3rd Edition

Good Company A Tramp Life

By Douglas Harper Copyright 2016
236 Pages 78 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

236 Pages 78 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

236 Pages 78 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

This sociological classic shows how the railroad tramp’s status as a deviant changed from frontier itinerant to post settlement vagrant; from class conscious proletariat in the Depression to the damaged post WWII vet. The third edition (with new photos) discusses how today the freights have become the milieu of violent gangs who transport drugs, human traffickers, and serial killers. Beating the... Read more

Introduction Part One: On the Road 1 Waiting for a train 2 An old tramp 3 You can’t trust everybody you meet 4 Two cans of beans 5 Another ascent of the Rockies 6 We arrived in Wenatchee 7 A tall thin tramp 8 Boston Blackie 9 One-Eyed Jack 10 The ride up the branch 11 Riffraff 12 Rubber tramp 13 Harvest jungle 14 To the orchard 15 As Golden’s ripen 16 Going home Part Two: The Rise and Fall of the Tramp 17 How tramp life was transformed 18 Whither the tramp? Notes Bibliography Glossary Afterword, About the Author

Biography

Douglas Harper is a founding member of the International Visual Sociology Association, founded in the late 1980s, and was founding editor of the journal Visual Studies. He has held full-time faculty appointments in several American universities and visiting appointments at the University of Bologna and the University of Amsterdam. He has exhibited his photographs internationally and his documentary, The Longest Journey Begins (2015), is co-directed by Maggie Patterson.