It is estimated that in the last decade of the nineteenth century approximately 60,000 hoboes, tramps, and bums were stealing rides around the country on railroad cars without paying the fare. Their ranks steadily increased, peaking during the Depression in the twentieth century when they numbered approximately one million. The fortunate ones traveled in empty boxcars, but often hoboes could be found on the catwalk on top of a freight car or on the narrow steel ledge between cars. Sometimes they even hung precariously below the cars, only inches above the track.
Many people hopped trains because they couldn't find a job, were broke, and wanted to start anew in another location. For some, however, riding the rails became a way of life. Wanderin' grew out of an Irish melody and the experiences of these wayfaring Americans at the turn of the twentieth century.
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