"This book is a tantalizing boxcar ride back through the history of the hobo, all told from the hobo's point of view. What more could anyone ask?"
–Paul Garon, coeditor of What's the Use of Walking If There's a Freight Train Going Your Way? Black Hoboes & Their Songs and author of Blues and the Poetic Spirit
"On the Fly! gathers and reassembles forgotten fragments of a lost counterculture that was once so vast it practically defined the working-class experience in the United States. Its call was so alluring to young men of all classes that the hobo became the most commonly depicted character in American popular culture between 1900 and 1920. This collection represents the view from within, the stories and perspectives of those who lived the life of The Road, carrying its burdens and glorying in its freedoms. On the Fly! is indispensable for understanding not only the hobo life but also the on-the-ground history of our urban industrial order."
–Todd DePastino, author of Citizen Hobo: How a Century of Homelessness Shaped America
"A wonderful and definitive collection of hobo prose, poetry, and song. Iain McIntyre has painstakingly collected a rich array of hobo writing that together speaks to the rich and varied lives these itinerant travellers inhabited along the iron highway."
–John Lennon, author of Boxcar Politics: The Hobo in U.S. Culture and Literature, 1869-1956
"On the Fly! is a brilliant introduction to the subject, and more than that, a moving tribute to the creativity of men and women at the margins of society."
–Paul Buhle, coeditor of Wobblies! A Graphic History of the Industrial Workers of the World
"On the Fly! is a wide-ranging, fascinating collection of primary sources about homelessness from the era that defined the rise and, in the 1930s, the crisis of industrial society in the U.S. Well-known writers like Jack London, Jim Tully, and Tom Kromer are represented, but what sets this volume apart from many studies is its emphasis on first-person views of the experiences of the homeless themselves. This is social history at its best."
–Kenneth L. Kusmer, professor of history at Temple University, author of Down and Out, on the Road: The Homeless in American History