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Trivia and did you know

Short facts with sources behind them.

The word "hobo" is younger than the practice. Migratory rail riding surged after the Civil War and the Panic of 1873; the word itself is securely attested only around 1889-1890 in the American West.
Etymology unknown. Despite confident folklore, professional etymologists have not settled the origin of "hobo."
Chicago's main stem. West Madison Street was among the busiest labor exchanges for migratory workers heading to harvests, woods, and construction.
Water tanks as directories. Jack London described monikers on water tanks as a way travelers tracked one another across the continent.
Pictographic "code" vs. monikers. Historians find strong evidence for name-date-direction graffiti; the cute symbol charts are poorly evidenced in the field.
Britt since 1900. The Iowa town hosted Tourist Union No. 63 in 1900 and still crowns a Hobo King and Queen each August.
Teenagers on freights. Research tied to PBS Riding the Rails estimates on the order of 250,000 Depression-era teenagers left home to ride.
Boxcar Bertha is literature. Ben Reitman's "autobiography" is a composite fiction later adapted by Scorsese.
Hobo nickels post-date 1913. The craft exploded with the Buffalo nickel's large profile—not with Civil War tokens.
Diesel changed the ride. Faster, less stop-prone diesel freights after WWII made classic freighthopping harder even as prosperity reduced the labor pool that fed hobohemia.
Mulligan stew. The communal jungle meal took whatever contributors brought—stew as mutual aid.
"Unemployment" was a new word. In the 1870s, many elites still refused to see tramp armies as jobless workers.