Ordinary people : in and out of poverty in the gilded age / David Wagner.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Wagner, David.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Almshouses--United States--History--19th century.

Almshouses.

Poor--United States--History--19th century.

Poor.

Public welfare--United States--History--19th century.

Public welfare.

History.

United States.

Physical Description:

vi, 252 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Boulder : Paradigm Publishers, [2008]

Summary:

David Wagner explores the lives of poor people during the three decades after the Civil War, using a unique treasure of biographies of people who were (at one point in time) inmates in a large almshouse, combined with genealogical and other official records to follow their later lives. Ordinary People develops a more fluid picture of??poverty??? as people??'s lives change over the course of time.

Contents:

Ordinary people

The context : the Massachusetts State Almshouse at Tewksbury, immigration, and industrialization

The "uprooted" : immigrants and migrants

Falling down : yet a surprising resilience

"Criminal intimacies" : out-of-wedlock births

Family conflict and desertion

Being "put out" : children in and out of the almshouse

"We can do nothing for him" : the fate of the elderly

From history's shadows : partial views of the poor.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 241-246) and index.

ISBN:

9781594514609

1594514607

OCLC:

180190783