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30-616: He is a kindly old wandering hobo , dressed in rags. His philosophy of life centers on both love and an aversion to material possessions. His one possession of value is the Love Magnet. His individuality is not welcome in the United States, but is accorded respect in the Land of Oz , where Princess Ozma provides him with a fine wardrobe of silks , satins , and velvets , but as shaggy as his old rags. The Shaggy Man appears at

60-546: A University of Chicago master's thesis, wrote in 1932, Another merit of the book [Godfrey Irwin's 1931 American Tramp and Underworld Slang ] is that the author has not subscribed to the fiction that American tramps have a sign language, as so many professors are wont to believe. Though newspapers in the early and peak days of hoboing (1870s through the Depression ) printed photos and drawings of hoboes leaving these signs, these may have been staged in order to add color to

90-418: A "stiff" or his monica. And more than once I have been able to give the monica of recent date, the water-tank, and the direction in which he was then bound. And promptly the hobo to whom I gave the information lit out after his pal. I have met hoboes who, in trying to catch a pal, had pursued clear across the continent and back again, and were still going. The use of monikers persists to this day, although since

120-602: A good subject to the princess, he agrees to Ozma's decree that the Love Magnet be donated to the Emerald City and hung over the city gates. In The Patchwork Girl of Oz , the Shaggy Man serendipitously arrives to rescue Ojo and his traveling companions from man-eating plants that attack them along a yellow brick road in the Munchkin Country . In Tik-Tok of Oz , it is revealed that the Shaggy Man has

150-605: A greeting "Ho, boy", but that he does not find these convincing. Bill Bryson suggests in Made in America (1998) that it might come from the railroad greeting, "Ho, beau!" or a syllabic abbreviation of "homeward bound". It could also come from the words "homeless boy" or "homeless Bohemian ". H. L. Mencken , in his The American Language (4th ed., 1937), wrote: Tramps and hobos are commonly lumped together, but in their own sight they are sharply differentiated. A hobo or bo

180-482: A long-lost brother who is being held prisoner by the Nome King . Much of that book revolves about his efforts and those of his companions to rescue and disenchant this brother. Finally, the Shaggy Man decides to give up Oz to remain with his brother and other companions; the prospect of losing him from Oz persuades Ozma to allow these others to enter Oz. Much like the Shaggy Man himself, this brother has no name which

210-538: A magical device he has called the Love Magnet, which causes the owner to be loved by everyone he meets. He claims that this artifact was given to him by "an Eskimo in the Sandwich Islands ." Eventually Dorothy and the Shaggy Man realize that they are wandering in an unknown fairyland. After a series of adventures, he and Dorothy reach the Deadly Desert , where his ingenuity lets them pass safely over

240-443: A writer or writers seeking to add to the folklore surrounding hoboes soon after they acquired the name, an invention perpetuated and embellished by others over the years, aided occasionally by amenable hoboes themselves. Several hoboes during the days that the signs were reportedly most in use asserted that they were in fact a "popular fancy" or "a fabrication". Nels Anderson , who both hoboed himself and studied hoboes extensively for

270-525: Is ever revealed to the readers, and is simply identified as "the Shaggy Man's brother." He was called Wiggy in the stage version. In The Shaggy Man of Oz , the love magnet has worn through the nail and broken, and the Shaggy Man must go to the creator of the love magnet, Conjo (a retcon ) in order to have it fixed. To get there, he visits many of the places visited in John Dough and the Cherub . In

300-401: Is seen in the background at Princess Ozma's coronation. Hobo A hobo is homeless in the United States. Hoboes, tramps , and bums are generally regarded as related, but distinct: a hobo travels and is willing to work; a tramp travels, but avoids work if possible; a bum neither travels nor works. The origin of the term is unknown. According to etymologist Anatoly Liberman ,

330-464: Is simply a migratory laborer; he may take some longish holidays, but soon or late he returns to work. A tramp never works if it can be avoided; he simply travels. Lower than either is the bum , who neither works nor travels, save when impelled to motion by the police. While there have been drifters in every society, the term became common only after the broad adoption of railroads provided free, though illegal, travel by hopping aboard train cars . With

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360-901: Is the National Hobo Convention held in Britt, Iowa . The town first hosted the Convention in 1900, but there followed a hiatus of thirty-three years. Since 1934 the convention has been held annually in Britt, on the second weekend in August. Examples of characters based on hoboes include: Musicians known for hobo songs include: Tim Barry , Baby Gramps , Railroad Earth , Harry McClintock , Ramblin' Jack Elliott , Utah Phillips , Jimmie Rodgers , Seasick Steve , and Boxcar Willie . Examples of hobo songs include: Eric Shanower Too Many Requests If you report this error to

390-483: The Kansas home of Dorothy Gale one day in August, asking for directions to the nearby town of Butterfield so as to avoid going there by accident, for he wants to avoid a man who would return a loan of fifteen cents: as "Money...makes people proud and haughty. I don't want to be proud and haughty." Dorothy agrees to show him the way, but after a short time the two become inexplicably lost. The Shaggy Man tells Dorothy about

420-807: The Steamtown National Historic Site at Scranton, Pennsylvania , operated by the National Park Service , and in the National Cryptologic Museum in Annapolis Junction, Maryland , and Webster's Third New International Dictionary supplies a listing of hobo signs under the entry for "hobo". Despite an apparently strong record of authentication, however, there is doubt as to whether hobo signs were ever actually in practical use by hoboes. They may simply have been invented early on by

450-405: The 1870s, it was reported that they communicated with each other by way of a system of cryptic "hobo signs", which would be chalked in prominent or relevant places to clandestinely alert future hoboes about important local information. Many listings of these symbols have been made. A few symbols include: Reports of hoboes using these symbols appeared in newspapers and popular books straight through

480-633: The Depression, and continue to turn up in American popular culture; for example, John Hodgman 's book The Areas of My Expertise features a section on hobo signs listing signs found in newspapers of the day as well as several whimsical ones invented by Hodgman, and the Free Art and Technology Lab released a QR Hobo Code, with a QR stenciler, in July 2011. Displays on hobo signs have been exhibited in

510-453: The U.S. Nonetheless, the ethics of hobo culture can be regarded as fairly coherent and internally consistent, at least to the extent that any culture's various individual people maintain the same ethical standards. That is to say, any attempt at an exhaustive enumeration of hobo ethics is bound to be foiled at least to some extent by the diversity of hoboes and their ideas of the world. This difficulty has not kept hoboes themselves from attempting

540-576: The end of the American Civil War in the 1860s, many discharged veterans returning home began to hop freight trains. Others looking for work on the American frontier followed the railways west aboard freight trains in the late 19th century. In 1906, Professor Layal Shafee, after an exhaustive study, put the number of tramps in the United States at about 500,000 (about 0.6% of the US population at

570-711: The exercise. An ethical code was created by Tourist Union #63 (a hobo union created in the mid-1800s to dodge anti-vagrancy laws, which did not apply to union members) during its 1889 National Hobo Convention: There are numerous hobo conventions throughout the United States each year. The ephemeral ways of hobo conventions are mostly dependent on the resources of their hosts. Some conventions are part of railroad conventions or "railroad days"; others quasi-private affairs hosted by long-time hoboes; still others surreptitious affairs on private land, as in abandoned quarries along major rivers. Most non-mainstream conventions are held at current or historical railroad stops . The most notable

600-429: The hostility of many train crews and the railroad police , nicknamed "bulls", who often dealt violently with trespassers. British poet W. H. Davies , author of The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp , lost a foot when he fell under the wheels trying to jump aboard a train. It was easy to get trapped between cars, and one could freeze to death in cold weather. When freezer cars were loaded at an ice factory, any hobo inside

630-462: The modern Oz book Queen Ann in Oz (1993), authors Carlson and Gjovaag give the Shaggy Man a personal name — Shagrick Mann. Although Baum used The Shaggy Man a great deal in his books from his first appearance onward, he did not appear in any productions of The Oz Film Manufacturing Company , nor did he appear much in the work of Baum's successors other than Jack Snow. Frank F. Moore portrayed

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660-406: The national economic demand for a mobile surplus labor force has declined over time, leading to fewer hoboes. Hoboes were noted for, among other things, the distinctive lingo that arose among them. Some examples follow: Many hobo terms have become part of common language, such as "big house", "glad rags", "main drag", and others. Almost from the beginning of the existence of hoboes, as early as

690-669: The only certain detail about its origin is the word was first noticed in American English circa 1890. The term has also been dated to 1889 in the Western —probably Northwestern — United States , and to 1888. Liberman points out that many folk etymologies fail to answer the question: "Why did the word become widely known in California (just there) by the early Nineties (just then)?" Author Todd DePastino mentions possible derivations from " hoe -boy", meaning "farmhand", or

720-483: The railroad, though others such as "A No. 1" and "Palm Tree Herby" rode trains as tramps or hoboes. Hobo culture—though it has always had many points of contact with the mainstream American culture of its day—has also always been somewhat separate and distinct, with different cultural norms. Hobo culture's ethics have always been subject to disapproval from the mainstream culture; for example, hopping freight trains, an integral part of hobo life, has always been illegal in

750-405: The rise of cell phones a moniker is more often used simply to "tag" a train car or location. Some moniker writers have tagged train cars extensively; one who tagged under the name Bozo Texino during the 1970s and ’80s estimated that in one year ("where I went overboard") he marked over 30,000 train cars. However, not all moniker writers (or "boxcar artists") are hoboes; Bozo Texino in fact worked for

780-779: The role on the Los Angeles stage opposite James C. Morton as Tik-Tok in the 1913 play The Tik-Tok Man of Oz . The role was modeled on Fred Stone 's Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz , and Moore later played the Scarecrow in His Majesty, the Scarecrow of Oz . In comics, Shaggy Man appeared briefly in Eric Shanower 's The Ice King of Oz and in issue #19 of Oz . The Shaggy Man appears in Return to Oz . He

810-541: The sands. Arriving in the Land of Oz , they find that their journey has been prearranged so that Dorothy can attend a birthday party for Princess Ozma . The Shaggy Man is awed by the splendor of the fairy-realm, and resolves to live there permanently. Upon being questioned by Ozma, he reveals that he has actually stolen the Love Magnet from a girl in Butterfield, but is without remorse because doing so has allowed him to travel to Oz with Dorothy. Nevertheless, eager to be

840-585: The story. Nonetheless, it is certain that hoboes have used some graffiti to communicate, in the form of "monikers" (sometimes "monicas"). These generally consisted simply of a road name (moniker), a date, and the direction the hobo was heading then. This would be written in a prominent location where other hoboes would see it. Jack London , in recounting his hobo days, wrote, Water-tanks are tramp directories. Not all in idle wantonness do tramps carve their monicas, dates, and courses. Often and often have I met hoboes earnestly inquiring if I had seen anywhere such and such

870-495: The time). His article "What Tramps Cost Nation" was published by The New York Telegraph in 1911, when he estimated the number had surged to 700,000. The number of hoboes increased greatly during the Great Depression era of the 1930s. With no work and no prospects at home, many decided to try their luck elsewhere by freight train. Hobo life was dangerous. Itinerant, poor, far from home and support, hoboes also faced

900-399: Was likely to be killed. Around the end of World War II , railroads began to move from steam to diesel locomotives, making jumping freight trains more difficult. This, along with postwar prosperity, led to a decline in the number of hoboes. In the 1970s and 1980s hobo numbers were augmented by returning Vietnam War veterans, many of whom were disillusioned with settled society . Overall,

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