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During the Great Depression,
more than a quarter of a million teenagers left their homes and
hopped freight trains looking for work or adventure.
Who rode the rails with the young nomads in summer 1932.
"It was a horrible, horrible period, about which I understood
little. What's a kid to do? You have no worries about anything.
Between 1929 and 1941, 4,000,000 Americans desperate for food
and lodging roamed the land. Of this number, 250,000 were
teenagers who rode the rails and grew up fast in speeding
boxcars, living in hobo jungles, begging on the streets and
running from the police and club-wielding railroad guards.
The era of the boxcar boys and girls passed with the coming of
World War II and the end of the Great Depression.
Riding the rails was a rite of passage for a generation of young
people and profoundly shaped the rest of their lives.
Self-reliance, compassion, frugality, a love of freedom and
country are at the heart of the lessons they learned. Their
memories are a mixture of nostalgia and pain; their late musings
still tinged with the fear of going broke again.
At journey's end, the resiliency of these survivors is a
testament to the indomitable strength of the human spirit.
35 Cents for Three Weeks' Work.
During the Thirties My Grandfather worked for a 1.00 per Day.
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