It ranges from elaborate murals ...
to crude scribbles on bathroom walls.
Leaving your name, or “tag,” on things that aren’t yours is an age-old practice
in bragging rights – just to say, “I was here.”
And the more intricate the tag or more challenging the spot, the better.
But, this story isn’t about the type of tag you’ve probably seen.
It’s about this one.
The tag of the hobo.
“Hobos,” or “tramps,” were workers and wanderers that once roamed the countryside
by illegally hopping freight trains.
Peak Hobodom in America began in the 1890s, continued through the 1930s, and usually coincided
with periods of financial crisis and mass unemployment.
Around the same time, the expansion of the railroad opened up new work opportunities
in the West.
This kind of classic late 19th century hobo was someone who kind of navigated between
jobs and not having jobs.
You know, a lot of these jobs are temporary, like seasonal agricultural work, or you know,
“Thanks for building the bridge, now get out of here.”
I’m Bill Daniel, I’m a photographer – I work in film, photo, and tall tales.
By 1911, the number of hobos in America was estimated at 700,000.
Being on the road wasn’t easy.
Hobos were unwelcome in many towns and were constantly chased by both local police and
private railroad police.
And despite their reputation for being bums, 100 years ago, a skilled hobo was called a
“professional,” or, “profesh.”
So a profesh is someone who’s, like, good at what they do, they’re able to not get
caught by the law, and you know, leave the camp clean for the next guy.
And maybe most importantly, they didn’t draw attention to wherever hobos were.
A profesh, you know, does not blow up the spot.
Hobos were constantly on the move, but they found a way to communicate with each other
— through graffiti.
Search “hobo graffiti” online, and you’ll find these mysterious icons that hobos supposedly
used as a sort of coded graphic language.
Symbols that they would scratch or draw onto houses and fence posts to let fellow wanderers
know things like “kind lady lives here,” “there are thieves about,” or “good
place for a handout.”
Stories surrounding these signs have been circulating for a long time.
Tramps have a sort of touch-and-go code.
This sign, for instance, means “no good.”
They show up in the original hobo literature, too.
Like in the books of Leon Ray Livingston, also known as A-No. 1, once the world’s
most famous hobo.
In the early 20th century, A-No. 1 published several books about hobo life and lore, and
included symbols like these.
And news articles at the time even claim to decode the “secret hobo language.”
This St. Louis Star article from 1921 even includes illustrations of how the signs were
supposedly being used.
The problem is, all this information came from hobos, a group that took pride in their
elusiveness and embellished storytelling.
The truth is, there really isn’t any evidence that these signs were as widely used as the
literature suggests.
It’s hard for us to know what the facts were because I think hobos used their mythology
as kind of a cover.
And so the tall tales, and the drawings, and even the books by A-No. 1 were ways to project
an image of themselves that both kind of, like, blew them up, but also kind of kept
them hidden.
Hobo graffiti was actually rooted in a graphic representation of their road persona, called
a “moniker.”
Any hobo has a moniker that rides the rails.
And different monikers fit different ’bos.
Monikers usually said something about the person.
Where they were from.
A physical trait.
If they were young or old.
How hobos used their monikers sort of falls into two camps: leaving their tag on boxcars
moving across the country, and something Bill calls “tramp writing.”
Early original tramp writing has to do with addressing the issues of mobility and travel
– announcing your place and direction and where you are.
The original graffiti included arrows and letters indicating which direction that hobo
was heading next.
Sort of like a hobo tracker.
Tramps are generally making these marks on water tanks or stationary things, you know,
where they were camped out.
So it worked as kind of a personal telegraph.
You know, like, “I’m here, is anybody around?”
Tinder for tramps.
And it wasn’t long before the drawings moved from stationary objects like water tanks to
railcars.
I think there was just an evolution, kind of like what happened in New York, with, like,
“Oh I can write on my street corner, but if I write on this train, boom it’s going
everywhere.”
And hobos weren’t the only ones doing this kind of graffiti.
Rail workers, stuck in the same trainyard for years, marked passing boxcars with monikers
of their own.
I started doing it October of ‘68.
A lot of them guys would go on vacation, and they’d say, “Well I seen one of your damn
drawings in Canada, or Mexico, or California, you know?
I thought well, I’ll never get there, might as well send something.
Monikers aren’t used for communication anymore, but they do still exist in freight graffiti.
And it’s kind of come to mean specifically this type of drawing.
You know, usually oil stick or chalk-based drawing that’s usually an identity proclamation,
usually a sketch, a lot of times a self portrait.
“Moniker” just kind of is the perfect word to describe this type of art writing.
At its core, all graffiti is a messaging system, even if the message is as simple as “I was
here.”
Tramp writing, you know, tramp marking, has that in common with graffiti that it has a
little bit to do with making a connection with somebody in a really remote place, even
when they’re not there.
Just this ability to say, like, “Whoa, you got here too.”