Trend toward Indoor Relief

1
Trend toward Indoor Relief

• 1800 to Civil War

2
The Mood of the Nation

• Time of movement and growth
• Industrialization in northeast (largely cotton)
• Explosion of wealth in south (cotton)
• Westward migration, population expansion and
  addition of new states
• Canals and railways fostered commerce

3

• Voting extended to all free adult white males
• Age of common man Jacksonian democracy began in
  1828
• Social issues reformers concern for deaf and
  blind, mentally ill
• Immigration, prohibition and anti-Catholicism

4

• German and Irish immigrants
• Catholics grew from 300,000 to 3 million from
  1830-1860
• Irish destitute and threat to standard of living
  would work for any wage
• Concerns about blacks, especially free blacks in
  the south -- colonization

5
Trattners View of Mood

• Growing view that poor responsible for their own
  condition
• Land/resources plentiful personal weakness
  cause of poverty
• All poor viewed with contempt, even worthy
• Poor, Catholic immigrants added to tension

6
Moral Crusade Seen as Solution to Social Problems

• Catholics seen as uncivilized with the evil habit
  of drink
• Other problems thought to be caused by moral
  defects crime, insanity, gambling,
  prostitution, vagrancy
• Recessions, discrimination, lack of social
  institutions not seen as leading to social
  problems

7
Temperance

• Limiting availability of strong drink will solve
  social problems
• 1833 there were 6,000 American Temperance Society
  chapters
• Tax heavily, restrict sales, or prohibit sales
  were major goals
• Opposed by immigrant groups and many middle class
  and working class Americans

8
Anti-pauperism Strategies

• Self-sufficiency possible if one worked hard and
  was moral
• Thus poverty was linked to idleness and/or
  immorality or laws removed incentive to work
• Best way to deter poverty was through getting rid
  of outdoor relief
• Poorhouses would be efficient and provide a way
  to change the poor

9
Concern about Outdoor Aid

• Belief that poor laws removed incentive to work
• Belief that public assistance should be
  eliminated in favor of private charity only
• Deemed impossible, but for cost savings and
  efficiency, move to institutional care

10
Yates Report

• New York State survey research on poor relief
  1824 recommendations
• No public help for able bodied 18-50
• Institutional help for old, young, and disabled
• County become administrative unit

11
Almshouses

• Became predominant way to help poor
• Under county administration, usually housed a
  conglomerate of unfortunates
• Old, young, sick, well, sane, insane, retarded,
  alcoholic, delinquent, criminal
• For most (except old) these were short term
  refuges during crisis and economic distress

12
Almshouse in Maryland
13
Almshouse in Lancaster, PA
14
Emergence of Specialized Care

• Reformers deplored mixing of populations
• Reformatories for juvenile delinquents
• State orphanages for dependent children
• Institutions for mentally ill, mentally retarded,
  deaf and blind emerged

15
Quest for Federal Help

• 1818 Revolutionary War Pension Act
• Some disaster aid forthcoming
• Public land given for asylums for deaf and dumb
• Dorothea Dix sought Federal land for states to
  build insane asylums
• 1854 Congress passed, and Pierce vetoed

16
Pierce

• I cannot find any authority in the Constitution
  for making the Federal Government the great
  almoner of public charity throughout the United
  States.
• With few exceptions (native Americans, freed
  slaves) federal government stayed out of social
  welfare for many years

17
Private aid

• Help the poor by improving their character
• Poor needed religion, morality, sobriety and
  industry
• 1843 New York Association for Improving the
  Conditions of the Poor
• Middle class male volunteers, probably
  feared/hated the poor and wanted to transform
  them to middle class values

18
Change in Attitude

• Encountered wretched living conditions in slums
• Found slum life to be an obstacle to morality
• Realized poor wages and unemployment were real
  problems
• Found jobs and gave aid

19
A.I.C.P.

• Built model tenements
• Tried to clean slums and establish public health
  measures
• Finally argued that moral improvement depended on
  improving economic situation
• Wanted well planned relief
• Precursor to Charity Organization Societies

20
Social Control?

• Did reformers help the poor as a way to
  control them and protect middle class, capitalist
  interests?
• Did philanthropists act to show off their exalted
  position in society?
• Or did they help for spiritual reasons, out of
  civic duty, cultural nationalism or true
  humanitarianism?