Hobo

[6] Liberman points out that many folk etymologies fail to answer the question: "Why did the word become widely known in California (just there) by the early Nineties (just then)?

"[2] Author Todd DePastino mentions possible derivations from "hoe-boy", meaning "farmhand", or a greeting "Ho, boy", but that he does not find these convincing.

[9]While there have been drifters in every society, the term became common only after the broad adoption of railroads provided free, though illegal, travel by hopping aboard train cars.

With the end of the American Civil War in the 1860s, many discharged veterans returning home began to hop freight trains.

In 1906, Professor Layal Shafee, after an exhaustive study, put the number of tramps in the United States at about 500,000 (about 0.6% of the US population at the time).

Itinerant, poor, far from home and support, hoboes also faced the hostility of many train crews and the railroad police, nicknamed "bulls", who often dealt violently with trespassers.

[12] British poet W. H. Davies, author of The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp, lost a foot when he fell under the wheels trying to jump aboard a train.

[13] Around the end of World War II, railroads began to move from steam to diesel locomotives, making jumping freight trains more difficult.

Overall, the national economic demand for a mobile surplus labor force has declined over time, leading to fewer hoboes.

Some examples follow: Many hobo terms have become part of common language, such as "big house", "glad rags", "main drag", and others.

A few symbols include: Reports of hoboes using these symbols appeared in newspapers and popular books straight through the Depression, and continue to turn up in American popular culture; for example, John Hodgman's book The Areas of My Expertise features a section on hobo signs listing signs found in newspapers of the day as well as several whimsical ones invented by Hodgman,[20] and the Free Art and Technology Lab released a QR Hobo Code, with a QR stenciler, in July 2011.

[17] Nels Anderson, who both hoboed himself and studied hoboes extensively for a University of Chicago master's thesis,[17] wrote in 1932,Another merit of the book [Godfrey Irwin's 1931 American Tramp and Underworld Slang] is that the author has not subscribed to the fiction that American tramps have a sign language, as so many professors are wont to believe.

[31] Examples of characters based on hoboes include: Musicians known for hobo songs include: Tim Barry, Baby Gramps, Railroad Earth, Harry McClintock, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Utah Phillips, Jimmie Rodgers, Seasick Steve, and Boxcar Willie.