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   In the Freight Car

Location: Bakersfield, CA
Date: Apr 11, 1940
Agency: NYA
Credits: Rondal Partridge (Photographer)
Source: NARA (SPB)
Accession Number: 119-CAL-15-7

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Between Bakersfield and Fresno, Calif., April 11, 1940, Twenty years old and he has been hopping freight cars on the bum for two years. His home, which he has visited occasionally for two or three days at a time, is in Oakland, California. There his father, on WPA, his mother, who is engaged as a domestic when she can find work, and his married sister with her child live in a small house where there is a crowded and insecure atmosphere. His family is misinformed as to his activities and is not aware of his penchant for freight car travel. At one time he enrolled in the CCC, but quit after six months because the army routine was distasteful to him and went back to hopping the freights. He is a complete hobo and is not seriously in search of employment. He has no desire to travel as a gentleman hitch-hiker. "I wouldn't thumb. Freights is a lot better."