An Unfiltered Dose of the Human Condition

After a significant drop in ride solicitation during the previous decade, the early 1960s witnessed what journalists at the time deemed a “hitchhiking renaissance.” Young people, the predominant hitchhikers of the era, attached different meanings to the practice. For those frustrated with the status quo and inspired by the Beat novel On the Road, hitchhiking was part of an alternative lifestyle. Others saw thumbing as a thrifty way to get to civil rights and anti-war demonstrations. “Sport hitchhikers” characterized the practice as a pathway to adventure and authentic experience. Finally, some continued to associate hitchhiking with utter necessity. Although there continued to be vocal critics of the practice, the media of the early sixties put forth a more nuanced analysis of hitchhiking as journalists tried to make sense of the era’s youth culture. At the same time, some state and local legislatures softened their anti-hitchhiking laws. Despite concerns about highway safety and periodic acts of violence, this brand of hitchhiking found greater acceptance in American culture because it tracked with the spirit of the times, including the optimism and ambition of President John F Kennedy’s vision of a “New Frontier.”

Riders on the Storm

This chapter explores how hitchhiking—with its promise of free, untethered, and spontaneous mobility—allowed youths of the late sixties and early seventies the ability to maintain a largely nomadic existence while living out the values of the hippie (or freak, as many self-identified) lifestyle. Within the national culture soliciting rides became closely connected to an increasingly politicized counterculture—one that sought to upend the Protestant work ethic and conventional sexual and gender norms. Notably, this radicalized youth culture and its dismissal of traditional values generated resentment among many, creating a deep cultural divide between young people and older, so-called straight Americans. Because of its association with the freak movement, the act of hitchhiking became a key point of confrontation. An increasingly mature regulatory state began cracking down on the practice, in part to reign in the counterculture and women’s liberation movement, but also to promote safer and more uniform traffic behavior. Still, these efforts did little to slow the growing popularity of the practice in the early 1970s.

Something Has Changed

The epilogue summarizes key arguments in the book and reflects on ideas about ride solicitation in contemporary society—noting the intersections between hitchhiking and modern ride-sharing apps like Uber and Lyft. Hitchhiking was common for decades in the United States, because it complimented the transportation needs of a cross-section of Americans while also meshing with the nation’s values—whether it be during the Great Depression, World War II, or the “hitchhiking renaissance” of the 1960s and ‘70s. The practice lost traction when thumbing rides fell out of touch with national values amid the rise of the conservative movement, increasing transportation regimentation, and growing concerns for personal safety.

The Dangerous Stranger

This chapter investigates the discourse surrounding hitchhiking in the post-World War II era to understand the ways in which rising prosperity, exponential growth in car ownership, and the Cold War political atmosphere affected American notions of community, masculine individualism, and personal safety. Many motorists greeted hitchhikers on the road with increased suspicion. Likewise, media and law-enforcement officials began to predominantly frame the practice in terms of risk and danger. Regardless, this did little to dampen the spirits of a new generation of middle-class white youths who began to associate hitchhiking with thrifty adventure and a ticket to authentic experience on the nation’s expanding interstate highway system. At the same time, African Americans began to aggressively push for equal rights and the end of segregation. Notably, automobility, bus boycotts, and hitchhiking were a key front in this struggle.

Goin’ Down the Road Feelin’ Bad

This chapter connects the declining popularity and acceptance of hitchhiking with the nation’s economic stagnation in the late 1970s and the rise of the New Right during Ronald Reagan’s two terms in office. An increasingly risk-averse American society began to associate hitchhiking with subversive behaviour and crime. Unlike the youthful faces on the road in previous generations, the hitchhikers of this period—deemed “drifters” by the media—were predominantly out of work and desperate. The conservative movement’s frank acceptance of inequality and staunchly individualistic attitudes, in tandem with changing hitchhiking demographics, weakened the cooperative sentiments of previous decades, providing an easier justification for motorists to ignore so-called ride beggars. Although hitchhiking in many ways gelled with the nation’s automobile-centered transportation infrastructure, its unpredictability and cooperative nature ultimately did not mesh with a more risk-averse and privatized American society.

Brother, Can You Spare a Ride?

This chapter covers the Great Depression and explores the ways this socio-economic environment impacted American perceptions of transient individuals—focusing on the perspectives of hitchhikers, the media, and law enforcement agencies. Economic dislocations and widespread unemployment spurred discussions about the merits of social cooperation and self-reliance in American culture, manifesting in heated debates about the “worthiness” of hitchhikers’ pleas for lifts. With the depression stagnating automobile purchases, the New Deal social order softened American attitudes toward white male hitchhikers. Still, Jim Crow policies and patriarchal attitudes made it more difficult for minorities and women to solicit rides. Detailed stories throughout document the tactile experience of those on the road, offering new insights into the lives of Americans during the Great Depression.

You Never Have to Drive Very Far to Find a Hitchhiker

Beginning with a story of Ronald Reagan hitchhiking in his youth, this chapter introduces the book’s topic, central arguments, historiography, and source base. The book covers the history of hitchhiking and the ways Americans have understood the practice, beginning just before the Great Depression and ending with the Reagan era. The introduction sets up arguments about the tension between individualism and social cooperation in American culture, the evolution of automobility, perceptions of personal safety, and the decline of the New Deal social order amid the rise of the neoconservatism. The book engages several historiographical discussions, contextualizing the hitchhiker within the history of the hobo and exploring the ways hitchhiking intersected with notions of modern selfhood broader and gender as well as the major social movements in the 20th century.

It’s Easy for a Soldier Boy to Catch Rides

This chapter explores how several factors during World War II made hitchhiking widely accepted and commonly practiced on the home front. Gasoline and tire rationing, increased volunteerism during the war effort, and the fact that most hitchhikers were now servicemen in uniform instead of unemployed transients led many Americans to look more favourably upon the practice. Even critics of hitchhiking during the Depression years came to see offering soldiers lifts to and from their bases—as well as civilians heading to work—as a patriotic duty. As a result, the media, government regulators, and law-enforcement officials typically looked past periodic acts of violence associated with ride solicitation—focusing instead on ideas of duty and sacrifice in the name of the war effort.