Riding the Rails

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Riding the Rails

This sensitive documentary recounts the lives of teenage freight train hoppers during the Great Depression, a time when more than 250,000 children were transients. Featuring the lives of ten young "road kids," now seventy to eighty year-old survivors, we learn of their experiences riding the rails in search of jobs, food, lodging, or adventure. Through interviews, the reasons these teens left home, how they struggled to survive, and how this unique experience shaped their lives are explored. Despite the hardships of facing homesickness, death, danger, and hunger, these survivors feel that this experience truly enhanced their lives. These stories are fascinating character studies about a little known period of history. FDR's New Deal allowed many of these young people to receive valuable training at the youth job camps. Using unforgettable vintage footage of rail riders, the film has an evocative soundtrack of Woody Guthrie songs. Errol Lincoln Uys, father of one of the filmmakers, edited a companion book: Riding the Rails: Teenagers on the Move During the Great Depression.

DATE: 1997

TOPICS:
History, Multi-Ethnic/ Cross-Cultural, Rural America

CREDITS:
Producers / Directors: Michael Uys and Lexy Lovell

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION:
Color
53 minutes

public library pricing and ordering

non-public library orders - contact distributor