King Of The Hoboes

Only one thing stands between Detective Veronika Heydrich and her coveted promotion: uncovering the truth behind the King Of The Hoboes, a man who prides himself on helping the homeless people of New York. Convinced he is more dangerous than helpful, Veronika goes undercover and learns first hand of the trials and tribulations the poverty-stricken must endure - and of the mysterious past of the King himself. It is up to Veronika to save the innocent homeless of New York, and protect the city itself. But can she discover the truth about the enigmatic King, while saving the people she has come to know and love as her own?

"Roger A. Bruns's immensely entertaining biography, now available in paperback, throws a spotlight on a colorful, influential, but long-obscured Chicago character. This is the true story of Ben Reitman, ally of hobos, personal physician to scores of Al Capone's prostitutes, author, womanizer, founder of Chicago's Hobo College, and longtime lover of Emma Goldman."

Reefer Charlie Fox rode the rails from 1928 to 1939; from 1939 to 1965 he hitched rides in automobiles and traveled by foot. From Indiana to British Columbia, from Arkansas to Texas, from Utah to Mexico, he was part of the grand hobo tradition that has all but passed away from American life. He camped in hobo jungles, slept under bridges and in sand houses at railroad yards, ate rattlesnake meat, fresh California grapes, and fish speared by the Indians of the Northwest. He quickly learned both the beauty and the dangers of his chosen way of life. One lesson learned early on was that there are distinct differences among hoboes, tramps, and bums. As the all-time king of hoboes, Jeff Davis, used to say, Hoboes will work, tramps won't, and bums can't. "Tales of an American Hobo" is a lasting legacy to conventional society, teaching about a bygone era of American history and a rare breed of humanity who chose to live by the rails and on the road.

When the railroad stretched its steel rails across the American West in the 1870s, it opened up a vast expanse of territory with very few people but enormous agricultural potential: a second Western frontier, the garden West. Agriculture quickly followed the railroads, making way for Kansas wheat and Colorado sugar beets and Washington apples. With this new agriculture came an unavoidable need for harvest workers—for hands to pick the apples, cotton, oranges, and hops; to pull and top the sugar beets; to fill the trays with raisin grapes and apricots; to stack the wheat bundles in shocks to be pitched into the maw of the threshing machine. These were not the year-round hired hands but transients who would show up to harvest the crop and then leave when the work was finished. Variously called bindlestiffs, fruit tramps, hoboes, and bums, these men—and women and children—were vital to the creation of the West and its economy. Amazingly, it is an aspect of Western history that has never been told. In Hoboes: Bindlestiffs, Fruit Tramps, and the Harvesting of the West, the award-winning historian Mark Wyman beautifully captures the lives of these workers. Exhaustively researched and highly original, this narrative history is a detailed, deeply sympathetic portrait of the lives of these hoboes, as well as a fresh look at the settling and development of the American West.

This book explores the diversity of meanings that accrue around the terms 'hobo', 'tramp', and 'vagabond'.

A charismatic leader and activist for the homeless just might be New York's biggest threat yet. Detective Veronika Heydrich has one mission to complete before she lands her coveted promotion. She must uncover the truth behind the "King of the Hoboes", a man who prides himself on selflessly helping the misfortunate homeless people of the city. Convinced he's more dangerous than he is helpful, Veronika goes undercover as a vagrant herself, learning firsthand of the trials and tribulations the poverty-stricken must endure. The further underground she goes, the more danger Veronika encounters. The man deemed the "King of the Hoboes" is more powerful, more perilous, and more vicious than she ever realized. Now, it's up to her to not only save the innocent homeless people of New York, but to find a way to save the city as well. Can Veronika find a way to take down the false messiah who's manipulating the media for gain and glory while saving the people she's come to know and love as her own?

8 to 80 is the true story of Glen Filberth, a man who was a Doctor, a wartime Bomber pilot, and a prisoner of war for over one year under brutal starving conditions. In youth he was an abused boy by a stepfather. Having a strong desire for a college education, Filberth braved traveling as a hobo on freight trains to obtain profitable work. He worked on western ranches, civilian conservation camps, and fought forest fires in the mountainous terrain of Idaho. Finally, Filberth worked his way through college to obtain Doctorate Degrees in Naturopathy and Chiropractic. In WWII he enlisted as an Aviation Cadet for Pilot Training. His training in planes including the twin engine Fighter P-38. After getting his wings he was assigned to pilot a B-17 Bomber, until, after flying seven missions over Germany, he was shot down and became a POW. After more than a year of many abuses he was liberated and returned to the States to resume his Illinois-based natural healing practice. In 8 to 80 he tells of many successes in relieving and even curing many so-called incurable diseases, with diagnosis made by reputable clinics and physicians. This book includes letters from thosepatients. He writes of his family life, their sports and experiences that were interesting. He writes of hunting, fishing, golf, bowling and water-skiing, and includes many pictures, depicting the lifestyle. Everything that he assumes would be interesting to the reader is included within 8 to 80.

In the years following the Civil War, a veritable army of homeless men swept across America's "wageworkers' frontier" and forged a beguiling and bedeviling counterculture known as "hobohemia." Celebrating unfettered masculinity and jealously guarding the American road as the preserve of white manhood, hoboes took command of downtown districts and swaggered onto center stage of the new urban culture. Less obviously, perhaps, they also staked their own claims on the American polity, claims that would in fact transform the very entitlements of American citizenship. In this eye-opening work of American history, Todd DePastino tells the epic story of hobohemia's rise and fall, and crafts a stunning new interpretation of the "American century" in the process. Drawing on sources ranging from diaries, letters, and police reports to movies and memoirs, Citizen Hobo breathes life into the largely forgotten world of the road, but it also, crucially, shows how the hobo army so haunted the American body politic that it prompted the creation of an entirely new social order and political economy. DePastino shows how hoboes—with their reputation as dangers to civilization, sexual savages, and professional idlers—became a cultural and political force, influencing the creation of welfare state measures, the promotion of mass consumption, and the suburbanization of America. Citizen Hobo's sweeping retelling of American nationhood in light of enduring struggles over "home" does more than chart the change from "homelessness" to "houselessness." In its breadth and scope, the book offers nothing less than an essential new context for thinking about Americans' struggles against inequality and alienation.