You were always with people on the trains but...everyone on the road... was lonely." "Kids on the road didn't know how to play....We never thought about being teenagers. All we thought about was surviving." This is an elegantly presented and quietly moving collection of firsthand reminiscences, capturing a unique moment in American history. Uys, a veteran writer and editor, is the author of the historical novel Brazil. Enthusiastically recommended for all public libraries.ADavid Keymer, California State Univ., Stanislaus
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.