Tramp

In that year, Mayhew described "the different kinds of vagrants or tramps" to be found in Britain, along with the "different trampers' houses in London or the country".

[1] In the United States, the word became frequently used during the American Civil War, to describe the widely shared experience of undertaking long marches, often with heavy packs.

The modern concept of the "tramp" emerges with the expansion of industrial towns in the early nineteenth century, with the consequent increase in migrant labor and pressure on housing.

Initially, the term "tramp" had a broad meaning, and was often used to refer to migrant workers who were looking for permanent work and lodgings.

[2] Writing in 1877 Allan Pinkerton said:[4] The tramp has always existed in some form or other, and he will continue on his wanderings until the end of time; but there is no question that he has come into public notice, particularly in America, to a greater extent during the present decade than ever before.

[10] The word is also used, with ambiguous irony, in the classic 1937 Rodgers and Hart song "The Lady Is a Tramp", which is about a wealthy member of New York high society who chooses a vagabond life in "hobohemia".

The US State of Mississippi, until 2018,[12] had a specific definition for "tramps", which was a criminal offense:[13] Any male person over 16 years of age, and not blind, who shall go about from place to place begging and asking subsistence by charity, and all who stroll over the country without lawful occasion, and can give no account of their conduct consistent with good citizenship, shall be held to be tramps.