Inès Santi
April 2016
Book Report
Boxcar Bertha (Sister of the Road), by Ben
Reitman, 1937
Boxcar Bertha is an original book dealing with the conditions of
hobo women throughout the 20th century. It was written by Ben
Reitman, an American anarchist and the lover of Emma Goldman. He was also a
physician who cared for the poor, known as “the hobo doctor”. He met many
different hobo women during his career, who gave him the inspiration for his
book. Indeed, Boxcar Bertha is
written in the style of an autobiography, gathering all the main features of
the genre: first person narrative, chronological depictions of events and
experiences, self-analysis… However, the character of Boxcar Bertha (Bertha
Thompson) is fictional. It can be considered as a mix of all the inspiring
women whom Ben Reitman met. Thus, it provides a clear insight into the lives of
hobo women and the people they met on the road, but it can sometimes seem a
little unrealistic, as the main character meets a lot of influential people and
lives a variety of experiences that may appear too big for a single person. To
my mind, what is interesting about the format of this book is that it can be
read both as a history of socialist, anarchist, radical or marginal groups in
20th century America, and as a personal story, a coming of age novel
about a woman trying to find her way through a society that keeps invalidating
her. The story is not precisely situated
in time, except for a direct reference to World War I in chapter II, when
Bertha is eleven years-old. We can then deduce that she was born in the first
years of the century, and that the story continues until the years of the Great
Depression.
Historical information.
The book contains interesting historical elements about
people who played a role in the fight for workers’ rights or the conditions of
the poor. In chapter IV, Bertha meets Jacob Coxey and talks of his protest
march “of the Coxey Army”. We learn that it was a protest against unemployment
organised in 1894, after the panic of 1893 deprived many people from their
jobs. In chapter V, there is a reference to Lucy Parsons and the Haymarket
Riot, but unfortunately, this is not developed much. The narrator then attends
many speeches given by Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) members, dealing
with stories of unemployment and hobo life. However, the references to IWW
actions and the socialist and anarchist causes are not often precise. Their
fight is an omnipresent theme throughout the novel, but I found it difficult to
get a clear picture of their struggles and achievements. Obviously, this book
is a novel and not a history book, so it is perfectly understandable that
political events should not be fully developed, but a little more information
about the social context may help the non-specialist reader understand.
Although this book may not always contain precise
historical facts, it offers a detailed picture of the different kinds of people
fighting for their lives against the nefarious effects of the capitalist system
at the start of the 20th century. Through the states of mind and the
ideologies of the different people and groups presented in this book, we reach an
understanding of the many of the important issues faced by those who were left
behind.
Boxcar
Bertha works with statisticians in the story, and this allows us to get precise
figures about unemployment, hobo women and prostitutes. We learn that there
were between 1.5 and 2 million hobos in the United States in the first decades
of the 20th century, but only 1 woman for 200 men. Only 2% of
migrants living in camps across the US were women. We are reminded that the
majority of migrants left home in order to seek work, while only 4% of them
travelled primarily for the love of adventure; this is a fact that we tend to
forget because of the ideal of freedom preached by the narrator.
Finally,
the book denounces the inhumanity of the capitalist system. It presents the
hobo lifestyle as a somewhat peaceful and humane resistance, and social
activism as the only weapon that people possessed against capitalism. There is
a very significant passage in chapter X (p 131):
Imagine
que nous allions dans les charbonnages et les aciéries en disant aux
patrons :
“Messieurs, les hommes qui travaillent pour vous ont des familles,
des
enfants à nourrir. Ils ont besoin de cette somme par semaine.” Même en
parlant
avec des sanglots dans la voix, même en leur présentant une douzaine
des
misérables familles en question pour appuyer notre requête, cela
aurait-il
la moindre efficacité ? Jusqu’à présent, seule la
force a payé.
This extract underlines the
inhumanity of the capitalist system, driven by greedy men who do not care
whether children starve as long as they make profit. It specifies that in order
to change something to this system, the best means is to use force, for example
with unions, strikes and riots, because the capitalists will not listen to the
people’s distress.
In a
more peaceful way, I found the following quote from chapter XIX (p 237)
striking:
A
la colonie, il n’y avait pas d’enfants légitimes ou illégitimes. Il n’y avait
que
des enfants en bonne santé, heureux et acceptés par tous.
I think that this quote shows
how the hobos go against the current and ignore conventions. They consider a child’s health and happiness
before giving him a social status. If we stop for a second and think about it,
we should always consider health and happiness as our priorities, but society
makes it more and more difficult by alienating us in order to serve the
interest of a minority. Humanity somewhat disappears behind money, and this
story about hobos reminds us that it is always possible to reject the system.
The image of women.
First,
Boxcar Bertha bears the name of its
female protagonist as a title. It is written from a strongly feminine point of
view. Indeed, the narrator describes the people she meets along the road, but
there is a particular focus on female characters and their individual stories,
presenting how they ended up where they are. For example, when Bertha spends nights
in social care institutions, she often relates the story of someone she meets
there. The women who benefitted from the help provided by these institutions
sometimes had children, and ended up taking part in all sorts of illegal
businesses such as drug dealing or theft in order to survive.
The
main idea associated with womanhood from the beginning of the novel is freedom.
For instance, we can see that the character of Bertha’s mother is a free and
rebel woman who has no taboo and raises her children with various men,
surrounded by hobos. This education encourages Bertha to choose her way of
life, and become a hobo. She is nicknamed “Boxcar” Bertha because she travels
illegally in train cars. Throughout the story, she claims her freedom by
travelling anywhere she wants, having many lovers and taking risks. She wants
to experience the true way of life of marginal people and observe criminals.
For example, she spends many months with Otto and his group of robber friends,
without directly taking part in the thefts herself.
However, I think that there is a paradox in
the story. Indeed, we learn that many women had to become prostitutes because
it was the only means for them to survive in this society. We see in the novel
that men often exploit the prostitutes by taking all of their money. Still, the
narrator, who is so attached to her freedom and has a clear feminist point of
view, decides to become a prostitute. I think that this is a way for the author
to provide details about the prostitutes’ lives, but in my opinion, it also
contradicts the image of women given at the beginning of the book.
In
chapter III, a woman hobo tells Bertha that life on the road is easier for a
woman is she considers her body as capital. This reflects the difficulty faced
by women who sought freedom by travelling throughout the country. Indeed, while
men did not have to deal with that kind of issues, women often had to
prostitute themselves or just accept to have sex in exchange for small
services, for example to prevent police officers from denouncing them for
travelling illegally. I think that this is an interesting idea, because it
underlines the ambivalence of women’s freedom at the time. Even when adopting a
free life-style such as that of the hobos, they could never be completely free
because they were women. What is more, women who prostituted themselves could
catch diseases or get pregnant, and in both cases, that would isolate them even
more by making them outcasts.
Limits.
The book is an excellent defence of all types of outcasts
in 20th century America: hobos, poor workers, prostitutes, thieves…
It also portrays free characters with an independent spirit, who are not afraid
of living life in their own way. For example, Bertha’s father lives in a menage
à trois, surrounded by books, and is not much concerned about what people might
say.
However, though the author
seems to deal with all the groups that do not fit in the capitalist society of
the early 20th century, there is one group that appears to be
ill-treated in the book: the homosexuals. For a book that deconstructs all the
taboos of American society, I found that the approach to homosexuality was
strongly prejudiced. It could have passed unnoticed if homosexuality was
completely ignored by the author, but this is not the case. Lesbian hobos are
mentioned several times in the text, without much development but with no major
issue. However, at some point (p 148-149), a friend of the narrator expresses a
homophobic opinion:
J’ai
connu pas mal de gouines et de pédés et ça m’a toujours laissé une
impression
de malaise. Mon antipathie à leur égard ne vient pas du fait que ce
sont
des déviants […] mais parce qu’ils sont fondamentalement antisociaux,
égoïstes
et prêts à exploiter les autres. […]
A
mon avis, l’homosexualité est grandement artificielle – non seulement
les
choix sexuels des homosexuels, mais, en règle générale, leur démarche,
leur
langage et leur comportement. […] Le pire chez eux, c’est qu’ils sont
toujours
à l’affût. Comme les drogués, ils ne se contentent pas de pratiquer,
il
faut qu’ils fassent du prosélytisme. Ils cherchent à convertir tous ceux
qu’ils
rencontrent. Autrement, ce ne serait pas grave : comme ils ne se
reproduisent
pas, ils ne sont pas nombreux.
When I read
that, I tried to understand why such a passage should be in the book. First, we
can say that at the time of the publication of the story, homosexuality was
often concealed and not largely accepted; but then, so were prostitution and
vagrancy. So why defend a group but attack the other?
Then,
perhaps this passage is there to remind us that some people throughout the
United States shared that opinion. Nevertheless, is that really necessary? I do
not understand why the author should make a difference between homosexuals and
other oppressed groups. Homosexuals were no more dangerous and no less human
than any other group. What is more, Bertha seems to want to live as many
experiences as she possibly can, even becoming a prostitute, but when it comes to
homosexuality, she says, when invited to a party by a group of lesbians (p 225):
Je voulais tout apprendre sur la vie,
surtout sur les marginaux. Mais il y a
des
choses que j’ai envie de remettre à plus tard pour l’instant. Merci, je
ne viendrai pas dimanche.
Once again, why would the main
character not hesitate a second to walk the streets with a group of robbers and
to become a prostitute, but refuse to attend a party given by lesbians? To my
mind, it is a shame to find such ideas in a book which otherwise provides a
good understanding of the sub-groups that shaped America in the 20th
century.
Such categorisation tends to isolate different
groups which should on the contrary unite because they have the same interests.
Whether people were women, hobos, social union members, homosexuals, or fitted
in several of these categories, their aim seemed to be the same when fighting
the structure of society and capitalism. Maybe what comes out of this book in
the end is the realisation that people were more divided than united, and that
may be why capitalism has expanded so freely over time. Social differences
still prevent people from uniting, as has been the case since the time of
slavery.
To
conclude, Boxcar Bertha is a great
depiction of 20th century sub-groups in the United States from a
feminine point of view, though it was written by a man. It provides useful
information, but not many historical details. To put it in a nutshell, I think
that this novel is a good starting point to reflect on a part of American
society that has often been overlooked or even totally ignored by historians.