At the height of the Great Depression, more than a quarter million teenagers were living on the road in America, many criss-crossing the country by illegally hopping freight trains. This film tells the story of ten of these teenage hobos -- from the reasons they left home to what they experienced -- all within the context of depression-era America.
http://www.thegoodsoldier.com/ridingtherails/index.html
The official website of Michael Uys' and Lexy Lovell's film.
http://www.erroluys.com/frontpage.htm
Read articles on the survival of teenage hobos written by author Errol Lincoln Uys of Riding the Rails.
http://www.monh.org/Default.aspx?tabid=405
"Teenage Hoboes in the Great Depression." Listen to oral histories and view images of former transients from the National Heritage Museum's online exhibition.
http://www.livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe30s/water_07.html
Listen to an interview with Walter Ballard, a former teenage hobo who left his impoverished family to find work in the Great Plains.
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/fsahtml/fadocamer.html
"Documenting America." A photographic series from the Library of Congress featuring iconic photos of migrant workers, farmers, and cities during the Great Depression.
Allsop, Kenneth, "Hard Travelin': The Hobo and His History." New American Library, New York, 1967.
Anderson, Nels, "The Hobo: The Sociology of the Homeless Man." University of Chicago Press, 1967 (reprint of 1923 edition).
Cohen, Norm, "Long Steel Rail: The Railroad in American Folksong." University of Illinois Press, 1981.
Crump, R.W. and Weideman, Edward C., "A Hobo Life in the Great Depression: A Regional Narrative from the American Midwest." Edwin Mellen Press, 2005.
Davis, Kingsley, "Youth in the Depression." University of Chicago Press, 1935.
Douglas, George H., "All Aboard: The Railroad in American Life." Paragon House, New York, 1992.
Ellison, Ralph, "Flying Home and Other Stories." Random House, New York, 1996.
Fried, Fredrick, "No Pie in the Sky; The Hobo as an American Cultural Hero in the Works of Jack London, John Dos Passos, and Jack Kerouac." Citadel Press, New York, 1983.
Guthrie, Woody, "Bound for Glory." E.P. Dutton, New York, 1943.
Hemming, Robert J. and Graham, Maury "Steam Train," "Tales of the Iron Road: My Life as King of the Hobos." Paragon House, New York, 1990.
Kerouac, Jack, "Lonesome Traveler." McGraw-Hill, New York, 1960.
Maharidge, Dale, "Journey to Nowhere: The Saga of the New Underclass." Dial Press, Garden City, NY, 1985.
Mathers, Michael, "Riding the Rails." Gambit, Boston, 1973.
Minehan, Thomas, "Boy and Girl Tramps of America." Farrar and Rinehart Publishers, New York, 1934.
Nock, O.S., "Railways of the USA." Hastings House Publishers, New York, 1979.
Terkel, Studs, "Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression." Pantheon Books, New York, 1970.
Uys, Errol Lincoln, "Riding the Rails: Teenagers on the Move During the Great Depression." Routledge, New York, 2003.
Wormser, Richard, "Hoboes: Wandering in America, 1870-1940." Walker Publishing Company, New York.
A look at five real-life "Rosies," the reality of working in defense plants during World War II and then having to give up those jobs for returning GIs.
A marvel of engineering, architecture, and vision, the story of the Beaux Arts structure on 42nd street that forever changed midtown Manhattan.
A great playwright's turbulent story, from childhood through the years of his Nobel Prize-winning career to his lonely, painful death.
From Joseph Smith's discovery of gold tablets to persecution, migration, and settlement in Utah, the film explores the history of the most American of religions.
Intrepid journalist Nelly Bly went on a journey around the world breaking the record of Julius Verne's fictional character.
The story behind the development of the oral contraceptive that put women in control of birth control.
John Philip Sousa was America's favorite bandmaster.
With data compiled from tens of thousands of sex questionnaires, Alfred Kinsey changed America's views about sex with the Kinsey Reports.
