The thing which that article leaves unsaid is that this lifestyle existed in the context of seasonal migrant workers (hobos) who were still necessary to the not-yet fully mechanized agriculture of the time.

One work which touches on this is Louis L'Amour's autobiography: _Education of a Wandering Man_ which is a great read.

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rtkwe 3 days ago | parent [-]

There's still a lot of non mechanized agriculture in the US. Fruits especially are often hand picked. Strawberries in particular can be pretty grueling [0] because they're low to the ground. Even the semi mechanized version has the workers lying on their bellies rapidly picking as the tractor tows their platform along. [1]

[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/SipsTea/comments/1kqv2yd/pov_manual... pardon the subreddit it was the best video I could find shortly.

[1] https://youtu.be/jmib5b7AhXg?t=24

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WillAdams 2 days ago | parent [-]

Yes, but there aren't masses of people moving in a seasonal migration following the work as there were before the development of the hay rake, combine, &c.

	▲	rtkwe 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		There are fewer but there's still a lot of itinerant workers that follow the harvests. There's not work year round in one place for fruit pickers but there are several harvests each year they follow.