The Poorhouse

Many of us grew up hearing our parents exclaim you are driving me to the poorhouse! or remember the card in the Monopoly game which says Go to the Poorhouse! Lose a Turn! Yet most Americans know little or nothing of this institution that existed under a variety of names for approximately three hundred years of American history. Exploring the history of the inmates as well as staff and officials in New England, this book connects contemporary times to the poorhouse history as the homeless shelter, jail, prison, and other institutions again hold millions of poor people under institutional care, sometimes in the very same structures that were poorhouses.

Tables and Boxes	vii
Acknowledgments	ix
1 Poorhouse, Almshouse, Poor Farm: Buried American History	1	(18)
2 Scenes from the Poorhouse	19	(20)
3 What the Forefathers Had in Mind: The Purpose and Contradictions of the Poorhouse	39	(20)
4 Undermining the Poorhouse: Long- and Short-Term Inmates in the Late Nineteenth Century	59	(22)
5 Inmates, Overseers, and the Politics of the Poorhouse	81	(18)
6 The Long End: Inmates in the Twentieth-Century Poorhouse	99	(20)
7 Matrons, Doctors, Staff, and the End of the Poorhouse	119	(12)
8 The Ironies of History: The Return of the Poorhouse	131	(20)
Notes	151	(22)
Index	173	(6)
About the Author	179

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