The following article summarizes several discursive productions of the US hobo in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in order to expose the role the hobo played historically in the making of idyllic American manhood. After the crash of the railroad boom in 1873, the hobo was produced as other to dominant ideals of masculinity that were based in a stable work ethic. Deemed a tramp who refused to work, the hobo became a site for medical investigations that highlighted his lack of reason, feminizing the male hobo-tramp and buttressing ideals of both bourgeois and working-class masculinities in the process. Self-identified hobos worked to counter such discourses, but in doing so, also employed exclusionary tactics to distance women, tramps, and men of colour from definitions of hobo masculinity, revealing that white masculinity represented a possession in need of protection, regardless of class. Le present article resume plusieurs modeles discursifs du clochard americain a la fin du dix-neuvieme siecle et au debut du vingtieme, lesquels ont permis au clochard de devenir a travers l'histoire l'un des representants de la virilite americaine idyllique. Apres le declin du boom des chemins de fer en 1873, le clochard a ete exclu des ideaux dominants de la masculinite reposant sur une ethique stable du travail. Juge une personne sans occupation fixe qui refusait de travailler, le clochard a fait l'objet de nombreuses enquetes medicales qui soulignaient son manque de raisonnement, feminisaient le clochard male sans domicile fixe et appuyaient par la meme occasion les ideaux tant de la masculinite bourgeoise que ceux de la classe ouvriere. Les clochards declares ont travaille pour contrer un tel discours, mais, ce faisant, ils ont employe des tactiques d'exclusion et ainsi revele que la masculinite blanche representait un attribut qui devait etre protege peu importe la classe.
