Mumble in the Jungle

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


May/June 2010 Issue

Back before John Hodgman made hobo names ironic, hoboes were anonymous laborers who crisscrossed the country in search of work. And as historian Mark Wyman writes in his new book, Hoboes: Bindlestiffs, Fruit Tramps, and the Harvesting of the West (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), they carried some heavy lingo with them:

Hobo: Origins unknown, but possibly derived from the English term “hoe boy” (for a farm servant) or a contraction of “Ho! Boy!” Also known as ‘boes, bums, bindlestiffs, floaters, drift-ins, beeters, harvest gypsies, and almond knockers.

Freighting: Riding the rails. Preferable to “counting ties”—walking them.

Bulls: Guards hired to keep hoboes off freight trains.

Bo-teaser: A heavy pin attached to a long cord; dragged beneath moving boxcars by bulls trying to severely injure hoboes hiding there.

Jungle: The area near railroad tracks where hoboes slept, ate, and hid from bulls.

Snowdiggers: Hoboes who went south to Texas during the winter.

Buranketto boys Japanese migrant hoboes who took their name from their blankets.

Mission stiff: A hobo who got food from religious charities like the “Starvation Army.”

Scissorbill: A hobo who wouldn’t object to being treated badly.


If you buy a book using a Bookshop link on this page, a small share of the proceeds supports our journalism.

THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

payment methods

THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate