Riding the Rails: Teenagers on the Move During the Great Depression

At the height of the Great Depression, 250,000 teenage hobos were riding the rails and roaming America. Some left home out of desperation and went looking for work and a better life, sometimes traveling hundreds of miles on the rumour of a job waiting farther down the line. Others left out of boredom; still others with a wanderlust and romantic idea of life on the road.; The restless youth of these boxcar boys and girls, many who went from "middle-class gentility to scrabble-ass poor"...
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At the height of the Great Depression, 250,000 teenage hobos were riding the rails and roaming America. Some left home out of desperation and went looking for work and a better life, sometimes traveling hundreds of miles on the rumour of a job waiting farther down the line. Others left out of boredom; still others with a wanderlust and romantic idea of life on the road.; The restless youth of these boxcar boys and girls, many who went from "middle-class gentility to scrabble-ass poor" overnight, is recaptured in "Riding the Rails." Based on an award-winning documentary, this book dispels the myths of a hobo existence and reveals the hard stories of a daring generation of American teenagers - forgotten heroes - who survived some of the hardest times in America's history.