By 1932 an army of 250,000 boys and a scattering of girls were wandering about the United States on the railways. The hardships of the Great Depression pushed ever-increasing numbers of young people to join this vagabond army. The Depression, the worst economic crisis in U.S. history, was at its peak in 1932 and 1933. At least 25 percent of America's workforce was unemployed, and almost all families had experienced a significant decrease in income. For some Americans the only solution was to take to the road and search for work in another town or state. By 1933 the size of the transient population (people traveling around without work or homes) was estimated to be between two and three million, including hundreds of thousands riding the rails.

Before the Depression, in the prosperous 1920s, there were two types of transients on the rails: hoboes and seasonal workers...