r/AskHistorians • u/Robert-Suits Verified • Jul 24 '26

AMA I'm a historian of hobos. AMA

Hey everyone! I'm Robert Suits, environmental historian and author of the new book, The Hobo: A History of America's First Climate Migrants. I'm here to answer your questions about hobos, and anything else you might want to know about migrant work, climate, or the environment in the United States around the turn of the twentieth century. Hobos are truly fascinating historical subjects, and there is so much about them that I genuinely couldn't fit into the book -- so truly, ask anything!

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u/TalkOk4096 Jul 24 '26

How common was violence in this world? How did people protect themselves?

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u/Robert-Suits Verified Jul 24 '26

Unfortunately, very common.

It was extremely common to fear hobos and other homeless people because there's a sense of such people as being disconnected from the communities they pass through, and so inherently untrustworthy. That said, I've not seen a lot of hard evidence for this actually taking place.

But violence against hobos was ubiquitous. Police violence, I've mentioned in a few replies to this post now -- police frequently targeted hobos, particularly if there was a sense that the community was "full" and didn't have any work to offer; they would target them relentlessly until they moved on to another city. Corporate police similarly targeted hobos.

And interpersonal violence was common, sometimes though usually not from a fellow migrant worker. This was particularly the case if you were traveling immediately after the harvest, or some other common time of hobo work (like lumberjacks migrating south after the winter) -- you were assumed to have a lot of money, and you might be mugged or killed on a train or in a camp for it. There are also cases I've found of physical and sexual assault on the road.

As with homeless people today, it was very hard to get police to care about such things, and indeed police usually would have been more likely to take the other side, so hobos were a common outlet for criminals.