Have you ever heard your parents or grandparents say something about your spending putting them in the poor house? I have distinct memories of my grandparents referencing the poor house.
According to Wikipedia, a poorhouse is “a government-run facility for the support and housing of dependent or needy persons, typically run by a local government entity such as a county or municipality.”
The article continues, “Institutions of this nature were widespread in the United States prior to the adoption of the Social Security program in the 1930s. Often the poorhouse was situated on the grounds of a poor farm on which able-bodied residents were required to work.”
In many locations, the poor house was also referred to locally as the town farm or the poor farm. The plan was for the poor to work these town-sponsored farms to grow the produce. Unfortunately, in practice this did not work quite the way it was planned. Many of the inhabitants were old and feeble and therefore unable to do the physical labor required by the farms.
Often, the farms housed recent immigrants from Ireland, Italy and France. In addition, the towns often used the farms as cure-alls for all of society’s issues by placing criminals, the mentally ill and children on the farms as well.
Many of the towns here in Maine had such facilities, and Presque Isle was one of them. Ours was located on the Centerline Road and also known as the King Farm.
Many poor farms struggled to be self-sufficient and required additional funding from the towns. Presque Isle’s town farm was no different. This was especially true during periods of economic downturn when there were more impoverished residents and less available labor or funding.
The annual reports for Presque Isle reported the funding given to the local poor farm as well as names and ages of those on the town farm from 1885 to the 1950s.
These farms were effective in providing some level of subsistence to residents who had no other means of support, but they also carried social stigmas. Being sent to a poor farm was often seen as shameful, marking individuals as failures in the eyes of society.
Additionally, poor farms isolated residents from the community and offered little in terms of upward mobility or reintegration into society.
Such sites were an earnest attempt by local governments to manage poverty and provide for those in need, but they were often limited in their success due to insufficient resources, social stigmas and their failure to address the underlying causes of poverty.
As social welfare programs evolved, the poor farm system became obsolete. Poor houses declined after the Social Security Act took effect in 1935, with most disappearing completely by about 1950.
Kimberly R. Smith is the secretary/treasurer of the Presque Isle Historical Society.
