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1/ Poorhouses, such as this abandoned one I photographed, were used to provide shelter for the homeless before Social Security, Medicaid, & Section 8 were created to help the poor. Usually they were more like prisons & residents were referred to as inmates https://www.abandonedamerica.us/abandoned-poorhouse">https://www.abandonedamerica.us/abandoned...
The concept originated in England in the 17th century, where debtors prisons housed the poor and workhouses forced the able-bodied to do prison-like labor while in squalid conditions eating disgusting food, and came over with the colonists to America https://www.history.com/news/in-the-19th-century-the-last-place-you-wanted-to-go-was-the-poorhouse">https://www.history.com/news/in-t...
3/ In the US, towns really didn& #39;t want to care for their impoverished citizens and would either banish them or sell them off to people who "paid" them by providing food and board for work - another form of slavery in a country that was pretty fond of it at the time.
4/ Some towns had "poor masters" who would decide whether to use a portion of a town& #39;s budget to give food or firewood to the indigent. Over time towns decided creating one central location was more cost effective, so almshouses and poor farms were built. http://appalachianmagazine.com/2019/08/16/americas-poor-farms-poor-houses-of-yesteryear/">https://appalachianmagazine.com/2019/08/1...
5/ Due to the stigma of poverty and the resentment towards having to care for the less fortunate, these facilities were pretty terrible. Helen Keller& #39;s teacher Anne Sullivan described her time in one as a “a crime against childhood”, sleeping in iron cots as rats ran freely about
6/ The place I photographed was a poor farm, built in a rural area so people could grow their own food - making them less of a burden and removing them from the town center. The original 1830s building burned in 1923, killing a number of residents, and was rebuilt.
7/ It eventually closed in the 1960s (!!) and was purchased by a woman who used it as an "antiques store" although neither the building nor the antiques were maintained and both were in pretty bad shape by the time I visited. It was absolutely full of odd, decaying bric-a-brac
8/ She kept a few horses on the property and invited me into her home to show me some old photos of the place, and I visited again with my father, prepared for the horses this time with apples to give as gifts. They nearly ate my hand too, but seemed to enjoy them.
9/ It was a peaceful place, a little eerie but quiet and fun to walk around. It was hard not to reflect on how the poor are treated as a subhuman plague on the rest of us, and how the few small advancements we& #39;ve made in that regard are always under attack
