#hoboes

In an unusual procession of four hansom cabs, 12 hoboes do their part in the 7th War Loan Drive, May 31, 1945. Driving along the streets of midtown Manhattan to Times Square, they bought $1,225 in war bonds and made speeches urging onlookers to follow their example. Cigar smoking Boxcar Betty, center, and Ben Benson, "King and Queen of the Hoboes," buy bonds from Gertrude Fox of the U.S. Treasury War Savings staff. The procession started at the offices of the Hobo News, and was led by Benson and Pat Mulkern, editor and publisher of the Hobo News.

musical cowpoke hobohemia

Rev. A. Roddan and others distributing food to unemployed men at the City Dump, Vancouver. September 1931. 

The topmost photos show Roddan giving out food, while the remainder are a kind of ‘ethnography’ of the shantytown, showing different huts and ‘types’ of unemployed men. The bottommost photo is probably the most ‘public relations’ of these, with Roddan jovially talking with a photogenic unemployed worker.

More information on Roddan here.

These photographs are City of Vancouver Archives, Major Matthews collection, AM54-S4-: