Digit To Ride

After the Great Crash of 1929, more and more Americans?not just adventurous students and youngsters?found themselves sticking out their thumbs in search of work and shelter. In perhaps the era?s most notable depiction of hitchhiking, the hero of John Steinbeck?s Grapes of Wrath, Tom Joad, is introduced merely as ?the hitch-hiker? (though he uses the more straightforward method of asking, ?Could ya give me a lift, mister??) Those who didn?t hitchhike personally may have learned the practice from the movies. In It Happened One Night (1934), the character played by Clark Gable explains that he?s going to write a book about proper thumb technique, called The Hitchhiker?s Hail. He boasts:

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