ABSTRACT
Most Americans seemed to believe that homelessness was a new phenomenon caused by the combination of regressive governmental policies and the recession of the early 1980s. The truth is that homelessness is not new, nor are our efforts to respond to it substantially different from those of our forebears. The homeless were the rejects of the colonies, the rugged explorers of the frontier, the tragic wreckage of the Civil War, the hoboes, tramps, and bums of the late nineteenth century, the denizens of the skid rows of both white and black America. The poorhouse was introduced to America as a multipurpose institution that provided shelter for the aged and the infirm and required work of the able-bodied. As America expanded westward, other major economic, social, and political forces swept across nineteenth-century America. Despite their social and economic differences, hoboes and tramps shared one important characteristic—a life of constant wandering and frequent use of the country's developing network of railroads.
