In the final decades of the nineteenth century, railroad expansion and a series of economic crises gave rise in the U.S. to a population of transient, marginally employed workers known as tramps (and later as hobos). The word tramp, which previously had signified a journey taken on foot, now named a distinct social type and an object of public concern and debate. In the late nineteenth century, tramps were understood by middle- and upper-class Americans in terms of deviancy and criminality; but by World War II, the tramp had entered the realm of nostalgia. The primary reasons for tramping did not change; what changed was the social meaning assigned to the tramp. George M. Baker begins his 1879 novel A Tight Squeeze with the question “What is a tramp?” In detailing his protagonists’ travels and observations, Baker provides a survey of common late-nineteenth-century understandings of the tramp. Rather than focusing on socioeconomic conditions, he points to individual character traits in explaining the existence of tramps. This sometimes takes the form of romanticization, as when Baker has his protagonist meet up with a Thoreauvian tramp who states, “I could tramp forever and forever, with Nature for a companion.” More often, however, tramps appear as professional parasites, making up maudlin stories of distraught wives and starving children in order to cadge money off of naive but well-meaning marks. Tramps are also defined as drunkards: underlying the rambling propensities, nay, the very instigator of those propensities was the vice of drunkenness. Last but not least, tramps appear as recent immigrants with weak work habits, tramping without an object in view or an ambition to prompt them. Describing a crowd of tramps, Baker notes: “There were some Americans … but the majority were foreigners.”

1) Which of the following statements about Baker’s A Tight Squeeze can be inferred from the passage?

Indicate all that apply.

A) The tramps in Baker’s novel are usually portrayed as criminals who have been victimized by economic forces beyond their control.
B) Characters in the novel with a propensity for tramping are less likely to be portrayed in a favorable light than are their marks.
C) In the novel, Baker attributes tramping to be an activity undertaken of one’s own volition.




2) Select the sentence that uses personification to explain a motivation.