At the height of the Great Depression, two hundred and fifty thousand teenage hoboes were roaming America. Some left home because they felt they were a burden to their families; some fled homes shattered by the shame of unemployment and poverty; some left because it seemed a great adventure.

By summer 1932, the "roving boy" had become a fixture on the American landscape. The occasional girl was sighted too, most passing unrecognized in male garb. Girls especially did not make the decision to hit the road lightly, for they were stepping into a world filled with danger. It was the same for young African-Americans, for whom the beckoning rails could be doubly perilous.

This companion book to the award-winning documentary "Riding the Rails" draws primarily on letters and oral histories of three thousand men and women who hopped freight trains, their incredible journeys illustrated with rare archival photos. Their memories are a mixture of nostalgia and pain; their later musings still tinged with the fear of going broke again. At journey's end, the resiliency of these survivors is a testament to the indomitable strength of the human spirit.