Going To The Poor House Victorian Style

Garland County Poor House, by J. F. Kennedy (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Mental institution/old people's home/poorhouse (Photo credit: netzanette)

A Look at Victorian County Poor Farms

Most of us old enough to have parents born about the time of the Great Depression remember the odd words spoken by our parents or grandparents when worried about finance. "We are going to the poor house." These words inspired us to remember the plight of poor Oliver Twist asking for more porridge.

Then there were Sunday drives in the country when your Grandmother would point to some large gaudy Victorian home on an old farm and tell you that it was "the county rest home' when she was growing up. You might ponder how much 'rest' people got on a farm. You could envision old women with walkers out sowing the fields.

What all the buzz was about was the fear and knowledge your parents and grandparents had of the local Victorian cure for all social ills within its county borders ;known as the county poor house or county home.

Our Victorian ancestors sure of the truth of the protestant work ethic saw poverty as a result of a lack of moral virtue of "industry". This combined with the fact ,families were increasingly moving to cities and other places that offered better economic opportunities,.The had to leave their elderly and many times feeble minded relatives behind. Many counties did not have institutions for the severely disabled, elderly, and mentally ill.

These folks left by their relatives to fend for themselves. They became wards of the county. They with orphans, unwed mothers, and the sick and aged, were placed in poorhouses and poor farms out of a desire for the county to perform acts of "Christian charity". The local politician benefited from this arrangement, as the poor farm removed the "undesirables", from the sight of the general public.

These "farms" or 'homes' required all able-bodied people to work and contribute to the operation of the facility. Life was never pleasant at the poor house as the goal was to get those who could to leave and find employment. Residents were worked long hours and physically abused at the whims of their overseers. Many families down on their luck; only stayed in these places a short time till they made enough money to move on.

Monroe Co. Poor House, by Woodward, C. W. (Charles Warren) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The elderly, feeble-minded, disabled and orphaned were not so lucky. Till the later 1800's and the opening of state sponsored schools and orphan asylums these folks could only hope some local relative or generous local family could remove them from the harsh conditions of the county poor house. The rise of specialized care and schooling brought an end to the poor house days, but it is an interesting part of America's social history.

Indiana like most states had a 'poor house 'or farm in almost every county. Some were over crowded and some were only used by the most destitute county residents. Those wilh small populations tended to provide a better environment for the residents. In the mind of the civic minded Victorian conditions at a 'poor "house were seen as bearable because life on a farm or small town was difficult anyway. The inmates could be seen as lucky to have access to food and shelter at the expense of the taxpayer. The tax paying residents of the county would have only been confused by issues of the quality of life or dignity of the inmates.

In 1871 a local newspaper did an article on the residence and conditions on its "infirmary" or poor farm. The Hunting County Infirmary had 18 residents at the time .The writer of the article ,in a truly Victorian judgmental and patronizing manner published all the 'less than pretty' circumstances of the inmates need to be at the poor house. The writer showed some respect for the young children he deemed as deserving of adoption, but he was particularly unkind to women he viewed as silly or loose.

The genealogists who reprinted the article for its research value wrote," What is amazing about this article is the degree to which very personal details of the inmates lives are recounted in such a public manner! We at first felt somewhat reluctant to even post this on the internet 130 years later." This article is a must read for anyone who is interested in the personal knowledge of who the poor farms of this era served. This article can be found in its complete form: http://www.poorhousestory.com/IN_Huntington_newsarticle1871.htm

The history of poor farms in American society is not interpreted as our ancestor's lack of social conscious, but rather folks who had limited knowledge of the reasons that individuals and families would become chronically destitute. It was actually a testament to the Victorians growing social awareness; that they sought to aid the unfortunate in any organized way at all.

Sources:

http://www.poorhousestory.com/IN_Huntington_newsarticle1871.htm

http://www.poorhousestory.com/

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Victorian Childhood Based On Social Class

Public Domain The domestic situation of most Victorian families offered an endless network of caregivers. Victorian households had six children, but most had a variety of other family and others that lived in their dwelling. The nuclear family that defined the last century was a rare family in Victorian times. Yet, the extended family traditionally thought of by us as a Victorian norm only made up about 10 percent of Victorian households. A traditional extended family is one in which three or more generations lived in the same house. An average Victorian household would consist of the husband, wife, unmarried cousins, farm laborers, maybe one aged parent or aunt, and servants if it was a household of some economic means. The makeup of the Victorian home was in constant flux. Older children married, left to find work, or died. In some areas of industrial homes life expectancy was only in the mid twenties and at the turn of the century not much more than 50 for most middle class people. Infants and children had more than a %50 percent chance of dying before the age of 5 in many communities. It was not uncommon for a healthy child to have lost one or both parents and a sibling before they reached their teens. This is not to mention the changes in household help that occurred frequently as younger folks who worked in these homes married or went on to better jobs. Working class children and farm children often found themselves being farmed out to other relatives or moved to communities to find work and contribute to the family coffers in their early teens. A family that found itself in a growing industrial community would be asked to take on other family members children in hopes they would find employment in exchange for limited economic contribution. Sickly children might have been moved to relatives that lived in the county hoping the air was better for them, but returned to the city if they could not pull their weight on a friend or family's farm. It was about the survival of the family unit and those individual close to the unit that determined the fate of many Victorian children.School was not mandatory for children in England till 1840 and much later in most parts of the United States. The working poor who had ambitions for their children went as far as to ask charitable organizations to arrange night schools in order that children working in sweat shops might have a chance to attend school. In rural communities in the United States farm families pooled their money to hire a school Master or Marm. Most children in rural areas because of weather conditions and the planting season only attended school for three to five months a year. A growing middle class after the American Civil war increased the demand for public High School. A girl in the rural Midwest was more likely to attend high school as her brother would have been needed to work the farm or family business than she was. In an upper middle class family, a smart girl was unlikely to get a University education than her brother was because it was considered a waste of time to educate women whose only future prospects were marriage. In late Victorian times it became acceptable for middle class girls to pursue a degree in teaching so they could have a trade before marriage. Women from the poorest urban areas many of them immigrants had always worked and never had a chance at any formal education. Women teachers especially, were underpaid and undervalued by most communities. . Discipline for children in all social levels was strict. The sexually repressed Victorians went to great extent to punish and discourage all sexual expression in children. The very lowest classes did not have this luxury and were noted to sell young girls that family could not afford to feed into what was essentially domestic prostitution. Corporal punishment was considered appropriate even for infants in some Victorian households. Wealthier families did indulge their children in lessons, games, and parties, but many of these activities were meant to help the child learn the social mores of the day and not just "play" In the 1830's it was not uncommon for children in urban settings to succumb to cholera because of a lack of understanding in the community about the need for clean water. Most cities had amazingly unsanitary conditions that made the whole community at risk for the spread of disease. Respiratory ailments were the norm in these communities where the industrial revolution had caused so much pollution. Many times these chronic respiratory ailments cover up epidemics of whopping cough and tuberculosis. It was not uncommon for children who avoided these ailments to still literarily grow up with "blackened lungs" and have a short life span. Mortality rates for infants, children, and women were high because of all communicable diseases in urban areas where they went unchecked. Most women in children in poorer communities were malnourished and this contributed to low disease survival rates. Diets tended to consist of bread, cheese, beer, and occasionally meat. There were not fresh fruits and vegetables widely available to the poor and in certain climates not even the middle class. The men as head of household got the best and largest portions of any food that was served for they were literally the most important "breadwinner". This lead too many women and children; being deprived of necessary nutrition to have the strength to fight off common diseases Life on the farm the last century had in many ways been healthier for many people. Women breastfeed until most children were two, but their milk was only as good as their diet. Wealthier women could afford wet nurses, but many times these women were less healthy than the mothers of their charges and the infant mortality rate was high. Few children who were fed cow's milk, weak tea, and sugar if their mothers could not breast feed made it through infancy. Victorian childhood prepared most children for a life of hardship and economic uncertainty. A growing middle class assured that a least a growing number of children would have an education and life of not just day to day survival. The lack of serious medical advances for ordinary people made the prospect of death something that the average person faced every day.

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