I got onto a reading this AM, and the term 'poor farm' came up.
So to define it....in the 1800s....in the south mostly....this was a invented 'property' where you had Christian folks 'help' people/folks, who could not support themselves, and their families had virtually no interest/willingness to help
So of a dumping ground? Yeah.
You might use the term a psych ward, without fences or control. It was usually run/owned by the county itself (County Commission project).
The term 'inmate' came to be used here.
You typically had a guy in charge and a couple of folks who were to keep folks 'minded'.
Who got sent? Well....older folks with no money....disabled folks....blind or deaf folks....abandoned kids....folks with tuberculosis or syphilis....alcoholics....vagrants....folks judged insane....“feeble-minded” folks....and those who were unmanageable.
The set-up prior to asylums? Yeah.
These later 'dumped' to bring in asylums....because the poor farm had such a bad reputation? Yeah.
An all-in-one facility? I sat and pondered over this. Asylums were most for nutcases and mentally unstable folks.
The one clear impression I get over the poor farm....once you entered....you rarely left (unless you escaped).
3 comments:
We definitely had county poor farms in Indiana. There was one several miles from the home, I grew up in out in the country.It was started in 1837. By the time I was a kid, the farm part was pretty well gone.There were apartmens for elderly poor. At one time It was a relatively big operation There still was a powerhouse and a big chimney left over from the farms hayday.
They had state hospital , starting in the late eighteen hundreds for tuberculosis as well.
Poor farm history.
I grew up in Tippecanoe county , Indiana.
https://sites.rootsweb.com/~intcags/PoorFarm/PR%20Timeline.html
I did research over my county (where I grew up) and the county next door (in Tenn)....both had such establishments. It just never was discussed. Occasionally, the state mental hospital (started in the 1920s) was openly discussed. Interesting history.
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