Hoboes Walking the Tracks

Two men walk down the railroad tracks after being ejected from a train. A phenomenon of the period between the 1870s and 1930s, transient and often homeless workers, known in popular culture as hoboes, were not as common Alabama and other southern states. Northern and western states typically hosted more hoboes than southern states because of differences in labor needs and hostility toward outsiders and African Americans in the South.

Courtesy of the ibrary of Congress