The American Vagrant in Literature

Widespread panic once generated by 'tramps' produced interdisciplinary and international dialogue on race, work, and welfare. This book argues that the rapid development of anti-vagrancy laws in the late nineteenth century, written alongside widespread public fascination with 'tramps', facilitated a transatlantic dialogue between sources eager to modernise 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 regarded a menacing threat to society, yet had disappeared 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 seized on the social panic around tramping in order to reimagine the relation of work to national citizenship. Bryan Yazell is an Assistant Professor of Literature at the University of Southern Denmark and a fellow at the Danish Institute for Advanced Study.