Search


	Podcast:		Local Features by WXPR
	Episode:		The Bindlestiff Who Hopped a Train North
	Category:		Government & Organizations
	Duration:		00:02:21
	Publish Date:		2018-06-15 06:45:00
	Description:		This week on A Northwoods Moment in History , local historian Gary Entz takes us back to 1905 and tells us the story of a bindlestiff named Frank Lamperer, who benefitted from the kindness of the people in Rhinelander. Before President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal of the 1930s established the first social safety net, people down on their luck often had no option but to roam the countryside, usually under dangerous conditions, in search of work wherever it might be available. For people with no money, the only way to get from one place to the next was either walk or hop a train. In the early part of the twentieth century, such migrant workers were known as Bindlestiffs, or more commonly as hobos, and their individual stories can sometimes be quite interesting. In the late fall of 1905 Frank Lamperer of Green Bay was an out-of-work young man who thought he would try his luck as a Bindlestiff. Like many others, he hopped a train and traveled to the Northwoods in search of work in one of
	Total Play:		0