Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Taxonomy of Tramps

from You Owe Yourself a Drunk: An Ethnography of Urban Nomads, by James P. Spradley

Spradley spent time with skid row men in Seattle in the 1960s and produced this definitive anthropological work documenting how they saw themselves and their world. Here's his taxonomy of the different kinds of tramps. So, for example, while working stiffs ride the rails from job to job, box car tramps just ride the rails because that's what they do.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

ooh, i took an intro to anthro class in college with dave mccurdy, who was spradley's #1 fan, i swear.