Who invented hitchhiking and why did it go away?

That's a good question, Steve and I am delighted you asked. A two-parter - let's break it down. After many hours of extensive and thorough research, I have come to the conclusion that hitchhiking was most likely invented by a man, long ago, in days of yore who was running a bit late. And horseless.

Most likely a wandering troubadour or minstrel, the first hitchhiker was doubtless a carefree gent with little regard for time or obligation. He was probably on the run for stealing fruit at the marketplace or surreptitiously romancing the daughter of an earl. He might have had a fine eye for spotting those with a faulty moral compass, thus making it easy to narrow his search for willing daughters of earls, and to seek the company of other like-minded scoundrels.

Artist's rendering of the likely first hitchhiker. A musician and scoundrel with a faulty moral compass.

 

Hitchhiking remained popular and convenient throughout the centuries, reaching the apex of its popularity during this country's great depression, when most people either lost their cars or drove them til they fell apart, or tramped the rails.

 

A Depression-era family hitching the road in their best finery. While it is tragic to realize that they most likely hadn't eaten for days, it is a bit of a comfort to know that there was a puppy in the suitcase, so it was never necessary to eat the baby.

 

While there is not definite proof, I blame the demise of hitching to the 1986 motion picture "The Hitcher", in which the villainous Rutger Hauer tormented the young C. Thomas Howell. The carefree days of hitchhiking were forever doomed once this movie was stapled into the part of the brain where bad memories live in all would-be hitchers.

 

Thanks, Rutger Hauer, for ruining hitchhiking for everyone.

Good day, Sir.