Poorhouse

Apoorhouseorworkhouseis a government-run (usually by acountyormunicipality) facility to support and provide housing for the dependent or needy.

Workhouses

People queuing at S. Marylebone workhouse circa 1900

InEngland,WalesandIreland(but not inScotland),"workhouse"has been the more common term. Before the introduction ofthe Poor Laws,each parish would maintain its own workhouse; often these would be simple farms with the occupants dividing their time between working the farm and being employed on maintaining local roads and other parish works. An example of one such isStrand Housein East Sussex. In the earlyVictorian era(seePoor Law), poverty was seen as a dishonourable state. As depicted byCharles Dickens,a workhouse could resemble areformatory,often housing whole families, or apenal labourregime giving manual work to the indigent and subjecting them tophysical punishment.At many workhouses, men and women were split up with no communication between them. Furthermore, these workhouse systems were instituted under thePoor Law Amendment Act 1834:The United Kingdompassed this act to attempt to cut expenditure on those in poverty, reduce the number of beggars on the street, and inspire lower-class people to work harder in order to better provide for themselves.

Poor farms

Frederick County Poor Farmin Virginia, United States

United States

In theUnited States,poorhouses were most common during the 19th and early 20th centuries. They were often situated on the grounds of apoor farmon which able-bodied residents were required to work. A poorhouse could even be part of the same economic complex as aprison farmand other penal or charitable public institutions. Poor farms werecounty- or town-run residences where paupers (mainly elderly and disabled people) were supported at public expense. They were generally under the direction of one or more elected or appointed "Superintendent[s] of the Poor."

Most were working farms that produced at least some of the produce, grain, and livestock they consumed. Residents were expected to provide labor to the extent that their health would allow, both in the fields and in providing housekeeping and care for other residents. Rules were strict and accommodations minimal.

Poor farms were based on the U.S. tradition of county governments (rather than cities, townships, or state or federal governments) providing social services for the needy within their borders. Following the 1854 veto of theBill for the Benefit of the Indigent InsanebyFranklin Pierce,the federal government did not participate in social welfare for over 70 years.

The poor farms declined in the U.S. after theSocial Security Acttook effect in 1935, with most disappearing completely by about 1950. Since the 1970s, funding for the care, well-being and safety of the poor and indigent is now split among county, state and federal resources. Poor farms have been replaced bysubsidized housingsuch aspublic housing projects,Section 8housing andhomeless shelters.

Canada

InCanada,the poorhouse, with an attached farm, was the favoured model. According to a 2009 report by theToronto Star,"pauperism was considered a moral failing that could be erased through order and hard work".The oldest government-supported facility of this type that is still standing (now a museum), is located in the Southwestern-Ontarian hamlet of Aboyne between the larger, nearby communities ofFergusandElora.TheWellington County House of Industry and Refugewas opened in 1877 and, over the years, housed approximately 1500 deserving poor, including those who were destitute, old and infirm, or disabled. The 60-bed house for inmates was surrounded by a 30-acre industrial farm with a barn for livestock that produced some of the food for the 70 residents and the staff and also provided work for them.Others worked in the House itself. A hospital was added in 1892. The nearby cemetery has 271 plots.In 1947, the House was converted into a home for the aged and in 1975 the building reopened as the Wellington County Museum and Archives, one of theNational Historic Sites of Canada.

Gallery

• 
  Women and children in St. Louis Poor House, 1904
• 
  Male Pauper Barracks in St. Louis Poor House,1904
• 
  German Poor house, 1854 - The Garden Arbor
• 
  Concrete Sewer Blocks made at the Halifax Poor Asylum
• 
  Russian Poor house, Unknown date
• 
  New York City Farm Colony "inmates" at meal time, 1904
• 
  Murals in workroom of the New York City Farm Colony, 1938
• 
  Women in Poor House
• 
  Five Nations Poor House, ca. 1918

See also

• Almshouse
• Low income housing
• Scottish poorhouse
• Homeless shelter

Further reading

• Katz, Michael B. (1996).In the Shadow Of the Poorhouse: A Social History Of Welfare In America.New York:Basic Books.ISBN978-0465032105.
• Rothman, David J., (editor). "The Almshouse Experience", in seriesPoverty U.S.A.: The Historical Record,1971.ISBN0-405-03092-4
• Sweeney, Ed. (1927).Poorhouse Sweeney- Life in a County Poorhouse, with a foreword by Theodore Dreiser. New York: Bony & Liveright.
• Wagner, David (2005).The Poorhouse: America's Forgotten Institution.Rowman & Littlefield.ISBN978-0742529458.

External links

• Jack London's firsthand account of life and poorhouses in the 1902 East End of London
• Workhouses in and around Bures, Suffolk, by Alan Beales
• McLean County, Illinois Poor Farm Finding Aid
• A study of Kansas poor farms/ by Kansas Emergency Relief Committee (1935)