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A tramp is a long-term
homeless Homelessness or houselessness – also known as a state of being unhoused or unsheltered – is the condition of lacking stable, safe, and adequate housing. People can be categorized as homeless if they are: * living on the streets, also kn ...
person who travels from place to place as a vagrant, traditionally walking all year round.


Etymology

Tramp is derived from a
Middle English Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old Englis ...
verb meaning to "walk with heavy footsteps" (''cf.'' modern English ''trample'') and "to go hiking". In Britain the term was widely used to refer to vagrants in the early Victorian period. The social reporter Henry Mayhew refers to it in his writings of the 1840s and 1850s. By 1850 the word was well established. In that year Mayhew described "the different kinds of vagrants or tramps" to be found in Britain, along with the "different trampers' houses in London or the country". He distinguished several types of tramps, ranging from young people fleeing from abusive families, through to people who made their living as wandering beggars and prostitutes. In the United States, the word became frequently used during the
American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and t ...
, to describe the widely shared experience of undertaking long marches, often with heavy packs. Use of the word as a noun is thought to have begun shortly after the war. A few veterans had developed a liking for the "call of the road". Others may have been too traumatised by war time experience to return to settled life.


History

Wanderers have existed since ancient times. The modern concept of the "tramp" emerges with the expansion of industrial towns in the early nineteenth century, with the consequent increase in migrant labor and pressure on housing. The common lodging house or " doss house" developed to accommodate transients. Urbanisation also led to an increase in forms of highly marginalized casual labor. Mayhew identifies the problem of "tramping" as a particular product of the economic crisis of the 1840s known as the
Hungry Forties The European Potato Failure was a food crisis caused by potato blight that struck Northern and Western Europe in the mid-1840s. The time is also known as the Hungry Forties. While the crisis produced excess mortality and suffering across the af ...
. John Burnett argues that in earlier periods of economic stability "tramping" involved a wandering existence, moving from job to job which was a cheap way of experiencing adventures beyond the "boredom and bondage of village life". The number of transient homeless people increased markedly in the U.S. after the industrial recession of the early 1870s. Initially, the term "tramp" had a broad meaning, and was often used to refer to migrant workers who were looking for permanent work and lodgings. Later the term acquired a narrower meaning, to refer only to those who prefer the transient way of life. Writing in 1877
Allan Pinkerton Allan J. Pinkerton (August 25, 1819 – July 1, 1884) was a Scottish cooper, abolitionist, detective, and spy, best known for creating the Pinkerton National Detective Agency in the United States and his claim to have foiled a plot in 1861 to a ...
said:
"The tramp has always existed in some form or other, and he will continue on his wanderings until the end of time; but there is no question that he has come into public notice, particularly in America, to a greater extent during the present decade than ever before."
From 1896 to the last issue in 1953, the cover page of the British comic ''
Illustrated Chips ''Illustrated Chips'' was a British comic magazine published between 26 July 1890 and 12 September 1953. Its publisher was the Amalgamated Press, run by Alfred Harmsworth. Priced at a half-penny, ''Illustrated Chips'' was among a number of Harm ...
'' featured a comic strip of the tramps Weary Willie and Tired Tim, with its readers including a young
Charlie Chaplin Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin Jr. (16 April 188925 December 1977) was an English comic actor, filmmaker, and composer who rose to fame in the era of silent film. He became a worldwide icon through his screen persona, the Tramp, and is conside ...
(who would become famous as
the Tramp The Tramp (''Charlot'' in several languages), also known as the Little Tramp, was English actor Charlie Chaplin's most memorable on-screen character and an icon in world cinema during the era of silent film. '' The Tramp'' is also the title ...
). Author Bart Kennedy, a self-described tramp of 1900 America, once said "I listen to the tramp, tramp of my feet, and wonder where I was going, and why I was going." John Sutherland (1989) said that Kennedy "is one of the early advocates of 'tramping', as the source of literary inspiration." John Sutherland. "Kennedy, Bart" in ''Companion to Victorian Literature''. Stanford University Press, 1989. The tramp became a character
trope Trope or tropes may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * Trope (cinema), a cinematic convention for conveying a concept * Trope (literature), a figure of speech or common literary device * Trope (music), any of a variety of different things ...
in
vaudeville Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition ...
performance in the late 19th century in the United States. Lew Bloom claimed he was "the first stage tramp in the business".


Meaning promiscuous woman

Perhaps because female tramps were often regarded as prostitutes, in the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...
the term "tramp" came to refer to a promiscuous woman. However, this is not a global usage. According to Australian linguist
Kate Burridge Kathryn "Kate" Burridge is a prominent Australian linguist specialising in the Germanic languages. Burridge currently occupies the Chair of Linguistics in the School of Languages, Literatures, Cultures and Linguistics at Monash University. Bur ...
, the term shifted towards this meaning in the 1920s, having previously predominantly referred to men, it followed the path of other similar gender neutral words (such as "
slag Slag is a by-product of smelting ( pyrometallurgical) ores and used metals. Broadly, it can be classified as ferrous (by-products of processing iron and steel), ferroalloy (by-product of ferroalloy production) or non-ferrous/base metals (by-p ...
") to having specific reference to female sexual laxity. The word is also used, with ambiguous irony, in the classic 1937 Rodgers and Hart song " The Lady Is a Tramp", which is about a wealthy member of New York high society who chooses a vagabond life in " hobohemia". Other songs with implicit or explicit reference to this usage include ''
The Son of Hickory Holler's Tramp "The Son of Hickory Holler's Tramp" is a song written by Dallas Frazier and first recorded by country musician, Johnny Darrell in 1968. The song tells the story of a woman with 14 children who is abandoned by her worthless alcoholic husband and tu ...
'' and ''
Gypsys, Tramps & Thieves "Gypsys, Tramps & Thieves" is a song by American singer and actress Cher from her 1971 seventh studio album '' Chér'' (eventually reissued under the title ''Gypsys, Tramps & Thieves''). Kapp Records, a division of MCA Records, released it as th ...
''.


Specific definitions

The US State of
Mississippi Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...
, until 2018, had a specific definition for "tramps", which was a criminal offense.
"Any male person over 16 years of age, and not blind, who shall go about from place to place begging and asking subsistence by charity, and all who stroll over the country without lawful occasion, and can give no account of their conduct consistent with good citizenship, shall be held to be tramps. Every person, on conviction of being a tramp, shall be punished by a fine of not more than $50, or imprisonment in the county jail not more than one month, or both."


In other languages

In French, "clochard" is a term for the
homeless Homelessness or houselessness – also known as a state of being unhoused or unsheltered – is the condition of lacking stable, safe, and adequate housing. People can be categorized as homeless if they are: * living on the streets, also kn ...
, especially in French cities. The term is often associated with the romanticizing image of a person who has given up his bourgeois existence for a free life under the Seine bridges in Paris.


See also

*
Backpacker tourism Backpacking is a form of low-cost, independent travel, which often includes staying in inexpensive lodgings and carrying all necessary possessions in a backpack. Once seen as a marginal form of travel undertaken only through necessity, it has b ...
, a form of low-cost, independent travel * Bum (disambiguation) *
Christopher McCandless Christopher Johnson McCandless (; February 12, 1968 – August 1992), also known by his pseudonym "Alexander Supertramp", was an American adventurer who sought an increasingly nomadic lifestyle as he grew up. McCandless is the subject of '' In ...
, an American hiker known as "Alexander Supertramp" and the subject of the biography ''Into the Wild''. *'' Down and Out in Paris and London'', a memoir of George Orwell's experiences as a tramp in London * Swagman, an Australian itinerant labourer *
The Tramp The Tramp (''Charlot'' in several languages), also known as the Little Tramp, was English actor Charlie Chaplin's most memorable on-screen character and an icon in world cinema during the era of silent film. '' The Tramp'' is also the title ...
, a famous comic character created by Charlie Chaplin * Tramp art, a style of woodworking * Tramp trade, ships with no fixed itinerary that contract on a voyage-by-voyage basis. * W. H. Davies, a British tramp and later author of ''The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp'' in the UK


References


External links

*
BBC Wales feature on tramps as ''gentlemen of the road'' from 1964Tramp's signs, symbols and slang"Waiting for a Train"
Excerpt from Douglas Harper's ''Good Company: A Tramp Life'' (2006) 986
In Strange Company, by James Greenwood, 1874 - A Tramp to the Derby
at virginia.edu {{Authority control Homelessness Itinerant living 1840s neologisms Vagrancy