They Traveled, They Worked, They Lived: An Archaeology of Hobos and Other Transient Workers at the Delta Trestle Hobo Jungle (Circa 1880-1940)

This dissertation examines the lived experiences of hobos and other transient laborers in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, focusing on the material, economic, and ideological structures that shaped their mobility and marginalization. Through archaeological, archival, and linguistic methods, I investigate the conditions of these workers who lived on the periphery of both economic and geographic landscapes, establishing makeshift settlements in spaces overlooked or abandoned by dominant social and economic forces. One such site, the Delta Trestle Hobo Jungle in Delta, Pennsylvania—situated beneath and adjacent to a defunct railroad trestle built in 1876—provides a case study for understanding the material realities of transience. Excavations conducted during two field schools in 2016 and 2017 revealed a sporadically occupied settlement where transient laborers lived, often for only a few days at a time. The material record of this site reflects a paradox: while these workers were indispensable to capitalist expansion, they simultaneously challenged normative capitalist structures by living outside fixed modes of property ownership and conventional labor arrangements. The archaeological and archival evidence illustrates how hobos navigated a liminal existence, both essential to the smooth functioning of industrial capitalism and deliberately positioned outside its dominant social order. This dissertation argues for a new framework—the materiality of transience—to conceptualize how mobility, impermanence, and creative adaptation shape the material record of transient communities. By foregrounding the dialectical relationship between labor, space, and capitalism, this research contributes to broader discussions on marginality, resistance, and economic necessity. It highlights how the material traces of transient workers reveal not only their strategies for survival but also their agency in negotiating the structural forces that sought to constrain them.