Pack Like a Hobo! [ 1930s Minimalist Travel Tips! ]

hello welcome to Waypoint survival today we're going to talk about how to pack like a hobo stay tuned the hobo culture is a very interesting culture uh many men and even women traveled the rails and we kind of look at the classic age of the hobo being sometime the 1920s through the 1940s and that's kind of the era that I've studied and I really enjoy reading the story and hearing the tales of the people who lived in that era and who traveled the rails going from place to place of course hobos were men and women who were skilled laborers uh they were not bums and they were not drunks uh hobo is a laborer who travels from place to place and many things around the United States were built by hobos uh from things along the railroads uh to bridges and dams and all sorts of projects uh the hobos and the hobo culture help build them at one point there's estimated to be perhaps as many as 2 million hobos in the United States so that's quite a large number of course a hobo travels and works a merely goes from place to place and only works if he has to a bum is someone who doesn't travel and they just like to drink and basically hang around town and look for more alcohol but the hobos had a hobo code as I talked about in one of my recent videos and they were generally pretty honorable people who often had families back home and they would work hard and send their money back to support them because there wasn't any work in their Hometown especially during the Depression era often in my videos I use a bindle and a bindle stick sort of a caricature of the hobo culture now they did use those but also packs were very common and so I have one today that I'm going to show you the contents of it's very light doesn't weigh a lot about 152 lbs but it carries pretty much all the essentials that you would need if you're going to hit the open road you're going to take a train and go somewhere let's get into that right now what we have here here is a classic canvas pack from the 1930s it is a Boy Scout Pack and we have a wool blanket as you can see wrapped around it uh in a horseshoe fashion and then it's just tied together so this would be very typical of the type of packs that were available to someone who is poor and on the road the pack is simply tied together with a Sho string held together with a Lark's head knot through the top grommet and then we have our horseshoe shape of our wool blanket and it's tied on the sides again very easy to take off everything has to be modular just like that we have the wool blanket and this is something of course would be very useful when you're sleeping inside of a box car or along side of the road now some hobos might also carry a tarp uh they would often sleep around towns but then there were places when they would have to camp out too so just really depends of course you could always sleep up under the train if you uh were sure you weren't going to get caught at the very top of our pack we have a very old canteen and uh this States back into the 1930s 1940s it's got a Bak light top on it and this would be something that you would carry because you wouldn't always be able to find clean water and you might have to actually walk some distance but it would be a way to stay hydrated while you're riding the many miles along the rails in the very back of the pack we have a large Skillet course this is the cool handle Skillet and this is simply carried in a canvas bag wax canvas bag and this is going to help protect the rest of the gear from all the soot that you might get on your pan when you're cooking we also have an aluminum plate and this would be good for if a person went up to a house and you asking for a meal often they would give you the food but sometimes if they would bring it out to you and let you sit on the back porch and put it on your knees that's called a knee Shaker meal and uh of course also around the hobo fire uh you would want to have your own plate for that mulligan stew we also have our neck pouch it's an old leather tobacco pouch and I have done a video on this so most of you that have watched my videos you have uh an understanding of what's inside of this pouch and this carries a fishing kit and various things that a man might need along the road to make do make repairs to his gear and things like that we also carry a Tin Cup actually this is aluminum with an extra bandan stuffed inside that's to help keep it from rattling around and also this forms our bindle when we want to make that with our stick hygiene was pretty important uh because a person wanted to look their best when you went into town and so we have a toothbrush a small tin with some soap and finally we have a very small miniature little case which contains a compact safety razor and some extra razor blades it was very important that a hobo stayed presentable and most of them stayed clean shaven most of the time because they uh they wanted to make sure that they look presentable for work next we have our pot and this is just an old leather belt it's got some large Loops cut in it here to go around this plastic handle it's fairly tight it's supposed to hold everything on there so it can be a little difficult to get off there we go of course just take this off and then inside we have a couple of paper bags and in this one we have some red beans and in the other bag some rice so this is something you could put on the fire and begin to boil which you had a lot of time just waiting on trains so you would just keep your fire going and keep your pot boiling hobos would also use whatever they could scavenge or beg sometimes or if they could do some work for someone get some potatoes perhaps a little bit of of meat but whatever they could get they would put in here and of course just like in today beans and rice pretty cheap and pretty easily available for people who are on the road of course we've got to have a spoon goes along with the rest of our meal and then inside this waxed bag we have all of our tools and I'll lay those out and I'll explain them to you of great importance of course would be the sheath knife many of you are familiar with this this is an old western and it is a Boy Scout knife but you would want a good solid fixed blade for being out on the road many things you could do from firewood task to even defending yourself along with that wrapped in a piece of soft leather is our sharpening stone very important to keep the blade sharp a pair of metal Snips these are good for all sorts of project and repairs making can stoves and things along the side of the road a pair of pliers and this pair of pliers has been fastened and shaped so that the one side also doubles as a flathead screwdriver but this is very important you can use this to get the pot off the fire when it's boiling so you don't burn your hands of course you can always use the handkerchief for that as well but a good solid pair of pliers really good for repairs around the house you would go to a home and maybe the lady of the house would need a door repaired or or something fixed some hinges on a gate and of course you would need pliers things like that to do those sorts of jobs the next item is a flathead screwdriver now although Philips screws were invented in the mid 1930s they were still not commonly and widespread in use for some time and most of your home repairs would be done with a flathead screwdriver plus you could use this as a chisel you could also use it as a wedge uh to help keep a box card door from Rolling shut on you and things like that so flathead screwdriver very very important a small file and as I've said before this is important of course big Nicks in your knife blade or if you needed to sharpen something like a nail for making those hobo nickels hubo also needed his can opener uh tinned food uh was first invented in the early 1800s and so by the time of the depression canned food or tinned food was very very common so that was something would be a standby we also of course have our bottle opener this side church key on that side and a lot of things had to have this church key for an opener uh not only cans of oil but a lot of cans of juice and various other things took this and so someone that was out on the road would definitely want one of this for their beverages of course a couple of 16 penny nails for hanging up things and one flattened and sharpened out so that you could use it as a chisel here we have a small tin that has coffee beans in it another reason you could use a screwdriver is to pry the lid up and inside we have our coffee beans well that smells good and that keeps them sealed up and fresh that way we can always grind and make our own coffee alongside the road we also have the hobo husf which contains the sewing kit husf of course from housewife and this was used for uh sewing and repairs and I did add a bit of wax to this and a little bit of canvas for repairing the pack when needed next we have an old Prince Albert tin and I have done a video on this if you want to know what the contents are but this is something that a hobo could slide in his pocket carry around with him when he wasn't at camp and he didn't have all his Gear with him but with this he could fish there's a small candle in there just bits and pieces of things that he might need to repair and to get along throughout his day next must have some cord so we have some waxed Brown cord along with a roll of string can use that for a lot of things around and repairing in our hobo Camp as well as our gear on the road we also have another stub of a candle and this was great for light when you needed it going into dark tunnels and things like that of course the old shot shell with a cork for a top this has matches inside and that possibly would be also carried in a pocket depending on what you would need for the day we also have our harmonica and this is something that uh a lot of hobos would carry have some music along the side of the road some of them were quite talented the last thing we have two things actually in the pack are a bottle of salt and a bottle of pepper this is of course for the beans and rice anything else we might find could season our food so as you can see a good amount of tools and and a person who would travel the road often was um a jack of all trades master of none and so they often had the ability to do a lot of repairs and so a basic set of tools would come in real handy when they're trying to make some money or earn a meal perhaps couple more items still in the pack spare pair of socks and an extra clean shirt for using we go into town to make sure we can be presentable when we go to find work and that's what the full kit looks like laid out all together all fits in the pack again it's very lightweight pretty much only what you need to get by on the road and truth is if you had to you get by with a lot less now of course modern hobos carry a lot more than this mostly modern backpacking gear but this is a sample of what you might see in a Hobo's pack in the classic era of the [Music] hobo [Music] [Applause] [Music] well folks it's getting dark and I've got a ways to go before I get to the next hobo jungle see you next time this is James Bender for Waypoint survival if you like this video please give it a thumbs up also make sure and check out the links in the description box below just under the more button and while you're down there you'll also find our Waypoint survival.com link and this is where you can sign up to take survival and Bushcraft classes at our beautiful training facility in Southern Ohio and if you haven't already done so please subscribe to the channel we'd really appreciate it and when you do subscribe make sure and press that Bell button so that you can stay notified of all of our upcoming videos and we'll talk to you next [Music] time Pack Light live free go hobo

Channel: WayPoint Survival

Views: 683,227

Keywords: Pack like a hobo, hobo packing, minimalist packing, budget travel, lightweight travel, 1930's hobo gear, Great depression hobo gear

Id: Bq-Ym8qq7AE

Length: 14min 1sec (841 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 17 2023