DOWN AND OUT, ON THE ROAD: The Homeless in American History

Homelessness is not only a contemporary phenomenon in the U.S. according to this well-researched and engrossing history. While many readers will be familiar with the hobos and box-car riders of the 1920s and the post-Depression world of transient skid row inhabitants, Kusmer has uncovered a complex sociology that transforms how we view U.S. culture and history in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Kusmer examines overarching social conditions and structures such as a condemnatory U.S. Protestant work-ethic response to homelessness, and why "workhouse" solutions do not deal with underlying economic issues. The mythologies of the "tramp as criminal," "pedophile seducer" and disease carrier are examined and taken apart. But Kusmer is at his best when describing the specifics of people's lives, from "the wandering poor" and "sturdy beggars of Colonial times" to the creation of the "tramp" after the Civil War, the social position of penniless Jewish scholars on New York's Lower East Side in the 1890s, and the political ramifications of unemployment as manifested in Coxey's Army's 1894 march on Washington. Drawing upon sociological studies, reports from charitable institutions, the novels of William Dean Howell and Stephen Crane, and the music of blues writer and singer Ida Cox, Kusmer has produced a book that is highly engaging, emotionally absorbing, and historically consequential. (Dec.)

Forecast:Unfortunately, homelessness is not likely to be a front-burner issue in the coming months, and the lack of substantive coverage of WWII and beyond further limits the book's contemporary reach. But its scholarly basis should make it a must for most campus libraries, particularly those strong in sociology and urban studies.