Abstract

This review article examines two recent genealogical accounts of the figure of “the hobo” or “tramp” in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Anglo-American literary traditions: Bryan Yazell’s The American Vagrant in Literature: Race, Work, and Welfare (2023) and Owen Clayton’s Vagabonds, Tramps, and Hobos: The Literature and Culture of U.S. Transiency 1890–1940 (2023). The article emphasizes the theatrical dimensions of the historical phenomenon, elucidating its post-World War II manifestation in the form of the “White Negro” as an incarnation of the Beat hipster’s racially stereotyped investment in the seemingly more authentic lifestyles available to socially marginalized individuals.

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