V Care of Dependent Children

In the mid-nineteenth century, almshouse and orphan asylum represented the extremes of care for dependent children; the former exhibited the effort and neglect of public bodies, the latter typified the achievement and limitation of private philanthropy.

During the 1820's American poor law reformers like Josiah Quincy of Massachusetts and J. V. N. Yates of New York identified four methods of public assistance. Since children were not yet recognized as constituting a special category of recipients their care came under the same general headings as that of adults:

1. Outdoor relief or assisting needy people in their own homes;

2. Vendue or auctioning off the poor individually to the lowest bidders;

3. Contracting with the lowest bidder for the care of the entire lot of paupers; and

4. Concentrating all the dependent and defective in an almshouse owned and managed by public authority.

Because of the extreme decentralization of responsibility for poor relief all of these systems might be in operation within a single state; adjacent towns or counties might follow different practices, sharing only a disinclination to assist any but their "own" poor; and a city, as was true of New York City, might extend outdoor relief to some of its paupers and send others to the almshouse.

The poor law and charity reformers of the 1820's and 1830's agreed that outdoor relief was the most pernicious form of public assistance because, as they firmly believed, it promoted pauperism by making aid too easy to get and not shameful enough to receive. Disdaining the vendue and contract systems, which stiff-necked countrymen liked because they were cheap and easy to administer, the reformers advocated indoor or institutional relief. Their name for the almshouse was the "poor farm," where, under judicious management, paupers could engage in wholesome, productive labor and earn their own keep.

With few exceptions, the reformers' dreams that paupers could be made self-supporting on a well-regulated farm were as illusory as those of the founders of the communitarian experiments of the 1840's. Brook Farm evaporated leaving the poorhouse in its stead. By the 1850's the almshouse/poor farm no longer seemed a panacea, except to sensitive people living in communities which still disposed of their poor by contract or vendue. As often as not the almshouse had come to be a symbol of mismanagement, political chicanery and corruption, public apathy, and human wretchedness.

In state after state legislative committees and concerned individuals investigated conditions in almshouses; their reports pronounced some good, many indifferent, some bad, others horrible. The investigators pointed out that even a reasonably well-conducted almshouse was a poor place to raise a child. In strongest language, citing considerations of health, education, citizenship, morality, and humanity they urged removal of children from the almshouse. Unfortunately, the reports lay unnoticed among other legislative documents and have been read more by historians than by those to whom they were addressed. Recommendations that special provision be made for pauper children and that greater care be exercised in apprenticing them went unheeded or were only half-heartedly implemented. The failure and inappropriateness of public efforts for dependent children and the seeming indifference of voters and officeholders to correct those defects eroded confidence in the ability of government to promote social welfare. [1a]

The number of children in almshouses rose from year to year but their numbers would have been even greater had it not been for the multiplication, especially after 1830, of private orphan asylums. [1b] Some of the institutions were founded for the benefit of children whose parents perished in cholera, yellow fever, and typhus epidemics; others were established to receive orphans whose plight appealed to the compassion of individual philanthropists, ethnic and occupational groups, benevolent associations, and religious sects. Many orphanages, in recognition and encouragement of their services to the community, obtained assistance from public as well as private funds. Between 1847 and 1866 the legislature of the state of New York, to cite one example, contributed lump sum grants totaling more than $600,000 to some sixty private asylums, and in addition made annual appropriations to be distributed among the incorporated orphan asylums in the state on a per capita basis. [1c]

As alternatives to almshouses and vendues the asylums had obvious advantages. The legislative committees which deplored conditions in the public institutions commended the cleanliness and order of the asylums and the good deportment of the children who called them home. The praise showered on orphanages, not only by legislators and journalists, but also by their founders, administrators, and boards of directors of directresses, contributed to the increasing prestige of private benevolence. Lavish praise of the orphanages also contributed to an overoptimistic view of the scope of their work. Operating, even when assisted by the state, on limited budgets, usually directing their charity to particular religious, racial, or ethnic groups, selective in their admission policies, and free to discharge children when they saw fit, the orphanages served only a fraction of the children who needed help. They were valuable supplements to, but no substitute for, better public care.

In the 1850's and for forty years thereafter, the most outspoken critic of both almshouse and asylum care for children was Charles Loring Brace, secretary of the New York Children's Aid Society. Brace's work for the prevention of the dependency and delinquency is treated in Chapter VII, and will be further examined in Volume II. Here it is necessary only to note his opposition to institutional life of any kind, and his insistence that the best place for dependent or needy children was in foster homes, preferably on western farms. Brace's concern was with the vagrant, homeless, street children of New York and with the devising of measures to prevent these children, already outlaws, from growing up to be menaces to society. The final step in his program of "moral disinfection" was to send boys and girls west to be placed (not bound out) in farmers' homes. They were placed without the formality of indenture, so that the placement might be terminated if either party became dissatisfied. Brace called this part of his society's work "emigration." Like seventeenth-century Londoners, Brace, seeking a way to rid his city of troublesome youth, looked westward. He envisaged the young emigrants bringing the boon of cheap labor to farmers and, in return, finding opportunities and gaining rewards beyond their reach at home.

1a. "Reform came slowly in view of the evidence of the serious conditions in the almshouses, because public funds had been invested in land and buildings and because of the fatal ease of with which children and families could be placed in almshouses. Moreover, as the number of children in almshouses was large, the problem of what to do with them if this form of care were abandoned was one not easily solved." Abbot, Child and the State, II 7.

1b.  In New York state there were approximately 3,000 children under sixteen years of age in 1847; 5,400 in 1857; 8,000 in 1861; and 26,000 in 1866. New York nad only two orphan asylums in 1825, more than sixty in 1866. David M. Schneider, The History of Public Welfare in New York State, 1609-1866 (Chicago, 1938), pp. 344-345. Of the estimated seventy-one orphanages founded in the United States between 1801 and 1851, sixty-two were founded after 1821 and fifty-six after 1831. Homer Folks, The Care of Destitute, Neglected, and Delinquent Children (New York, 1900.) p. 36.

1c. Schneider, History of Public Welfare in New York, p. 339. The annual, per capita appropriations ranged from $35,000 distributed among twenty-six orphan asylums (maintaining 2,800 children) in 1857 to $80,000 awarded to sixty-three private child-care institutions in 1866.

A. CHILDREN UNDER THE POOR LAW

In the 1820's and for several decades thereafter charity reformers recommended substitution of poor farms for the auctioning off or vendue system of poor relief. A well-conducted poor farm, according to its advocates, was the most economical, humane, and scientific method of caring for paupers.

1. Methods of caring for the poor in New York, 1823

New York State, State Board of Charities, "Report of the Secretary of State in 1824 on the Relief and Settlement of the Poor," Thirty-fourth Annual Report, 1900 (Albany, 1901), 1,979-980,984-987,998-999, 1006-1007.

Secretary of State J. V. N. Yates prepared this report on the basis of an investigation conducted in 1823. The following are extracts from replies made by supervisors of the poor in the indicated towns to Yates's inquiries about methods employed in caring for the poor.

GHENT

There is no poor-house, nor house of industry in our town. We have our poor kept by the week. Children from two to seven years old, from 25 cents to 56 cents per week. Aged paupers, we pay from 50 cents to $1 25, per week, for board and clothing. We are informed that the legislature have it in contemplation, to pass an act to build a poor house in each county. To this we are decidedly opposed as the plan we have adopted to support our poor, is the best we can devise. We find that our poor tax is reduced annually, and that the sum of $200, will be quite sufficient to support our poor. And we wish to retain our present privilege, that is to support our own poor, in our own way and not to be associated with any other towns, or the county. . .

STAMFORD

The people of Stamford are very well satisfied with the poor laws as they now are. We should be apprehensive that any alteration in the system, might operate injuriously to our interests. Especially we hope that the legislature will not make it compulsory on any towns, or grant liberty to counties to erect houses of in industry. We think that the legislature went far enough last session, in giving this power, to those towns that should wish to exercise it. It would be a detriment to this town, for instance, to contribute to the expense of erecting a poor house in this county. We should first lose our funds, and then we should be driven to taxation, and at last the poor could not be so cheaply, and I may add, so comfortably supported...

WALTON

Our general practice of assisting the poor, is when there is a family needy in order to prevent their being thrown on the town, our poor masters are requested to give them occasional assistance, and find good places for them to put their children to service.

BEEKMAN

Previous to the year 1820, the poor of our town were kept by individuals, one, two or three in a place, by persons who would keep them the lowest, at the average expense of $35 each, and their clothing furnished at the expense of the town. Since the year 1820, we have contracted with one man to keep all the paupers, and he to furnish them with clothing, at $32 each, for those over 12 years of age, and those of 12 and under, $16 each.

POUGHKEEPSIE

There have been 144 paupers, supported in this town, during the last year–76 for the whole year, and 68 partially through the winter–50 have been kept in our house of industry, and 26 out on small allowances. Those kept in the house have been employed in cooking, washing, spinning, picking oakum, [2a] &c. and in husbandry. The value of labor will amount probably to $400. There were 27 males, 23 females, 18 blind, lame, or otherwise disabled by sickness or disease, and 17 children among the number. The average expense of those kept in the house, about $25 each per year, their labor included. Our paupers have increased about one-third, but it is calculated that our house of industry affords an opportunity to economize, and to support our paupers at least 50 per cent less than formerly, and when they were billetted out.

BROOKLYN

In Brooklyn there are 54 paupers, consisting of 13 men, 21 women, 13 boys and 7 girls employed mostly in picking oakum, to the amount of 31 cwt., sold for $13950 . . . The town has an alms-house under the management of two overseers and one keeper, having a separate house for an hospital attended by a very respectable physician. The present law for the settlement of the poor, passed April 8, 1813, is very deficient in its provisions, as it does not give any authority to the overseers, to make salutary rules for the good order of the house, nor any discretion to coerce the obstinate or punish the refractory; they having only one remedy in all cases to expel them from the house, which in the severity of winter would be little short of murder. If the overseers could confine the impudent and refractory in solitary places, and keep them on bread and water, it would have a good effect. To prevent, however, any improper severity, it may be made the duty of the justices and supervisor once a year at least, to inspect the whole economy of the house. . . It is indispensable that the children should be educated; but in some almshouses (as it is in ours at present) there may be none able to teach the children; and on account of disorders, incident to public places, it would be improper and ungenerous to send them to the public district school; the children must remain uneducated, or some provision must be made to hire a teacher. Would it not be right to give the alms-house a particular demand on the school fund?

FLORIDA

We have no poor-house, properly so called, but we advertise for proposals, and allow one month to receive them. The lowest bidder takes the poor, if in all respects qualified to take care of them. They are all in one room, and taken care of by the family. Seven are thus provided for, and three children, were taken care of in the town of Knox, at one place for $35, and the seven were taken care of for $270 last year. This year we have adopted the same plan. Six persons are at one place, for $230 – the three children are taken care of in Knox for $35 – two old persons, have been taken by their relations this spring, for $55, rather than go with the rest of the poor – they are very troublesome, and the contractor would not keep them, for the average sum he kept the rest. In answer to your eighth question, I observe, that the town of Florida, are satisfied, that they cannot do better than by the present mode of keeping the poor. If a poor-house is to be built, they must go to the expense of building. Now the contractor looks out for his own convenience in keeping them – if we help to build a county poor-house, we will have to do it at an expense.

JOHNSTOWN

The poor may, with propriety, be divided into three classes, the aged, the sick, lame and blind, and the infant: These are the proper objects for the care of our law, and the only ones that perhaps, strictly speaking, should receive its bounty. To these there may be added, a fourth class, composed of the idle, vicious and intemperate; and this class I fear, on examination, will be found to receive more of public and private charity, than all the other three combined. The support of the poor, is in all countries a burthen, and the object of the legislature, is to make that burthen as little felt by the industrious citizen as possible. There are three modes in practice of supporting paupers. 1. By selling them at public auction, to the lowest bidder. 2. By hiring one individual to keep all the poor belonging to a town. 3. Establishing a poor-house or house of industry for the county. Of these modes, I am decidedly of opinion, the last is much to be preferred. First, on account of its cheapness: The support of the poor in this town varies from 50 cents, to $2, per week; and the average amount may be stated at 90 cents; this is treble the amount that it would cost in a house of industry. Second – Many of the poor in the house of industry, can nearly support themselves by their labor. Third – The aged and decrepit, and the children, the care of whom forms an important item of expense, can be watched and attended to by those who are more healthy and capable. Fourth – It will lessen the number of paupers at least one half, and destroy the trade of street-beggars. There are many persons who now receive sums from the overseers of the poor, whose pride, and the pride of whose connexions, would not permit them to go to a poorhouse. And the idle vagabond, when he finds that work he must, at least would certainly prefer working for himself. The only objection to this mode is, the expense of transporting them to the house of industry (which ought always to be as near the centre of the county as convenient), and this would be but trifling, compared with the saving effected. . .

The second plan above alluded to, of having one man, for a stipulated sum to support all the poor of a town, is, in miniature, the same as the above, and of course, must be more expensive. But this plan had been found to be more economical than the first one, of selling the poor; and has, in those towns which have entered into it, lessened the expense more, than fifty per cent. The poor themselves, would be better clothed and dieted, in a poor-house than they now are, inasmuch as those, who purchase, are themselves generally poor and unable to afford to keep them well.

2a. "Picking oakum" involved loosening hemp or jute fibers in rope; the fibers, after having been impregnated with tar, were used in calking seams in boats.

2. Auction system breaks up a family: annual town meeting, Manchester, New Hampshire, March 8, 1825

"Early Records of the Town of Manchester, 1817-1828," Collections of the Manchester Historical Association, XI (1909), 218.

Voted Marjory Boyes and her child may be put to separate places – Marjory Boyes was struck off to Israel Merrill at 16 cents per week Mary Boyes was struck off to Nathaniel Baker at 37 cents per week Elenor Boyes was struck off to Reuben Sawyer at 48 per week Jonathan Boyes was struck off to Peter Young at 42 cents per week. [3a]

3a. The Boyes case plus many other instances of the operation of the vendue system are examined in Benjamin J. Klebaner, "Pauper Auctions: The 'New England' Method of Public Poor Relief," Essex Institute Historical Collections, XCI (1955), 195-210.

3. Defense of vendue system, 1827

Niles' Weekly Register, XXXII (1827), 312.

PAUPERISM. Gov. Plumer, of New Hampshire, who is writing in the Portsmouth Journal, in one of his numbers, treats of pauperism. He says:

"In some towns the project has been adopted to purchase a house and farm, and appoint an agent to superintend the labor of the paupers in cultivating and improving it. In nine times out of ten, this mode, instead of diminishing, increases the expense of supporting the poor. The most eligible and cheapest method I have known for country towns is annually to vendue the board, clothing, and taking care of the poor to the lowest bidder, whom the selectmen consider suitable for that purpose. This will place the poor of a town in one or more families where they will be well treated, and where the interest of the undertakers will require the paupers to labor and be industrious, and in some measure support themselves. If we except sickness and old age, all assistance to the poor which does not promote industry, is rather a premium to idleness and improvidence, than acts of charity and benevolence. The food of the poor, should be wholesome, but cheap; and their clothing plain, but sufficient to protect them against the inclemency of the seasons."

4. Care of pauper children under the vendue system, Rhode Island, 1850

Thomas R. Hazard, Report on the Poor and Insane in Rhode Island (Providence, 1851), pp.49-51.

In 1850 Thomas Hazard (1797-1886), a Quaker farmer, textile manufacturer, and social reformer, conducted an investigation of poor relief practices in Rhode Island and reported his findings and recommendations to the state legislature. In one town, Coventry, he found that a contractor received $594 a year to care for sixteen paupers, seven of whom were under twelve years of age.

Visited the poor of this town, on the 5th of 9th month last, and found them in the most deplorable condition imaginable. The house in which they were huddled, was old and dilapidated – and the furniture was absolutely unfit for the use of the most degraded of savages. This, I understood the keeper to say, that the town was to furnish. The mattresses and bed clothing were filthy and ragged. Not a sheet nor a pillow case was to be seen, and I afterwards understood that the town did not deem such articles necessary, and therefore were not in the practice of furnishing them. The chairs were all more or less broken or worn out, and there was but one in the house that had both back and bottom. A poor helpless, palsied female, who had not stood for years, was braced in the skeleton of one of these, by its being stuffed with rags. An insane woman who had been recently removed by the town from the Butler Hospital, was ordered from her filthy lair (where she was confined by the corner of a bedstead being pushed against the door) in a tone of voice such as keepers of wild beasts use in colloquy with Tigers. At the stern summons, she came forth and stood silent and motionless, to be gazed at – a caricature of dispair clothed in filth and rags. No sign, look or token, indicated that she noticed ought that was said, until at her keeper's bidding, she quietly retired to her den. I happened to visit this house when the poor inmates were engaged at what was intended for dinner. A few hours before I had witnessed the poor in the town of Scituate, partaking of a plentiful breakfast of good and wholesome food. This, perhaps, rendered the appearance of the repast before me, the more striking. On the table I now beheld, a dish of unripe, watery potatoes, was all the food to be seen, or that was visible in the house, save a mouthful of indian bread which a woman held in her hand. The supply of these miserable potatoes was evidently scanty, as they were soon all devoured, and the children lingered about the table evidently hungry still. As I was about leaving the premises, I observed two of these children going towards a pond with sticks in their hands. Supposing that they were going to fish, I was curious to inspect their tackle, and called them to me. I found that their poles were taken from a pile of brush near by, and that their lines were made of short strips of worn and faded cotton cloth tied together. They had no hooks of any description, and I question whether even a pin could be found in the poor-house for that purpose. This was a trifling incident to be sure, but associated as it was with the desolateness of every thing around me, I do not remember of ever having witnessed one that impressed me with a more heart sickening sense of uttyr and helpless destitution.

I would gladly have been spared the pain of this narration, especially as the friends of humanity in the town of Coventry, have recently succeeded in their efforts to induce their fellow townsmen to take decided steps to do away most of the abuses it discloses. But it should be remembered that these abuses grow in a great measure out of the system of venduing the poor, which, though now abandoned in Coventry, is still adhered to by many other towns in the State; and whose paupers may be consigned by the next chance fall of the auctioneer's hammer, to the same wretched fate that those in Coventry have just been rescued from. And it seems but fair to infer that if these disclosures have tended to awaken the people of Coventry to a proper sense of the injustice of venduing their poor to the lowest bidder, and to the necessity of its abandonment, that their perusal may also incite the citizens of other towns who still practice the same system, to abandon it also.

5. Hazard's criticism of the vendue system in Rhode Island, 1851

Hazard, The Poor and Insane in Rhode Island, pp.85-89.

Hazard's report was ignored by the state legislature.

. . . Four different modes are pursued by the towns in maintaining their poor.

1st. By venduing them to the lowest bidder.

2d. By contracting for their maintenance, with an individual, or individuals, through the agency of a committee or otherwise.

3d. By placing all the poor in one Asylum, owned by the town.

4th. By placing all such in an Asylum as are bereft of home and friends, and administering out-door relief to such as have.

The cruelty and injustice of the first mentioned of these systems – that of venduing the poor, and compelling them to live with the man who will take them off the town for the least sum – is so obvious, that it seems almost insulting to the understanding, to attempt to prove it wrong. We are all more or less, creatures of habit. By becoming familiar with the most hideous objects, they lose in our eyes, half their deformity. And this tendency in our nature is, perhaps, all that can be offered in palliation of this wretched system. When stripped of all disguise, selling the poor to the lowest bidder, is simply offering a reward for the most cruel and avaricious man that can be found to abuse them. Without making continual sacrifices from year to year, it is impossible under such a system, that a conscientious man should long continue to be their care-taker. Supposing that by accident or otherwise, a humane man should become their purchaser – he would feel it to be his duty not only to lodge and feed them well, but likewise to clothe them well. As the annual sale draws near, the avaricious eye of an unprincipled townsman has inventoried their apparel. With scarcely the addition of a patch it can be made, in his estimation, to cover the nakedness of his intended victims another whole year. His bidding in town meeting is graduated accordingly, against that of their present keeper, whose conscience would compel him to keep the clothing of the poor constantly good – and thus, unless he is both able and willing to submit to annual sacrifices, he must surrender the poor into the hands of one who buys them to obtain a reward by their oppression. But, say the advocates of the system (perhaps), we allow none but good men to bid them off – we appoint committees to visit the poor, and we take bonds of their keeper that they shall be well treated. This may all sound very well to an inexperienced ear – but really it is but adding the sin of mockery to the still more heinous sin of oppressing and selling the poor. Bad men are not unfrequently good politicians. Such often hold the balance of power in small towns; and who, especially when party spirit runs high, let me ask, is to throw themselves between such men and their prey, should they resolve to purchase the poor themselves–or confer them on a partisan of dubious politics but of undisputed depravity. The very man, in all probability, through whose influence the poor have thus been sold to secure a wavering vote, becomes both the surety and overseer of their keeper. This system is mainly practiced in agricultural towns–and let me ask, is there a man in anyone of these, who aspires to the name of a farmer, who would in any contingency, offer his cattle at auction to be kept by the lowest bidder, and depend solely for their good treatment on such security as is taken for that of their pauper, poor? . . . It is high time that this miserable system of venduing the poor, revolting alike to common humanity and to every precept of the christian religion, was abolished in our land. Out of it have grown some of the most dreadful abuses that have ever been perpetrated by man on his fellow man. . .

The 4th named system, adopted by some towns, viz: to own an Asylum to which all persons who are destitute of a home and friends are sent, and to administer out-door relief to such as have, is probably the most humane and christian-like plan that in the present state of society, can be pursued. It is urged by some, against this plan, that, by adopting it, the public is liable to be subjected to imposition. To meet this it might be said, that other plans subject the poor to impositions, which they are quite as unable to bear as the public. It is a maxim I believe, in law, that it is better that nine guilty persons should escape, than that one innocent person should be condemned. . . No individual or community was ever yet made poor by the practice of a liberal, discriminating charity – carried out in good faith – void of any selfish motives lurking at heart, and founded solely on love to God and his creatures . . .

I feel great confidence in recommending this mixed plan of granting relief to their poor, to every town in the State which has not yet adopted it. In building an Asylum, I would recommend that it should be placed on a public road, and on good land if it is to be procured–such as is suited to garden and fruit culture, that the inmates of the house should not be obliged to go far to their work, and expose themselves to the vicissitudes of the weather, far from any shelter. Being situated on a road renders the house easy of access to the public, and brings its affairs more or less before the people who pass it–this operates as a safeguard in some measure for the good treatment of the poor. Besides these advantages, the passing and little incidents that occur on the road tend not a little to dissipate the tediousness that often connects itself with the monotonous life the old and decrepid are forced to lead. There may be counter advantages in some instances, that would render a situation off the road, and perhaps near the water, preferable; but I believe that such will not often occur. Every citizen of the town should take an interest in their Asylum and occasionally visit it–which they will not be liable to do so often if it be located in a place difficult of access, as they would if situated on a road that they necessarily pass in attending to their daily concerns.

1. New York law authorizing magistrates to send neglected children to almshouses, 1821

Laws of the State of New York passed at the Forty-second, Forty-third and Forty-fourth Session of the Legislature from January 1819 to April 1821 (Albany, 1821), V, 182-183.

. . . If any child or children, shall hereafter be found begging for alms, in any of the cities in this state, and whose Parent or Parents, is or are not a charge to such City, as a pauper or paupers, it shall and may be lawful for any magistrate of such city to take up and send such child or children to the almshouse, or other place for the support of the public poor of such city, there to be detained and supported until such child or children shall become of sufficient age to be bound out, or until some fit and proper person or persons shall be found to take such child or children, when it shall be the duty of the overseers of the poor of such city, to bind out such child or children, in the same manner as is prescribed in the Act, entitled "an Act concerning apprentices and servants."

2. Poorhouses in New York, Baltimore, Boston, and Providence, 1827

Niles' Weekly Register, XXXII (1827), 383-384.

Pauper establishments. – In a former paper we gave an extract from the report of the Philadelphia committee who were appointed to examine some of the principal pauper establishments in the United States. We have since been furnished by the committee with a copy of their report, and are enabled to exhibit a comparative view of all the establishments which they visited in their tour. The first in order was the Baltimore alms house.

This belongs to the city and county, and is under the care of seven trustees, four in the city annually appointed by the mayor and council, and their residents of the county appointed by the governor and council. They meet weekly and are allowed two dollars per day for their services. The house is situated on a farm of more than 300 acres. It consists of a centre building and wings, capable of accommodating 8 or 900 paupers. It contains an infirmary, a lying hospital, work house for the employment of vagrants, an asylum for destitute children, a lunatic hospital, and a medical and chirurgical school. The officers of the establishment are, a master who is paid $600 per annum, a matron $200, a physician $400 who is allowed students who pay him $200 each, a superintendent of the farm $400–clerk to the steward, schoolmaster, nurses and assistant cooks, and those not receiving salary are paupers. An account is opened with every male over 15 years of age, and every female over 12, who are credited with any work done towards their maintenance, the charge of which is not to exceed 30 cents per day. The average number in the house is about 400 . . . The amount expended on account of the poor of the city, including every expense, except the interest of the purchase money of the farm, averages about $18,000. The population of Baltimore exceeds 70,000.

New York. – The next which they visited, was the almshouse in New York, distant from the city about two and a half miles. It is within an enclosure of 26 acres, surrounded by a stone wall. It is 325 feet long and consists of a centre with the wings. The centre building is 4 stories high including the basement, the wings three stories. The inmates are lodged in 42 rooms, each about 22 by 45 feet. – There are from 20 to 24 persons in each room, and are classed according to sex, nation, and habits. –The different wards are under inspection of persons selected from the most exemplary of the paupers. The house is warmed by the funnels of stoves in the basement story. By the use of anthracite coal, about $3000 was saved last year. The average number of paupers in the house is 1949, of whom 425 are children. About 150 are employed in picking wool, spinning, gardening, &c. There is attached to the establishment a farm of 100 acres, which is at present unproductive. There are within the enclosure, besides this building, a penitentiary, a hospital for the sick and insane, containing about 280 patients: a large building for the manufacturers, in the upper story of which is a school room, where are taught about 258 children. The committee saw specimens of writing, which were of superior elegance. There are two detached buildings where the children are kept separate from the paupers. . . The expenses of the institution are about $58,500. The relief out doors, last year, was distributed among 1500 families. Part of it was eight thousand dollars in cash. The relief is either in money, wood, or provisions. The whole expenses of the poor establishment are $72,190. The district contains 175,000 inhabitants.

Providence, R.I. – In Providence, the whole of the concerns of the poor is directed by one overseer, who has a salary of $700, and a keeper of the almshouse, salary $150. The inmates of the house are boarded by the keeper for $1 25 per head, children half price. – . . . No labor has been introduced except the picking of oakum. One physician with a salary of $75 per ann. is employed for the paupers. . .

Boston. The almshouse is about two miles from the city, and on a farm of 60 acres. The buildings are of stone, 220 feet long by 40 deep, four stories high. The rooms are 15 by 13, and contain from 3 to 5 persons.–On the first floor are apartments used as hospitals.–There is a detached building for the blacks, and another for the insane. The average number in the house annually about 450 . . .

. . . The expense in Philadelphia, in case of bastardy, excited surprise, say the committee, in every place which they visited. In New York the cases of this kind are between 80 and 90. Boston 9 and 10. Salem 2 or 3.–Baltimore none. Philadelphia 269!! The committee were much pleased with the house of refuge in New York. They recommend the establishment of an asylum for the intemperate, the directors of which should be authorised to arrest and imprison every person guilty of this vice.

3. Children in New York City pauper institutions, 1838

George Combe, Notes on the United States of North America During a Phrenological Visit in 1838-9-40, I (Philadelphia, 1841), 140141.

George Combe (1788-1858), British lecturer and phrenologist, was particularly interested in and observant of American charitable, correctional, and eleemosynary institutions. The Farm Schools he visited had been established in 1831 as a temporary shelter for children removed from the Bellevue almshouse during a severe epidemic of ophthalmia (see below, Chap. VII, sec. B, Health problems of dependent children in institutions, 1831-1832). In 1848 the city opened a new institution for pauper children on Randall's Island.

November 29, 1838. . . . This is "Thanksgiving Day" in New York. Service is performed in all the churches, in which gratitude is expressed to God for his mercies, and the evening is spent in domestic festivities. . .

I availed myself of the leisure which the day afforded, to visit the Alms-House, Lunatic Asylum, and Penitentiary at Bellevue, about three miles from New York, on the East River; also the Criminal Prison, and the new Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell Island; and the school for charity orphan and destitute children on Long Island, called the Farm Schools. All these institutions are under the management of the civic corporation of the city. Some of the buildings at Bellevue are old, ill-adapted to their purposes, and crowded, and, in consequence, the inmates are not properly accommodated . . . The children in the Farm Schools presented a melancholy aspect. The weather was cold, and as the cold had come suddenly, many of them had not yet received their winter supply of stockings and shoes. They were crowding round the stoves with an expression of suffering and discomfort, which was distressing to behold. The buildings in which they live are frame or wooden houses, divided into moderate-sized rooms, low in the ceilings, and without any means of ventilation except the doors and the windows. They sleep crowded together in these apartments; the beds stand so close to the windows, and the air is so cold, that they are not open during the night, and the air is excessively vitiated before the morning. The consequences are visible in the appearance of the children; many of them are suffering under ophthalmia, and they present generally that sunken, inanimate, and unhappy aspect which betokens blood in a bad condition from imperfect nutrition and impure air. There is, I believe, no stinting of food; but the digestive functions suffer from the confinement in an unwholesome atmosphere, and hence the nutrition is imperfect.

On my return to the city, I made inquiries of several persons how it happened that these institutions are in a condition so unworthy of a great city, and various reasons were assigned. They lie upwards of three miles from the town, and so many pressing public duties are imposed on the members of the civic council, that they have not adequate time to visit them. One excellent person, whose attention was particularly directed to them, saw and proclaimed their imperfections to the council, but he could not succeed in drawing sufficient attention to their condition. Again; most of the buildings are old, and money is indispensable for their improvement. In New York, the whigs and democrats are nearly equally balanced, and each party makes "political capital" out of every increase of expenditure and taxation proposed by the other, and hence the party which should improve these institutions too rapidly at the expense of the citizens would lose their places. Economy there, as everywhere else, is the watchword of opposition; and in New York the people are disposed to place the advocates of it in power. Farther: In this city vast improvements, partly for the introduction of water, are actually in progress; many more are wanted; and the rulers are compelled to accomplish those works first which are advocated by the most influential persons. The poor, the insane, and the criminal have few, and these not noisy, advocates, and their interests are postponed. Lastly, it is an unpopular duty to expose the imperfections of any American institutions, and hence the actual condition of some of these establishments is really unknown to the great body of the upper classes of the city, who would otherwise be well disposed towards their improvement.

4. Charles Dickens on children in Boston almshouse, 1842

Charles Dickens, American Notes for General Circulation (London, 1842), I, 113-117.

The orphans and young children are in an adjoining building; separate from this, but a part of the same Institution [House of Industry]. Some are such little creatures, that the stairs are of lilliputian measurement, fitted to their tiny strides. The same consideration for their years and weakness is expressed in their very seats, which are perfect curiosities, and look like articles of furniture for a pauper doll's-house. I can imagine the glee of our Poor Law Commissioners at the notion of these seats having arms and backs; but small spines being of older date than their occupation of the Board-room at Somerset House, I thought even this provision very merciful and kind.

Here again, I was greatly pleased with the inscriptions on the wall, which were scraps of plain morality, easily remembered and understood: such as "Love one another" – "God remembers the smallest creature in his creation": and straightforward advice of that nature. The books and tasks of these smallest of scholars, were adapted, in the same judicious manner, to their childish powers. When we had examined these lessons, four morsels of girls (of whom one was blind) sang a little song, about the merry month of May, which I thought (being extremely dismal) would have suited an English November better. That done, we went to see their sleeping-rooms on the floor above, in which the arrangements were no less excellent and gentle than those we had seen below. And after observing that the teachers were of a. class and character well suited to the spirit of the place, I took leave of the infants with a lighter heart than ever I have taken leave of pauper infants yet.

5. "Easy, happy life in an almshouse"

Massachusetts, General Court, "Report on Public Charitable Institutions, 1858," Doc. 2, Documents of the Senate, 1859 (Boston, 1859), p. 69.

Lastly, and the greatest evil of all [sending needy children to almshouses], creates and perpetuates paupers, by accustoming all the children in them to an easy, happy life in an almshouse, where they are well fed, clothed and instructed, so that the inducement for them to labor for their own support–and that of their parents–is completely lost sight of; for as is said by one who for twenty years was governor of an English workhouse, "when children are brought up in a workhouse they never have a disposition to shun it."

Education and apprenticeship of pauper children, New York, 1853

"Franklin" to Hon. Elias W. Leavenworth, secretary of state-elect of the state of New York, Senate, Doc. 72, Documents, 1855, III (Albany, 1855),85-87, 121-122.

Apprenticeship was the standard method of disposing of older poorhouse children. Seven- or eight-year-old children were sometimes apprenticed, but the usual age was twelve to fifteen. Boys were occasionally apprenticed to craftsmen, but in most cases they were bound to farmers; girls were bound out as household servants.

The following is one of twenty-three letters from "Franklin" originally published in the Columbia Record (Hudson, New York) in 1853. Franklin's identity is unknown.

. . . – Another cause of the increase of pauperism arises from the neglect of the proper officers to give a suitable education to the children born and brought up in our poorhouses.

The number of children under 16 years in the poor-houses of the State was, in

The returns look fair enough on their face, with respect to instruction; it would seem that the children in these establishments enjoy better educational privileges than the children of farmers in most of the rural districts of the State.

I have ascertained, however, from personal investigation, that there is no reality in all this, as you may also ascertain, if you will take the trouble to examine for yourself. I really don't know what meaning the county superintendents of the poor attach to the word Education; I know they sometimes use words in a sense not warranted by any Dictionary that ever I consulted. But if they mean anything which elevates the mind – anything which ministers to the moral feelings or the intellectual powers – anything which will help to get a living, or to discharge intelligently the duties incident to citizenship – there is no such thing given to the youth in our county houses. I have visited many of the poor-houses myself, and have obtained authentic information by correspondence, from many others, and from all this I think I am warranted in saying that out of the 3,000 children sheltered in them, only a very small fraction, a mere drop in the bucket, obtain an education that will be of the slightest use to them in getting a living or making useful members of society. In many cases the teacher is a pauper, generally an old drunkard, whose temper is soured and whose intellect is debased, and who spends the school hours in tormenting, rather than in teaching his pupils. In many of these schools there is no book except the Testament to be found, no slates, pens or paper. In some counties not a dollar has been expended in text books or stationery since the county system has been adopted. Under such circumstances the name of school is a mere farce. [4a]

There are between five and six hundred children bound out every year from the poor-houses under the authority of the superintendents of the poor.

There is always a stipulation in the indentures for a certain amount of education for each child, or, more properly, that the child should have a certain number of months' schooling during each year of its apprenticeship. It is of course impossible for a private person like myself to acquire accurate information in relation to the fidelity with which this stipulation is fulfilled. What I could do I have done. I have made personal inquiries of the superintendents of many counties, and have sought information extensively by correspondence. I do not recollect more than two or three who had ever made a single inquiry on the subject, or who knew whether the children so bound out were sent to school or not, and in these few cases there was no pretence that the inquiries had been systematic or thorough. I have found many children bound out by the superintendents who never received one hour's education during their apprenticeship, and who, at the age of twenty one, were cast loose on the world no better than the heathen. How can children brought up in this way be expected to become anything else than criminals or paupers? They have no ambition to acquire property, and if they had, they have no means to acquire it. They cannot enter into trade, because in order to do this with any success they must be able to read, write, and cypher, and this they cannot do . . . A single seed of Canada thistle planted in a field will bear a full sized plant, which, in its turn will bear seeds from which new plants will spring, and thus a field, once fertile, will become filled with these noxious plants. Just so with the 3,000 children in our poor-houses, and with the 600 who are annually bound out. Each of these is a seed of pauperism, which will bear plants that will again bear seed, and in time will overrun the State with a burden of pauperism and crime, which it will be unable to bear.

Efficient rules should be adopted to guard against abuses in the apprenticeship of pauper children. Full enquiries should be made as to the character of the proposed master, and the answer should be made a matter of record. The parents or friends of the apprentice should be cited to attend, and their objections, if any, should be recorded and carefully weighted. The master should not be allowed to remove the apprentice from the town where he was originally bound without the consent in writing of the superintendents. The indentures should fully declare the duties of the master and provide for a proper amount of schooling and the provision of the necessary school books. A list of pauper apprentices in each town should be furnished on the last day of October in each year to the town superintendent of common schools, as to the manner in which the stipulations with regard to education in the indentures have been complied with. This plan would . . . greatly tend to elevate the character of the State and the condition of the poor.

The schools in our county houses should be made district schools. No teacher should be employed who has not received a full certificate from the town superintendent, and such schools should be allowed to participate in the public money, so far, at least, as to receive its distributive share of library money. The superintendents should be required to furnish them with suitable seats, desks, books, stationery and apparatus. If these be removed from the character of our State, and I am confident, it will dry up a very considerable tributary to the broad stream of pauperism.

4a. Dorothea Dix, in Memorial to the. . . Legislature of the State of New York (Albany, 1844), wrote of the Seneca County poorhouse: "There was no school for the children; they were at one time sent to the district school in the immediate vicinity, but parents objected to having their children associate 'with the children of the paupers,' and these were sent home. The county provided no teacher, and the house afforded no person supposed competent to teach. The children took their education therefore into their own hands, and were acquiring a sort of knowledge which years of careful instruction will fail to eradicate."

Massachusetts, unlike most states, provided relief for the "unsettled" poor, that is, the poor who could claim no legal settlement in any town or city. Prior to 1852 state paupers were supported in the towns where they fell into distress, the state reimbursing local authorities at a rate fixed by law.

1. No able-bodied male between ages of twelve and sixty to be supported by state funds

Laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (Boston, 1823), p. 126.

. . . After the first day of June next, no male person, over the age of sixteen years, and under the age of sixty years, while of competent health to labor, shall be considered as a State Pauper, and entitled to support as such.

. . . Whatever the Overseers of the Poor, in any town or city within this Commonwealth, shall exhibit an account against the same, for the support of the paupers. . . they shall certify that no part of such account is for the support of any male person, over the age of twelve, and under the age of sixty years, while of competent health to labor.

2. Ten cents a day

Laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (Boston, 1831), p. 672.

. . . All accounts against the Commonwealth, for the support of paupers, shall be made out and charged at a fixed price per day, and. . . the allowance shall not exceed ten cents per day for the support of paupers over twelve years of age, and six cents per day for the support of paupers under twelve years of age, and five dollars for the funeral expenses of each pauper deceased over twelve years, and two dollars and fifty cents for the funeral expenses of each pauper under twelve years of age.

3. A state institution for pauper children Franklin B. Sanborn, "The Monson Almshouse," in Massachusetts, State Board of Charities, First Annual Report, 1864 (Boston, 1865), pp. 272-277.

In 1852 Massachusetts undertook to care for state paupers in its own institutions. Three state almshouses were established, each of which received both adults and children. Persistent efforts were made–and staunchly resisted–to send all the children to Monson and to convert that institution into a school for pauper children.

. . . Very early in the history of this institution it was marked out as a receptacle and school for the pauper children. An Act of the General Court, passed May 19, 1855, established a compulsory classification of the State paupers for this purpose, and directed that the children fit for school should be sent to Monson. The Inspectors say, in their report for 1855: –

"By this Act it is expressly set apart for the purpose of a State Pauper School, in which all the State Pauper children between five and sixteen years of age, so long as they are dependent upon public charity, or are not indentured, are to be supported and educated, to the exclusion of all others, except in a few cases which are designated in the Act.

"The Act went into practical operation in the month of June (between the 13th and 16th of the month), when an interchange of paupers took place between the Monson State Almshouse and the other State Almshouses, agreeably to the provision of the Act. The change made in the institution by the new law of classification is much greater than would be supposed, on a superficial view of the matter. Prior to the time of the change, the inmates included State paupers of every description, all necessarily mingled together indiscriminately, to an extent that could not be otherwise than deleterious. Now, for the most part, only the young and the comparatively healthy and robust are brought together in this institution. It is now emphatically, as denominated in the statute, a State Pauper School, whose primary object is to take care of and educate those children of the State who have none beside the State to care for them."

The Inspectors and officers of the other Almshouses did not consider this classification expedient, and protested against it so forcibly that the law was repealed in 1856. It will be well to quote what was said on both sides of a question which is not yet settled. The Inspectors at Tewksbury said in 1855: – ". . . May it not be advisable to allow some degree of latitude, as to such children as have parents, who will probably soon call for them, and relieve the State entirely of the burden of their support? As the law now stands it is imperative that all children, between the ages of five and fifteen, with the exception of idiots, shall be sent to Monson."

The Superintendent of Tewksbury said in the same report: –

". . . By having them all in one place it lessens the opportunities in procuring them good homes and relieving the State of their support. Would it not be better to have a building erected at each of the State almshouses capable of accommodating two hundred children, the first story for a schoolroom and the upper story for sleeping; the building to be near the main house, but disconnected–that all their work, cooking, washing, making, mending," &c., may be done by the inmates, while "the children will be removed from all the bad influences of the adults, and under the charge of their teachers?"

The Superintendent at Bridgewater, Mr. Goodspeed, said in the same report: –

"The expense and inconvenience attending the practical operation of the statute referred to, are, such as to render the policy thereof somewhat questionable . . . I have thought it proper to suggest the plan of having a cheap and convenient building provided, at a small expense, for the special accommodation of the children and youth, apart from the adult department, where they may be permanently furnished with a home and the necessary means of instruction. The only additional expense attending such a plan would be the cost of the building."

after the repeal of the law in 1856, the Monson Inspectors gave the following account of its workings there, and deprecated the policy of mingling the children with the adult paupers. They said: –

"The salutary effects of the system of classification are strikingly manifested in reference to the children, both physically and morally. A large proportion of the children come here suffering from bodily disease and previous destitution, and from causes also of a moral and social nature. But here they are placed under better treatment and more genial influences, and, as far as possible, are kept separate from all vicious associations. By such means, and with the kind care and supervision of those who have the charge of them, they soon undergo a thorough change in appearance, manners and habits, and are so transformed as hardly to be recognized as the same children. Anyone who will visit this institution, and survey the happy and well-trained group of children here assembled, and witness their exercises in the weekday school, and the Sabbath school, cannot but see a striking contrast between them and the children of the foreign population in our cities and large places, living with parents whose habits of life are low, grovelling and vicious. When children of this description mingle indiscriminately with adult persons of the same class, whether in the community at large or in almshouses, jails, &c., it is impossible to protect them effectually against bodily disease and moral pollution. In the best regulated establishments, where this association of the young and the old takes place, there is great danger of such contamination; and the moral are more to be dreaded than the physical evils. There is another consideration on this point, which ought not to be overlooked. Children of foreign parentage, by being constantly and exclusively associated with Americans in the relation of matrons, teachers, &c., generally soon lose, in a great degree, their early habits, peculiarities and associations as foreigners, and become assimilated to those under whose influence and instruction they are placed. Thus they grow to maturity, like the children of our own citizens, educated in the spirit and principles of our institutions, and prepared to take their positions, at full age, as intelligent and worthy members of our community."

There has been no further legislation on the subject of classifying the inmates of our almshouses. For a year or two after the repeal of the law of 1855, few or no children were transferred to Monson from the other houses; but since then, the power vested in the Governor, the Alien Commissioners, and more recently in the Board of State Charities, has been exercised to make Monson, as far as possible, a school for the pauper children. During the present year, upwards of two hundred children have been transferred from Bridgewater, Tewksbury, Rainsford and Lancaster.

Proposed reforms in New York poor law, 1857

Deplorable conditions in county poorhouses prompted a state legislative committee to recommend return to outdoor relief and removal of children from almshouses.

1. The situation in 1856

New York State, Senate, "Report of Select Committee Appointed to Visit Charitable Institutions Supported by the State," Doc. 8, Documents, 1857 (Albany, 1857), I, 2-10.

The poor houses throughout the State may be generally described as badly constructed, ill- arranged, ill-warmed, and ill-ventilated. The rooms are crowded with inmates; and the air, particularly in the sleeping apartments, is very noxious, and to casual visitors, almost insufferable. In some cases, as many as forty-five inmates occupy a single dormitory, with low ceilings, and sleeping boxes arranged in three tiers one above another. Good health is incompatible with such arrangements. They make it an impossibility.

The want of suitable hospital accommodations is severely felt in most of the poor houses. The sick, considering their physical condition, are even worse cared for than the healthy. The arrangements for medical attendance are quite inadequate to secure that which is suitable; the physician is poorly paid, and consequently gives only such general attention as his remuneration seems to require. In some cases, the inmates sicken and die without any medical attendance whatever. In one county almshouse, averaging 137 inmates, there were 36 deaths during the past year, and yet none of them from epidemic or contagious disease. Such a proportion of mortality indicates most inexcusable negligence.

A proper classification of the inmates is almost wholly neglected. It is either impossible, or when possible, it is disregarded. Many of the births occurring during the year are doubtless, the offspring of illicit connections. During the last year, the whole number of births was 292. The indiscriminate association of the sexes generally allowed strongly favors this assumption. By day, their intercourse is common and unrestricted; and there is often no sufficient safeguard against a promiscuous intercourse by night. In one case, the only pretence of a separation of the sexes consisted in the circumstance of separate stairs being provided at each end of a common dormitory; and a police regulation, requiring one sex to reach it by one flight, and the other sex by another, appeared to be deemed a sufficient preventive of all subsequent intercourse.

In two counties, the committee found that the poor houses were supplied by contract, the contractor being allowed to profit by all the labor which he could extort from the paupers. In both counties, the contractor was a superintendent of the poor; and in one, he was also keeper of the poor house. In one, the keeper received his compensation from the contractor; and in this case, the food supplied was not only insufficient in quantity, but consisted partly of tainted meat and fish. The inmates were consequently almost starved. They were also deprived of a sufficiency of fuel and bedding, and suffered severely from cold. . .

A still more efficient and economical auxiliary in supporting the poor, and in the prevention of absolute pauperism, consists, in the opinion of the committee, in the proper and systematic distribution of out door relief. Worthy indigent persons should, if possible, be kept from the degradation of the poor house, by reasonable supplies of provisions, bedding, and other absolute necessaries, at their own homes. Half the sum requisite for their maintenance in the poor house would often save them from destitution, and enable them to work in their households and their vicinity, sufficiently to earn the remainder of their support during the inclement season when indigence suffers the most, and when it is most likely to be forced into the common receptacles of pauperism, whence it rarely emerges without a loss of self-respect and a sense of degradation. The committee are confirmed in their opinion by the success of the system of out door relief practised in the city of New York; and they see no good reason why a similar system might not be adopted throughout the State, with great benefit to the several counties, as well as to those indigent persons who require only occasional assistance. The present provisions of law seem to be inadequate and ill-suited to the purpose...

The most important point in the whole subject confided to the committee, is that which concerns the care and education of the children of paupers. There are at least thirteen hundred of these now inmates of the various poor houses, exclusive of those in New-York and Kings county; enough, in these nurseries, if not properly cared for, to fill some day all the houses of refuge and prisons in the State. As receptacles for adult paupers, the committee do not hesitate to record their deliberate opinion that the great mass of the poor houses which they have inspected, are most disgraceful memorials of the public charity. Common domestic animals are usually more humanely provided for than the paupers in some of these institutions; where the misfortune of poverty is visited with greater deprivations of comfortable food, lodging, clothing, warmth and ventilation than constitute the usual penalty of crime. The evidence taken by the committee exhibits such a record of filth, nakedness, licentiousness, general bad morals, and disregard of religion and the most common religious observances, as well as of gross neglect of the most ordinary comforts and decencies of life, as if published in detail would disgrace the State and shock humanity. The committee hesitate to record in the pages of their report the particular instances which would amply justify their general condemnation of these misnamed charitable provisions for the adult poor. But with respect to children, the case is far worse; and the committee are forced to say that it is a great public reproach that they should ever be suffered to enter or remain in the poor houses as they are now mismanaged. They are for the young, notwithstanding the legal provisions for their education, the worst possible nurseries; contributing an annual accession to our population of three hundred infants, whose present destiny is to pass their most impressible years in the midst of such vicious associations as will stamp them for a life of future infamy and crime. From such associations they should be promptly severed; and provision should be made for them either in asylums devoted to their special use, or in such orphan asylums as would consent to take charge of them for a fair compensation to be provided by the State, or by the several towns and counties properly chargeable with the expense.

Although pauperism is not in itself a crime, yet the kind of poverty which ends in a poor house, unless it is the result of disease, infirmity, or age, producing a positive inability to earn a livelihood, is not unusually the result of such self-indulgence, unthrift, excess, or idleness, as is next of kind to criminality. With such pauperism as that it is certain that the young should not be associated and trained to maturity for it is an association with discomfort, evil manners, profanity, and licentiousness. The education which the statutes provide for them is not suited to their particular case. In-door instruction is often confided to unfit and vicious teachers, and the attendance of pauper children at schools in the vicinity of the almshouse is accompanied by a sort of disgrace attaching to their position which has a most unfavorable influence. Orphanage is not subject to the like stigma; and therefore to go from an orphan asylum to a public school does not expose the orphan to the same taunts and inconsiderateness that follow the pauper child who is the inmate of a poor house which is generally reputed, in its vicinity, as a habitation for vice and degradation, so low has it fallen from its original purpose.

If adequate provision cannot be made in the various existing orphan asylums, and such as may be hereafter founded, for the support and education of these unfortunate children of poverty . . . then the committee most earnestly recommend the establishment of special institutions for the purpose of maintaining and educating them by themselves, apart from the contaminations which now surround and vitiate them. It would, in the end, prove a most useful and economical public charity, and one which the present state of the almshouses seems to demand very urgently, if the welfare of succeeding generations is worthy of the care of the present one.

Before passing from the subject of poor houses, the committee may be allowed to say that it is much to be regretted that our citizens generally manifest so little interest in the condition even of those in their immediate neighborhood. Individuals who take great interest in human suffering whenever it is brought to their notice, never visit them, and are entirely uninformed, that in a county house almost at their own doors, may be found the lunatic suffering for years in a dark and suffocating cell, in summer, and almost freezing in the winter,–where a score of children are poorly fed, poorly clothed, and quite untaught, – where the poor idiot is half starved and beaten with rods because he is too dull to do his master's bidding, – where the lunatic, and that lunatic too, a woman, is made to feel the lash in the hands of a brutal under-keeper – yet these are all to be found – they all exist in our State. And the committee are quite convinced that to this apparent indifference on the part of the citizens, may be attributed in a great degree, the miserable state to which these houses have fallen; and they would urge upon the benevolent in all parts of the State to look into their condition, and thus assist to make them comfortable abodes for the indigent and the unfortunate.

2. The Committee recommends removal of children from almshouses

New York State, Senate, "Report of Select Committee," pp. 22-23.

The general result of the examinations made by the committee, is a conviction of the necessity of providing by law:

1st. For a more efficient and constant supervision of all the charitable and reformatory institutions which participate in the public bounty, or are supported by the Governor and Senate, with such arrangement of the terms of service as will constantly secure experience, appears to be the best mode of effecting the purpose.

2d. For the better regulation of poor houses, so as to make fit for asylums for the worthy indigent; for which purpose better structures than now commonly exist, should be legally required, with such arrangements for warmth, ventilation, bathing, classification of the inmates, separation of the sexes, labor, medical attendance, instruction, and religious exercises, as decency, health, and sound morals demand.

3d. For the better maintenance, and education of pauper children, either in the orphan asylums, or in such local institutions as may be established in the several judicial districts by special provisions of law.

4th. For the establishment of two or more asylums for the insane, in addition to the existing asylums, and to be under similar control and management with the State asylum.

5th. For the establishment of an asylum for insane convicts in the prisons grounds at Auburn.

6th. For the more efficient regulation of county jails in regard to their structure, and most of the particulars requisite for the better of poor houses as above specified.

7th. For a revision of the poor laws.

Respectfully submitted.      MARK SPENCER

3. New York law encouraging removal of children from almshouses, 1857 [5a]

"An Act in relation to orphan and destitute children," 1857–ch. 61, Laws of the State of New York (Albany,1857), I, 94.

It shall be lawful for the superintendents of the poor, in counties in which there shall be no orphan asylum, and the overseers of the poor of towns in such counties, to place the children, chargeable to and supported at the expense of such counties or towns, in any incorporated orphan asylum in any county of the state, upon such terms as shall be agreed upon with the managers or trustees of said asylum, at the proper expense of the counties or towns to which they are properly chargeable.

It shall be the duty of the managers of every orphan asylum or other institution authorised to receive and bind out orphan or destitute children, to provide and keep always open for the inspection of all desiring to examine it, a book, in which shall be registered the names, age and parentage, as near as the same can be ascertained, of all children committed to their care or received into such institution, in which book or register shall also be written the time such child left the institution, and if bound out or otherwise, place out at service, or on trial, the name and occupation of the person with whom it is so placed and his or her place of residence. The managers shall have no power to bind out any person mentioned in the first section.

5a. For the more stringent law of 1875 see Volume II, Part Three, Chap. I, sec. A, Children in almshouses, doc. 5.

Poor relief in a southern state, 1839-1856

1. A removal case, North Carolina, 1839

Archibald A. T. Smith Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill, N.C.

Whether in South or North, counties and towns refused to support any but their own poor and went to considerable trouble and no little expense to remove persons likely to become public charges to the localities in which they had legal settlement. In the following case the removal of two poor families from one North Carolina county to another proceeded without the complications and litigation which sometimes occurred.

State of North Carolina

Cumberland County  to the Sheriff or any Lawful Office for Said County

Forasmuch as the Warden of the Poor for the county of Cumberland have complained before Mr. Gordon Deming one of the Justices of the Peace in and for the said county that Matthew Runnels, wife and several children, poor persons, hath come into the said county of Cumberland to inhabit and reside from and out of the county of Columbus in which the said Matthew Runnels, wife & children hath gained a legal settlement by being actually resident therein one whole year, and is likely to become chargeable to the said county of Cumberland and the said warden for the County of Cumberland have made before me due proof of the premises, I do therefore command you the said constable to convey the said Matthew Runnels, wife & children from and out of the said county of Cumberland and then deliver to the wardens of the poor for the said county of Columbus or to some or one of them together with a true copy of this precept at the same time showing to them the original given under my hand & seal this 19 March 1839.

G. Deming

I hereby constitute and appoint Thos. H. Massey to serve the above warrant.

G. Deming

State of North Carolina.

I John W. Lamin, Jr. Clerk of the Court of Pleas & Quarter Session of Cumberland County do certify that the name and signature of G. Deming Esq. which appears to the annexed warrant is in the proper hand writing of the said G. Deming and that he is an acting Justice of the Peace for said County duly commissioned and sworn, and that full faith and credit is due to his official acts –

I delivered the within named persons and a copy of the within to Mr. Lott Williamson, Warden of Columbus County N.C. this 22nd day of March 1839

Received from Thos. H. Massey Constable for the Wardens of Cumberland County, N.C. two families James Runnels, wife and children also Mathew Runnels, wife & children. This 22nd day of March, 1839.

The Wardens of the Poor of Cumberland County, 1839.

To Tho. H. Massey Dr.

March 22 to 6 day hire of wagon & driver

to carrying 2 families to Columbus County                  #9; 30 .00

to 6 days services as Constable                                     6.00

                                                                                 $36.00

Cr. by deducting from the bill                                         3.00

                                                                                 $33.00

Provisions for the two families                                        6.25

                                                                                  $39.25

2. Outdoor relief for defective children, North Carolina, 1845-1846

Orange County (North Carolina), Records of the Court of Wardens, 1832-1856, North Carolina State Department of Archives and History, Raleigh, N.C.

July 7, 1845: Ordered that John Owen be allowed $10 for the support of his deformed child and that the treasurer pay the same to Henry Edwards, Jr. who will disburse the same for his benefit.

A memorial in favor of Nelly Brown and her blind son having been laid before the wardens it was ordered that the Treasurer pay to George W. Rhodes $10 to be applied by him towards their support.

November 24, 1846: Ordered that Nancy Carroll be allowed Five dollars for the support of her idiot child to 1st April next and that the superintendant pay the same.

Ordered that Nelly Brown be allowed Five dollars for the support of her blind son to ht April next and that the superintendant furnish the same.

3. Care of an infant orphan, North Carolina, 1846-1848

Orange County, Records of the Court of Wardens.

September 7, 1846: Ordered that the Treasurer pay to Mrs. Kendall W. Wait thirty Dollars for taking care of Elizabeth Truelove for six months.

Ordered that the Treasurer pay to Mrs. Wait Four dollars per month for taking care of Elizabeth Truelove, an infant, for two months and twenty Dollars for the next six months.

Ordered that the Treasurer pay to Howel Gilliam five dollars for taking care of Lucy Truelove [mother of Elizabeth].

Ordered that the Treasurer pay to John W. Carr four dollars for finding coffin & burying clothes of Lucy Truelove.

September 6, 1847: Ordered that the Superintendant pay to Mrs. Price twenty dollars semiannual allowance the support of Elizabeth Truelove from 1st April last & fifteen dollars for the next six months up to 1st April 1848.

April 5, 1848: Ordered that the Superintendant pay to Mrs. Price fifteen dollars semi-annual allowance for the support of Elizabeth Truelove to 1st Oct. next.

September 4, 1848: Ordered that the Superintendant receive Elizabeth Truelove, an infant, as a pauper at the Poor House.

4. Relief for children of Mexican War soldiers, 1847-1848

Orange County, Records of the Court of Wardens.

September 6, 1847: Ordered that the Superintendant bring the children of Young Barbee to the poor House.

November 23, 1847: Ordered that the sum of twelve dollars & fifty cents ($12.50) be paid to C. W. Johnston, Esq. for the support of the children of Young Barbee who is at present a volunteer in the N.C. Regiment in Mexico.

April 5, 1848: Ordered that the Superintendant pay to Murrell Chisenhall twenty dollars for taking care of the children of Young Barbee before they were brought to the poor House. . .

Ordered that Superintendant be directed to bring the children of Calvin Bacon (who is now a Soldier in Mexico) to the poor House.

5. Binding out of poorhouse boys

Orange County, Records of the Court of Wardens.

November 24, 1846: Ordered that the Superintendent bring Andrew Jackson, a free boy of color, raised at the Poor House. . . to the present Term of the Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions for the purpose of being bound out.

September 2, 1856: Ordered that this Court recommend to the next County Court to be bound to D. D. Phillips a free boy of color by the name of William James Stowers aged

years who is to learn him the art and mystery of a coarse harness maker and shop work generally and when he arrives at the full age of twenty-one years to give him a set of tools suitable for his work and twenty-five dollars in cash or its equivalent.