Overview

"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."

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9780415945752

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'There is no feeling in the world like sitting in a side-door Pullman and watching the world go by, listening to the clickety-clack of the wheels, hearing that old steam whistle blowing for crossings and towns.' - George Phillips in Riding the Rails

Author Information

Errol Lincoln Uys is a renowned writer and editor. He was the editor-in-chief of Reader's Digest in South Africa and collaborated with James A. Michener on his South African novel The Covenant. Uys is also the author of the well-received novel, Brazil. He lives in Cambridge, Massachussetts.

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