A01=Megan Birk
abandonment
Age Group_Uncategorized
Age Group_Uncategorized
agriculture
Almshouse
asylum
Author_Megan Birk
automatic-update
bastardy
boarding out
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=HB
Category=HBJK
Category=JBFC
Category=JBFD
Category=JFFA
Category=JFFB
Category=JKS
Category=NHK
Category=WQH
charity
chronic illness
COP=United States
cruelty
death
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
direct aid
disability
Domestic abuse
drunkenness
elderly
English Poor Law
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
eugenics
farm
farm wives
feebleminded
friendly visiting
geriatrics
health care
hired hands
historic buildings
homelessness
household
indoor relief
infirmary
inheritance
Insanity
institutional tourism
Language_English
long-term care
management
mental health care
mental illness
nursing
old age
outdoor relief
PA=Available
Patriarchy
pauper
pauper leasing
pensions
poverty
Price_€20 to €50
progressives
PS=Active
public health care
public hospital
punishment
relief
rural
rural doctors
Rural ideal
seasonal laborer
servants
shelter
single women
social security
softlaunch
state board of charity
suicide
Transients
unmarried
unwed mothers
wages
widowers
widows
workhouse
worthy poor
Product details
- ISBN 9780252086458
- Weight: 481g
- Dimensions: 156 x 235mm
- Publication Date: 12 Apr 2022
- Publisher: University of Illinois Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
- Language: English
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
By the early 1900s, the poor farm had become a ubiquitous part of America's social welfare system. Megan Birk's history of this foundational but forgotten institution focuses on the connection between agriculture, provisions for the disadvantaged, and the daily realities of life at poor farms. Conceived as an inexpensive way to provide care for the indigent, poor farms in fact attracted wards that ranged from abused wives and the elderly to orphans, the disabled, and disaster victims. Most people arrived unable rather than unwilling to work, some because of physical problems, others due to a lack of skills or because a changing labor market had left them behind. Birk blends the personal stories of participants with institutional histories to reveal a loose-knit system that provided a measure of care to everyone without an overarching philosophy of reform or rehabilitation.
In-depth and innovative, The Fundamental Institution offers an overdue portrait of rural social welfare in the United States.
Megan Birk is a professor of history at University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. She is the author of Fostering on the Farm: Child Placement in the Rural Midwest.
