7. Travel novels

It’s striking how many travel narratives involve running afoul of lawmen. The song “Big Rock Candy Mountain”—a song about a sort of hobo nirvana—talks about cops with wooden legs and empty boxcars (so the police can’t catch you and you can still travel around). Boxcar Bertha claims that, “Police and pinches, jails, bughouses, and joints seem to have been always a part of [her] life,” Anderson’s characters in Hungry Men casually deride “the bulls,” and the land owners in The Grapes of Wrath use the police to terrorize the Oakies. Perhaps its due to the fact that the main focus of the materials discussed in this course deal with the travels of hobos and vagabonds, who, having to steal and cheat to survive must necessarily aggravate policemen. However, I do not believe this to be the whole truth. I think there is a quality intrinsic to travel stories that sets up protagonists in opposition to the law.
 
One of the most exciting and romantic themes in all these adventures is that of freedom.
 
Having no real home can also mean that the world is your oyster. Easy Rider, rebellious bikers go on a sort of spirit journey, answering the call of the open road. In Thelma and Louise, the eponymous characters spend most of their time out on the lamb, and they are hardly vagabonds. In the most extreme cases we have John Dillinger or Bonnie and Clyde or Mickey and Mallory in Natural Born Killers, whose travels are in a sense spurred by pointedly illegal activities. If it can be said that travel stories are on some level freedom—about exploring the world to discover oneself and breaking free from the shackles of society, then (for better or worse) the trappings of society must fall away. Though the rule of law is ostensibly seen as a good thing, in a real sense absolute freedom exists in direct opposition to obeying rules. The police, then, become an icon of the oppressor, and the vagabond or rebel, even in cases where they are cast as psychotics or malcontents, by contrast become freedom fighters and emblems for liberty. 

 There was an itch. The rich felt it along with the poor, and (if what we have read so far is any indication) they became tourists; treating states, land, and country like collectibles. But the poor were hitching themselves out of their homes by any means possible just to search for a meal. Two characters- or maybe caricatures is a better word- of the Great Depression, “boxcar” Bertha and Woody Guthrie tell stories full of yearning for the wild travel on the rails.

As Bertha put it, “No, men don’t satisfy me any more than my baby does. I’m afraid of Baby. I don’t know why, but just recently I made up my mind to settle down in New York and become a real mother, but I just couldn’t do it. Why am I afraid of my child? Why do I want more than one man? I am truly married to the boxcars. There’s something constantly itching in my soul that only the road and the box cars can satisfy. Jobs, lover, a child- don’t seem to be able to curb my wanderlust.” (196).

Reading these stories that glorify poverty as much as they cry for aid, I was reminded first of a popular “gypsy-punk” band called Gogol Bordello. Their songs, titled things like Wanderlust King and Nomadic Chronicle, often lean towards the theatrical, although they do have a feeling of authenticity- no doubt borrowed from their frontman’s nomadic Eastern-European background and Romani roots. He stated that, "The band basically became a gang of people who also feel at home when traveling.”

But the connection goes much further back than that. What is the real difference between the “migrant workers” of the 30’s and the traditional gypsies of Europe? Heritage, I suppose. Gypsies are defined as both, “A member of a people that arrived in Europe in migrations from northern India around the 14th century, now also living in North America and Australia,” and “A person who moves from place to place as required for employment…” And the cleanest definition from Urban Dictionary calls them, “Travelers. The lowest of the low. Subhuman creatures found everywhere in England but especially in the midlands.”

Sound a little close to opinions about the hoboes or homeless?

This is article from yesterday's LA Times that depicts a problem with France booting gypsies out of the country.

Thinking of Depression victims as America’s gypsies really just creates more questions. If the Depression hadn’t ended so abruptly, would a group of impoverished nomads still exist in the United States? Would they face the same infamy as the Gypsies of Europe? Is there something about the nomadic lifestyle that inspires music more than anything else? Have a made a serious slight on the Romani culture by comparing them to down and out Americans?

Here is a link to the New York Gypsy Festival, happening this weekend!!! If you happen to read this and want to go, let me know.

...And here is a link to a documentary about the real American Gypsies, probably proving me wrong. There are still Romani gypsies in the US. 

P.S. Photo Challenge: Are these Romani or migrant workers?

Ben Reitman’s fictionalized autobiography Sister of the Road introduces a new archetypal character to our vocabulary of Depression-era literature that we may not have realized we were missing: the female transient.  This is not to say that we haven’t seen pivotal female characters in our readings thus far (Ma and Rose of Sharon in The Grapes of Wrath, Louis Adamic’s female hitchhiker, etc.), but we have not encountered a female figure depicted in a manner such as Reitman’s Bertha.  Ma and Rose of Sharon embody varying facets of domesticity within the larger Joad camp, and Adamic’s hitchhiker is presented to us as damaged goods of sorts, worn out and used up through the eyes of the (importantly) male narrator.  Sister of the Road aims to address similar issues, but through a focus on Box Car Bertha herself—not solely in relation to her child, lovers, or the wandering male artist.
 
I wonder how much of a stir rose around Reitman’s “autobiography”—not because of the books dubious basis in reality, but due to the substitution of a woman within a typically male role: the transient.  Already in the semester, we have seen a pattern in our protagonists that is perhaps epitomized by The Grapes of Wrath’s Tom Joad.  He is a criminal, a badass; he is not terribly concerned with settling down and seems to be more preoccupied with his own transient anti-establishment lifestyle.  Though he returns home and travels to California with his family, their closeness is less a priority than upholding his own pride.
 
Bertha does not perfectly fill the role of the wandering male transient, but perhaps posits a female alternative.  Bertha is not tied down by family and domestic obligations and is portrayed as an independent protagonist who can care for herself and face the harsh realities of the open road.  But unlike Tom Joad, there is an intense concern for her fellow transients (particularly female ones).  Whereas Tom comes off as self-involved and perhaps a bit chauvinistic, Bertha is depicted by Reitman as a woman wholeheartedly involved in curbing contemporary social problems.  While Tom is whining and moaning about the cops and the injustices toward the migrant workers, Bertha is actually doing something, working at transient camps to help other women “on the bum.”  The female duty to family is morphed into one to the entire female transient population.
 
I’m not sure if Bertha can stand as an entirely feminist figure in the context of our twenty-first-century understandings of the term, but she is certainly a break from the literary tropes we’ve seen in much of our Depression-era literature.  It’s nice to see a character not shown as either hopeless or shamelessly self-involved, and Bertha adds a dimension to the way we look at both women and men in the 1930s.

Families on Route 66 to California in The Grapes of Wrath regularly came into close relationships with one another.  Through the experience of shared crisis, they considered one another “kin”.  There is similar circumstantial generosity and closeness among the men traveling on the trains and hitch hiking in Anderson’s Hungry Men and Guthrie’s Bound for Glory.  
Acel’s small company of Big Boy and Bill provide him interesting conversation and a bit of comfort in friendship.  There is no particular expectation or obligation to stay together: each man is cutting a different path with a different goal in mind.  As long as they are together, they scrape together meals to share, act as lookouts for one another.  They don’t need to be perfectly matched as people, and there will be other gangs to take their places after their paths separate.  
A man finds Acel to have a good face, which apparently means enough to find him food and give him a dime.  He casually refers to a man he has just met as “Dad”.  Big Boy peels off several dollars to give away to his new friend.  A gas station attendant takes a trade with Guthrie and his crew “just to prove my heart was in the right place”.  
Each of these interactions demonstrate a generosity, not only with food or money, but with one’s self.  Sharing stories and coming into close understanding of people with no expectation of their permanence is a remarkable act.  Those characters demonstrate trust and faith in some greater good. 

Woody Guthrie was a folk icon and renowned author. In 1943, Guthrie published Bound For Glory, which is a hybrid novel that contains many autobiographical facts but is also mixed with several imaginary elements. Bound For Glory was inspired by Guthrie’s personal story but also parallels other classic works of fiction of the 1930’s such as The Grapes of Wrath. Like The Grapes of Wrath, Bound For Glory is a travel story that describes a person’s journey as he leaves home in search of a better life. Though Bound For Glory’s focal point is Guthrie’s travels from Texas to California, the journey portrays a detailed account of the different people he meets on his way.
 
As Woody Guthrie begins his trek to California, he first encounters a trucker. During their ride, the truck driver is displayed as caring, yet reserved. However, Guthrie is able to characterize the truck driver through his dialect, which is mixed with slang and incomplete words, “Bad times uv year fer them right blue northers!’  As they continue their conversation, Guthrie admits that he has no money and plans to beg for work and food by using “signs.” When the truck driver takes Woody as far as he can, he drops Guthrie off at a main highway without a word, “The driver hadn’t said goodbye or anything. I thought that was funny.” Yet, as Guthrie searches through his back pocket, he finds a “greenback dollar bill.” Thus, the truck driver articulates his goodbye through his generous actions and gives Guthrie a good start on his journey.
 
While on a train heading west, Guthrie encounters an African American boy. Guthrie offers him food and they strike up a conversation. The “negro boy,” does not have much but is described as an “honest working man.” However, as an African American living in the 1930’s, he has strong reasons to be pessimistic. Even when the boy is confronted by racism on the train, he turns the other cheek and avoids confrontation. During the depression, the “Negro boy” remains optimistic about America. As he stares out into the distance, he says “‘some country… I guess every part of th’ country is good for somethin’, if you c’n jist only find out what!”’ This statement demonstrates that even in the face of adversity, the boy is strong willed and hopeful. 

The theme of authority and law, personified by the typical bored/brutal local cop, has surfaced in just about every reading so far. Guthrie and Anderson's tales are no exception, as both describe less-than-friendly run-ins with the local officers trying to keep the sea of travelers in line. It seems that avoiding police suspicion was a main preoccupation for many travelers, right behind getting something to eat.
 
I find it interesting how there is such a dividing line between the two distinct groups of travelers in the eyes of the police. In places in the Southwest like Tuscon, where many people traveled simply for the fresh, dry air, the line was particularly salient. The tourists, for whom these Southwest towns were the destination of their travels, stayed in hotels and were welcomed with open arms by the locals, while Guthrie faced near-constant harassment. Even though they were just passing through to other distant places, the sheer number of others like them caused the locals to see their “running around” as a main “trouble with this country.” Guthrie wasn’t a tourist, he was a drifter. Anderson’s only option for shelter in the Southeast was each town’s drunk tank. The officers seemed to know how to treat them just by their appearance, keeping the conversation short before running the travelers out of town.
 
There’s definitely some irony somewhere in there. The so-called tourists come to the Southwest towns so they can literally do nothing, leaving their jobs and homes to relax and breathe in the fresh, dry air. People like Guthrie and Anderson, on the other hand, are dying from lack of something to do, willing to offer any skill they have for some food. If these towns needed work, they’d be hustling those kinds of people right in. However, since they need money from tourism much more, Guthrie and Anderson just don’t matter. As much as they offer, they are of no help and therefore get no help. Through these experiences, an important message arrives: when traveling, money is the universal language. Unburdened by dialect or accent, it is the difference between, upon arrival, finding a friendly officer or a shotgun beckoning you toward the opposite direction.

Hobos are a topic in which I have a particular interest, with my great uncle having been a hobo, my uncle having been a hobo turned train conductor, and having myself once attended the National Hobo Convention in Britt Iowa, I feel I have a certain perhaps bazaar connection with this nomadic people. 
 
Boxcar Bertha by Ben Reitman and Hungary men by Edward Anderson provide the reader with a fascinating view into the under examined sub-culture of hoboing in the 1930’s. Few people grasp the shire magnitude of the hobo population in the 1930’s, which according to most depression era historians was literally in the millions.
 
Both Boxcar Bertha and Hungary men provide in my view a relatively clear window into the numerous, and often very rational factors, that lead women and men in particular to pursue a transient lifestyle during the 1930’s. With work shortages across the country it was a common and often socially acceptable choice to set out on the rails (which were much slower at that time making them easier to ride) and try ones look in another town, state, or region of the country.
 
However, with this in mind, life on the rails was still incredibly dangerous and uncomfortable as Andersonindicated in Hungarymen. The wrath of the police which often blamed hobos which often used hobos as scapegoats was ever present as stated in Anderson, “Take these boxcar robberies for instance, its towners that are doing it. A bum would have no way of carting the stuff off, aw they might get a couple of oranges once in a while, but it’s the towners that are doing it, no matter if these bulls do lay into them.”  This line indicated the extent to which hobos were often denounced in the 1930’s. With many communities feeling as though traveling workers were diminishing the value of their labor, which indeed they were, it is not so surprising that the hobos of the 1930’s were not always welcomed with open arms. This intern led the hobos to develop their own culture through which to nourish their desire for a sense of acceptance and belonging. The culture of mutual support depicted in several parts of Hungarymen is one that, from the stories I used to hear first hand from my great uncle, actually existed.  Although this group is largely non-existent in contemporary American society, I think it is no the less interesting to take a look back at this unique communit

Something that has intrigued me long before taking this course (and continues to do so) is the question of what motivates us to travel. Let me note that when I say “travel,” I am including both the initial motivation to up and leave, as well as the factors involved in perpetuating continued travel once it has begun, i.e. life on the road. I have grown more curious about this recently, mostly because many of our readings exist in the context of necessity; economic conditions of these times drove many people out of their jobs, out of their homes, and away from the places they knew in search of something better. However…and admittedly I am going to be playing devil’s advocate a little in this post… I am wondering if, without this “necessity” to leave, many would not have reached the same level of self-discovery and introspection we so often find in these recordings.

I am also wondering if some of these travelers (and I mean the hoboes, the train-hoppers, all that…not the families held up in shacks or living on the street in one particular town) cannot help but “fall in love” – at least a little – with the romantic atmosphere of travel which we have been mainly associating with the stagnant readers/viewers. In Reitman’s record of Box Car Bertha, as well as in the Guthrie and Anderson pieces, there are numerous comments made concerning the “authenticity” of hoboes. In the Guthrie piece, Sister Rosa remarks, “I know that you are sincere in your coming here, and I can plainly see that you are not one of the kind that travels through the country eating free meals when you can get work,” (209). Bertha recalls her mother snapping at a hobo when he called her “lady,” saying, “You’re a professional bum. Only the professionals on the road call me lady,” (12). In the Anderson piece Acel speaks of the hoboes: “They don’t know what it’s all about, these bums. I talk to them, and all they can think about is where they’re going to get their next lump or sack of tobacco. A revolution never will start among a bunch of bums,” (192).

So how many of these hoboes, disguised among those who have truly escaped economic hardship and are striving toward new life, were surfing the wave? How many of them started out with some sort of noble foundation and realized, after going from place to place where people all seemed to be suffering just the same, that hitching free rides and living free of responsibility might be the more appealing option? And what kind of image did this give the other travelers and hoboes? It seems that these people, who speak of being down and out, who shake their fists at the unaffected and the wealthy and the government, have among themselves quite a few who are pretty false. Though I’m sure there were those who were just plain scared or unwilling, almost every piece we’ve read has mentioned a hesitant driver picking up hitchhikers, or a store owner careful not to be stolen from – this can’t all be without reason. I just believe it’s important to explore these potentials for two reasons: first, we have been reading almost entirely from the perspective of the travelers, the migrants, the hoboes, etc., and never from that of the truckers or the gas station attendants. Second, because of the argument brought up in the last class stemming from the review of Agee’s writing – how much, out of guilt or for whatever other reasons, were these people able to escape moral or ethical scrutiny because of their “pitiful” lifestyles? And how many of those people realized this, and used it to their advantage?

Though both very much about the travel habbit around the United States, and the Dust Bowl and the West Coast, both Woody Guthrie’s autobiography Bound for Glory, and Box Car Bertha’s “autobiography” (which was really an amalgamation of experiences and people, as seen and heard by Dr. Ben L. Reitman), lead us back to New York City, where both these texts were encouraged to be written.

The involvement in progressive social movements that both authors (and their characters) have are extremely moving and interesting. They are all still so relevant today. It is amazing how little issues have changed. The issues that were controvertial at the time that these texts were written are still very much at the forefront of the American conciousness today.

Box Car Bertha is portrayed in Sister of the Road, by Reitman, as a woman who unintentionally provokes and pushes for womens rights even in the smallest ways. She begs to be treated fairly and goes to a women’s hobo convention in New York, leaving her baby in the care of a commune of other hobo women: “they were all happy that I was going to Washington to take part in the Bonus Army encampment and to the Women’s Hobo Convention. I asked no one to look after Baby Dear. The Colonists said nothing about it. She was a part of the colony and everybody felt they had an interest in her” (source). It is clear in passages like this that Reitman was pushing his socialist agenda by highlighting the socialistic and communal ways that children like Box Car Bertha and “Baby Dear,” were raised in. He was showing the advantages of a caring and supportive community, especially amongst those living on the outside of “respectable” society. He started a clinic for those with “Venerial Diseases,” and wondered around hobo camps to help keep those “on the bum” healthy. He also passed out profilactics to women like Bertha. This story is not the autobiography of one woman (Bertha herself was not even a real person) but the story of many women struggling for their rights, and for their lives in the 1930s. Bertha comes to New York City in the story, where much of the action takes place (see section about the Bowery Mission). She also winds up settling down there finally to raise her family. Reitman, also spent a great deal of time in New York amongst the socially progressive and aware artists and anarchists of the time.

In a review from “Time Magazine,” right after the book was published, in 1937, the reviewer discusses what Reitman says about Bertha, with surprisingly little judgement of the character or author. Reading this review it could have been a modern day review of the book. With the one exception, they clearly thought "Box Car Bertha" was a real person:
 
“Bertha's "first playhouse was a box car." Her progressive education began early: her teachers were labor agitators, I. W. W.'s, prostitutes. From their talk Bertha picked up her three S's: sex, strikes, socialism… [in the] cooperative colony run by radicals and conscientious objectors…she read William Morris, Oscar Wilde, Walt Whitman, Zola…she took to the road, fell in love with an anarchist…by the time she had made her first swing around the country she knew all the ropes. In Chicago, which she calls the woman hobo centre, she worked a while for a celebrated abortionist….Bertha…to appease her insatiable curiosity she became a prostitute, found the job unexciting…Bertha found herself pregnant, with two venereal diseases.” (source).

Though I had planned to discuss more about Woody Guthrie’s book, I will save that for another entry. The connection I wanted to make however, was that Guthrie, upon moving to New York, taking up residence and marrying a young Jewish dancer from Brooklyn, and writing a song about the “real America” (“This Land is your Land”), he was convinced to write a book about his experiences traveling through the 1930s in the Dust Bowl and to California. Like Reitman, and Box Car Bertha, Guthrie was ahead of his time socially and politically. He wanted to tell the real story of the road, in the real vernacular, just like he does in his music. He wanted to tell the American story in a way that was truly American, and that is what folk music is. Some reviews at the time put down his writing styles for its "Too careful reproduction of illiterate speech." (Library Journal quote via source). However, it is clear when reading it, he is not imitating a way of living, speaking or thinking. Just like his attempt to make a national anthem that was more representative of the America most people lived in, he wanted to write about an experience that most people could relate to at the time.

Boxcar Bertha andHungry Men, by Ben Reitman and Edward Anderson respectively each allow new perspective into the lives of transient people in the 1930s and 40s.  While most have us have read The Grapes of Wrath and have probably learned of bread lines and the great migration to California, many have never heard of the people who chose to travel as bums, seeking adventure.

In fact, it doesn’t seem to be all that rare.  In both Reitman and Anderson’s pieces, we find that a great deal of the people living on the road and relying on “the Muny” were people seeking freedom and some fresh air.  Often they had legitimate reasons for leaving their homes, or as in Bertha’s case, had been travelling for most of their lives, and they became used to this lifestyle, and felt no need to change.  In fact it makes sense that many people were rebelling against the harsh realities of living and working in factories in cities, where there was already an abundant amount of poverty to begin with.  Socialism and communism go hand in hand with the idea of “going back the earth” and these ideas are common in Anderson’s and Reitman’s writings as well.  In fact, in one part, Bertha even lives in a commune and leaves her daughter in the care of these people. While ideas of communism only existed in Steinbeck’s writing to those looking to ban it, it is accepted and discussed freely in Anderson and Reitman.

Another common theme is the access and abundance of social work and federal aid.  We all know that Social Work came to exist in the time of the Great Depression, but I had no idea of the extent to which the organization and structure existed for these migrants, and how many were already milking the system.  It was interesting to see the way in which Bertha finds her place helping others, using her knowledge of their lifestyles to her benefit. The way Reitman told Bertha’s story was interesting in how it felt like the story could have been told in the 60s or even today.  She simply wasn’t ready to be a mother and loved the life on the road.  She says, “The rich can become globe trotters, but those without money become bums.”

Thinking about these three readings, I noticed that the similarities between them and classic epics were just as pronounced as in the Grapes of Wrath (I won’t talk about Hungry Men because the beginning is cut out).  They begin with a hero, Bertha and Woody, and a prayer to the Muse.  Bertha’s character begins the novel by speaking of a muse, her Mother as does Woody speak of his Aunt Laura.   Intermingled with a prayer to the muse, we learn who the hero is, what their goal is, what their motivation is,  what their background is in a few short lines – typical of an epic (an example is the opening of the Aeneid).  In the case of Woody, by the end of the first page we know he wants to get to California to get work, and that he’s been in Pampa for such and such amount of time.  Bertha tells us in the first sentence who she is, where she comes from, even how old she is.  It takes a few pages but we then find out that her goal is to help other hobos.

The next thing an epic introduces is the conflicting force in the story, almost always the force that can’t be controlled by the character.  Usually in an epic it’s one of the Gods, like Poseidon in the Odyssey, or simply Fate itself.  For both Woody and Berta the force seems to be their surroundings or environment, a version of Fate.  In the first page Berta talks about getting arrested for the first time, and how jail became a part of life.  The police are the force she can’t control.  Woody talks about the town of Pampa, how the Great Depression is destroying the town and he is powerless over it.

Now, the stage has been set, in true epic fashion we have a hero with a story, a motive, and a conflicting uncontrollable force all within the first page.  The rest of the story is one long struggle against that conflicting force.  For Bertha, she struggles against the police, but the struggle morphs into the bigger abstract concept of “the law”.  For example, she is impeded by her record from continuing to help at a shelter.  Despite their trials there seems to be enough luck that they get by, just as Athena helps Odysseus.  Although I didn’t have the ending for Bound For Glory, I did have the ending for Sister of the Road.  I found it interesting that it ended with a coming home.  Just as Gilgamesh returns to his city to rule as King, Bertha goes back home to her daughter, again very typical of epics.

Woody Gurthrie declared in one of his songs, “I ain’t got no home, I’m just a wondering around. And I aint got no home in this world anymore”. However, he provides an account of his journey from Texas to California, which provides an interesting Depression-era travel narrative, but with an optimistic, youthful twist that makes the reader feel like Woody Gurthrie is truly at home on the road.(Source)
 
Although he faces the same dire circumstances, including starvation, as the thousands of other migrants workers, he presents his story in an uplifting way, which reminds me of Huckleberry Finn. Unable to continue living in the shrinking Texas town of Pampa, plagued with the Dust Bowl, Woody begins his travels. Before hitting the road he briefly reminisces about the town he is leaving behind him, saying, “Good ol Pampa. I hit here in 1926. Worked my tail off ‘round this here town. But it didn’t give me anything. Town had growed up, strung itself all out across these plains. Just a little old low-built cattle town to start with; jumped up big when the oil boom hit. Now eleven years later it had up and died.”(P. 191) This journey undoubtedly went on to become an important inspiration for his lyrics that would go on to become the unofficial anthem of Okies and migrants throughout the nation. It becomes clear from reading his autobiographic story, why so many migrants were able to identify with his music. He exemplifies how many places he had been, and how many people he had met, when he writes, “I had seen thousands of men that looked the same way, and could usually tell by the color of the dirt[ on their faces], where they were from”. (P. 195) It goes to show how well he understood his surroundings, including the people and the settings of the mass migration during the Great Depression.
 
Guthrie displays his easy-going mentality that he adopts towards his unfortunate situation when he writes, “Where was I going? I was going to California. What for? Oh, just to see if I couldn’t do a little better.(P. 194) His acceptance of the circumstance he is dealt, and his embracement of the migrant lifestyle serves to inform much of his music. His recollection an anecdote from the road-“We were four guys out, trying to get somewhere in the world, and the roar of that little engine, rattly, knocky, and funny as it was, had a good sound to our ears. It was the only motor we had. We wanted more than anything else in the world to hear it purr along, and we didn’t care how people laughed as they went around us, and throwed their clouds of red dust back into our faces”. (P. 196)-could easily have been the inspiration for the song, Riding In My Car. It seems that Guthrie truly enjoyed being on the road and living for the brief moments of triumph, and pleasure, rather than concern himself with the grim future that lay ahead out west. 

Ben Reitman's excerpt from Sister of the Road was a truly awesome account of gender dynamics in the 1930s. Not only does it document the roles of women in this time but it challenges them as well. While Bertha grew up in sort of a free-love environment, looking up to her mother, the anti-traditional woman, she ended up rebelling against that, at the end of the excerpt and returning to the natural calling she felt to be a mother. Her initial position on women and their roles in society was skewed by her mother. America in the 1930’s for women was an interesting place as they entered the work force and started to feel the “liberation” that came with that. The pendulum would them seeing back the other way as the women in the 1950s had to be perfect suburban housewives, however women of the 1930s were able finally to start asserting their identity. Boxcar Bertha is an incredible example of the highly sexualized and gendered idea we have of freedom as she is portrayed as sort of a dangerous floozy.
 
The trailer for the movie Boxcar Bertha boasts AMERICA WAS A FREE COUNTRY in the 1930s and Boxcar Bertha was freer than most. What does it mean then, that she chose to finally settle down and raise her child. Was she a hypocrite who fell subject to the system? Even more so, was she a hypocrite because of her convincing Lowell to use money to prove his message to those that have never previously been constrained by money (even though their identities have been defined by it)? What does Bertha represent that she was not a “real” hobo at times, with the financial backing she had?  I think all of these questions come up as a function of the 1930s and what it meant for people outside of the agricultural system to explore their freedoms that have been enabled by the financial situation. Check out the movie trailer!

Woody Guthrie is a creature of his time. His journey out of Dust Bowl Oaklaholma made him the unofficial figurehead of the Okies’ struggle to find work and keep hope alive, while at the same time, revolutionizing the music and recording industries. In Guthrie’s Bound For Glory, the reader is taken alongside the author into the depths of poverty and hunger of Depression/Dust Bowl U.S.
 
Guthrie was never one to shy away from provocation, and caught substantial flak for his relations with communist organizations during America’s ‘Red Scare’ period. Rarely though, were his works taken affectionately to those who had money. Guthrie was a man of his word, and his word spoke to the hoards of displaced and aching families through music and writings. Bound For Glory is an exposé of personalities and experiences while on the road in the 1930’s, complete in a tight autobiographical bundle.
 
I loved hearing Woody in true dialect. He wrote and spoke like his fellow Okies and therefore, entered his readers into a space where nearly no one of the time could. Rarely in activist/causal writings are readers able to hear maladies and other goings-on from a local; a person whom has both firsthand sight and the vocabulary to describe atrocities happening at home. Readers see ethnographers, biographers, sociologists, etc., and never the words directly from the horse’s mouth. In my opinion, this makes Guthrie’s interactions and contemplations in Bound For Glory all the more astounding.
 
In clear hyperbole, Guthrie inks what I see as the most telling of all his thoughts in his “Off to California” chapter. Guthrie writes:
 
“…Just what in the hell has gone wrong here, anyhow? I’m not a very smart man. Maybe it ought to be this way, with the crops laying all over the ground…There’s enough here in the fround to feed every hungry kid from Maine to Florida, and from there to Seattle.”
 
Guthrie is attempting to appeal to the masses by immersing himself in Okie-think. Of course, there is not even close to enough crop rotting on the ground to feed the hunger of millions of Americans, but the depravity and over-simplification is exactly what makes his ideas respectable and durable across space and time. Should Guthrie had decided to stray from his roots and approach his experiences from the role as an academic or even as a sympathizer, his words would lose their power; their valor.
 
He was the voice of the downtrodden American migrant worker. Nothing was more important than the necessity for food, and nothing less distressing than the senseless waste of bare necessities.