Harry A. Franck

Harry A. Franck

Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras: Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond (1916)

Background:

Harry A. (Alverson) Franck, 29 June 1881-17 April 1962, is a self-declared vagabond. Born in Munger, Michigan, Franck graduated from the University of Michigan in 1903 and quickly established himself as a traveler. As a result, the majority of his adult life comprised of exploration and travel writing, with interruptions only during WWI and WWII, both in which Franck served. An account of his experiences with the Ninth Air Force during WWII-another type of travel writing-has been recently published (Winter Journey Through the Ninth). At the end of WWI, he moved to New Hope, Pennsylvania and married (the former) Rachel Latta. Although the couple had five children, it did not hamper Franck's traveling career, composing a book of travel writing nearly every year in the interwar years. Aside from his travels to Mexico in 1915, Franck traveled to such places as Germany, the West Indies, China, Siam, Greece, Alaska and Scandinavia. By the time of his death in 1962, Franck had written 33 travel books. (For a complete list click here) He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

His fourth book, Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras: Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond concerns his travels to Mexico, published in 1916 was a "simple story of a journey southward grew up of itself" (forward). A description from the cover copy of his first book, A Vagabond Journey Around the World, could just as readily describe his experience in Mexico.

Major Franck, 1945

	"As his chief objective was investigation of the masses, he worked and mingled always with common people. His itinerary mapped itself out as his earnings permitted; his wanderings carried him into strange corners of the world, far from tourist's tracks. And before he reached his home again, he had proved conclusively that a man can girdle the globe without money, weapons, or baggage."
Franck's Itinerary (click on map for an enlarged copy)	(from http://www.harryafranck.com/vagabond.htm)	Franck in Guatemala (1915)

The description might well be discussing his travel account through Mexico of this perpetual "vagabond."

The Book:
Throughout the account, Franck continually returns to an "investigation of the masses," as he takes frequent note of the customs, dress and personality of the Mexicans whom he encounters. His appreciation of the Mexicans varies, sometimes handling them with the detached observation of a foreigner, sometimes finding them victims of the legacy of colonial oppression, but most often concluding that "[we] of the North [Americans] were perhaps more kind to the Indian in killing him off (33). Although his ultimate conclusions may seem harsh and misguided, Franck also seems to have more authority with his descriptions than other travel writers of his time, because of his direct contact with the people. In the 250 pages of the account devoted to Mexico, Franck devotes fifty-two pages to a detailed description of a Mexican mine, and of the people who work there, based on his own experience as an overseer in the mine at Guanajuato.

	Stealing is rarely a virtue. But it was not hard to put oneself in the place of these wretches and catch their point of view that made such thievery justifiable. As they saw it, these foreigners had made them go down into their own earth and dig out its treasures, paid them little for their labors, and searched them whenever they left that they should not keep even a little bit of it for themselves. (109-110)
Miners at Guanajuato

Like his extensive attention to the people in his account, Franck likewise devotes much attention to both the land and to the actual traveling experience, usually weaving the two in his descriptions. His description of traveling from Paracho to Uruapan exemplifies the simultaneity of land and travel for Franck.
Tramping was delightful through what seemed a wild, untamed, and unteutonized Harz, with only the faint road and an occasional stump to show man had passed that way before. Huge birds circled majestically over the wooded hills and valleys of which the trail caught frequent brief but wide vistas. The road...never left off winding, both in and out through the whispering forest and in and out of itself by numberless paths, often spreading over a hundred yards of width, and rolling and pitching like a ship at sea. As in most of Mexico, wheeled traffic would here have been impossible. (163-4)
	Lake Chapala
The book as a whole follows Franck's pattern of weaving. Each aspect of his observations is often coupled with others, and the reader thus, feels a complete portrait of Mexico--unclassified by the strict division of themes. Regardless of whether we agree with him in the end, we must admit that his portrait feels complete and real through the eyes of one traveler.

Sources:

--Harry A. Franck. Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras: Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond. New York: The Century Co, 1916.
--http://www.harryafranck.com/

Images from:

--(Major Franck, 1945) http://www.harryafranck.com/
--(all others) Harry A. Franck. Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras: Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond. New York: The Century Co, 1916.

Back to Top