Social Welfare History Project jhansan Page 29

5,000 Women March for Equality: 1913

In a woman’s suffrage demonstration to-day the capital saw the greatest parade of women in its history. In the allegory presented on the Treasury steps it saw a wonderful series of dramatic pictures. In the parade over 5,000 women passed down Pennsylvania Avenue. Some were riding, more were afoot. Floats throughout the procession illustrated the progress the woman’s suffrage cause had made in the last seventy-five years. Scattered throughout the parade were the standards of nearly every State in the Union. It was an astonishing demonstration.

Tewksbury Almshouse Investigation

As can be seen in this excerpt from the Lowell Weekly Sun’s coverage of the Tewksbury investigation, people with disabilities made up a significant proportion of the population of poorhouses. By the 1860s, many states had established institutions to educate deaf, blind, and cognitively disabled children and people deemed temporarily insane. People with other impairments—and especially disabled adults—whose families could not support them had no recourse other than the poorhouse. Moreover, conditions within almshouses often proved disabling or even deadly.

Poor Relief and the Almshouse

Written by Dr. David Wagner, University of Southern Maine. “Poorhouses (almshouses were simply the same thing with the old English word “alms” for charity used) started out rather small, sometimes in private homes, and at first were scattered in America. But in the 1820s, when America ceased being a completely agricultural society and began to receive more immigration, reformers such as Josiah Quincy in Massachusetts and John Yates in New York led a drive to build almshouses or poorhouses in every town and city. Their purposes were deeply steeped in a desire to not only save money but also to deter the ‘undeserving poor.””

Carry On: Magazine on the Reconstruction of Disabled Soldiers and Sailors

“In the first number of this magazine, June 1918, Surgeon General Gorgas promised that ‘the Medical Department of the Army will ‘Carry On’ in the medical and training treatment of the disabled soldier until he is cured or as nearly cured as his disabilities permit.'”

Over The Hill To The Poor-House (1872)

Poem written by Will Carleton in 1897.

Middletown State Homeopathic Hospital: New York – 1891

This is a lengthy “Letter to the Editor” of The New York Times written by “Index Medicus,” a medical society and journal. If New York State was transferring patients out of their district to another state hospital, why couldn’t the State pay for the transportation of patients whose family and friends wanted them to receive homeopathic medical care as opposed to allopathic medical care?

Our New York State Charities: 1873

“At present these petty criminals spend their time in complete idleness in the county jails, and go out worse than they entered. To improve this class there should be a separate department in the State work-houses proposed, and the criminal statutes should be changed, so that the magistrates could commit them to these, and for longer terms than is at present the custom.”

New York State Care System For The Insane Completed: 1896

“The Governor has approved the bill creating the Manhattan State Hospital and providing for the transfer of the lunatic asylums of this city and the care of their inmates to the State”

Willard Asylum for the Insane: Steward’s Report 1900

Steward’s Report by Captain Morris J. Gilbert, 1900. According to Dr. Robert E. Doran, Jr., author of “History Of The Willard Asylum For The Insane And The Willard State Hospital,” “…he was totally responsible for all purchasing as well as overseeing the farm and maintenance work.”

State Board of Charities of New York: Reports 1878-1884

n the early years of the National Conference of Charities and Corrections, representatives of the states in attendance were invited to share reports on their experiences, problem areas and achievement in connection with the charities and institutions in their respective states. Below are reports from the New York representative at the conferences held from 1978 to 1884.