The American Vagrant in Literature: Race, Work and Welfare

This book argues that the rapid development of anti-vagrancy laws in the late nineteenth century, which were written alongside widespread public fascination with 'tramps', facilitated a transatlantic dialogue between sources eager to modernize the state's ability to describe, catalogue, and manage this roving population. Almost always depicted as white, solitary, and artistic, the tramp character was once a menacing threat to society only to disappear from the public eye by the postwar period. This book brings to light the often-surprising lines of influence between authors, sociologists, and government authorities who alike seized on the social panic around tramping in order to reimagine the relation of work to national citizenship.

Author: Bryan Yazell
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Published: 04/17/2023
Pages: 192
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 0.99lbs
Size: 9.21h x 6.14w x 0.50d
ISBN: 9781399506717

About the Author

Bryan Yazell is an Assistant Professor of Literature at the University of Southern Denmark and a fellow at the Danish Institute for Advanced Study.