CHARLES ASHLEIGH'S novel, The Rambling Kid, is one of the best and most informative books concerning the IWW. It is also one of the rarest and hardest to find. First published in London, 1930, it has never been reissued and is practically impossible to locate, even in libraries.
Soapboxer, writer, poet, agitator, and publicist, the British-born Ashleigh was active in the IWW from 1912 until his deportation in nine years later. As a first-hand account of the Wobbly way of life in the 1910s, The Rambling Kid has few equals.
ON THE ROAD WITH THE WOBBLIES
"Charles Ashleigh's semi-autobiographical novel fills a void in the record of the events that led to the federal government's brutal attempts to suppress the "One Big Union" during World War I. Ashleigh's characters ride alongside IWW job delegates, bindle-stiffs, and gandy dancers as they crisscross the country hopping freights en route to jobs and strikes and everything in between. In the tradition of The Milk and Honey Route by Dean Stiff (Nels Anderson), The Main Stem by William Edge, and Home to Harlem by Claude McKay, The Rambling Kid offers an intimate glimpse into pre-World-War-1 workers' culture on the eve of the Russian Revolution. Steve Kellerman's superb introduction provides the critical and biographical context for understanding the importance of Ashleigh's work and the historical forces that produced The Rambling Kid." - Salvatore Salerno, Red November, Black November
