Poor House Laws pre-1901 Submitted by Candi Horton History Overview of Almshouses and Workhouses The Care of Destitute, Neglected, and Delinquent Children Paupers Race Population Charities, Organizations and Societies History Overview of Almshouses and Workhouses Each county cared for its own poor; but no almshouses and workhouses were built until the year 1768, when an act of assembly made provision for such houses in each of five counties, and before the Revolution of 1776 the poor of two other counties were likewise provided for. Five trustees, forming a close corporation, were put in charge of this new institution. No trustee was obliged to serve longer than five years; and, being discharged in rotation, they were to choose a successor to one of their number at the end of every year. They were to meet four times a year for the transaction of business. When they had purchased the land and built and furnished the houses, they were to appoint an overseer, who was to serve during their pleasure. Lastly, the trustees were to compel the poor to work, and in this they were to be aided by both sheriffs and constables. The only other county institution was the county school, the management of which was intrusted to seven visitors. These officers also formed a close corporation. They bought the land, erected the school building, made the necessary rules and regulations, employed the schoolmaster. They also appointed a register, who kept an account of all their proceedings and submitted to the General Assembly an account of their application of the school money Source: Mereness, Newton D.; MARYLAND AS PROPRIETARY PROVINCE, Macmillan Co., New York;1901 The Care of Destitute, Neglected, and Delinquent Children Baltimore, the third city in the Union (population, 26,614), probably cared for its destitute children in the Baltimore county almshouse, the city having no charitable institution under its immediate direction at that time. Boston, the fourth city (population, 24,027), erected its second almshouse, for both children and adults, in 1800. Outdoor relief was also given freely, as was the case quite generally throughout New England. The proportion of " unsettled," or State, paupers was increasing, but they were cared for by the cities and towns, which were reimbursed by the State. In Maryland, the county almshouse system was established by law in 1768. In Delaware, each county had an almshouse by 1823. As to neglected children, we find in the statutes of the time but few provisions for their rescue and care. As early as 1735, in Boston, children whose parents were unable or neglected to provide for their support and education, might be bound out by the overseers of the poor. The laws of Maryland authorized, in 1797, the binding out of the children of beggars. The class of children who are now forcibly removed from the control of unfit parents apparently remained with their families, as a rule, until the latter became destitute, when the children were cared for as pauper children, or until the fruits of neglect were reaped, and the children, convicted of offences, were sent to jails and penitentiaries along with older offenders. Source: Folks, Homer; MONOGRAPHS ON AMERICAN SOCIAL ECONOMICS, The Care of Destitute, Neglected, and Delinquent Children; 1900 Paupers Race Population In Baltimore city, by authority of special acts, " any person " found to be idle, without visible means of support, a vagrant, a beggar or disorderly person, was to be bound out, or put in the House of Refuge, or to be sent to the alms-house after 1854, for not over two months for the first offence, and never for more than six months. The number of vagrants thus committed by magistrates to the almshouse of Baltimore city and county in 1853, for instance, was two hundred and thirty whites and thirty-seven blacks; in 1854, two hundred and sixty-nine whites and thirty-nine blacks. After greater efforts had been made to put down rowdies and vagabondism in Baltimore, the number of white vagrants rose, in 1857, to over four hundred, and in 1858, to over five hundred, while that of the blacks remained under fifty. The total number of blacks -vagrants, paupers, sick in the alms- house in January, 1853, was one hundred and thirty-two to five hundred and eighty-five whites. In January, 1854, one hundred and twenty-two to six hundred and forty-eight whites; in January, 1857 and 1858, the proportion of blacks was less it may have been on the average, for several years, about one black to five whites. Source: Brackett, Jeffrey R., Ph. D.; The Negro in Maryland; Baltimore, 1889 Charities, Organizations and Societies Population, 1870, 780,894; 1890, 1,042,390. Over one-quarter of the population of Maryland is colored. In Maryland, twenty years ago, the means of dealing with paupers and prisoners were simple, and the institutions for them were few. For the pauper the city of Baltimore and each county had an alms-house, save three counties which gave only outdoor relief in pensions, varying from ten to sixty dollars a year. The imbecile went to the almshouse; the insane went either there or to the State asylum at county expense. For all classes and conditions of prisoners the only public institutions were the local jails or the State penitentiary. But private philanthropy, aided by the public purse, had established at Baltimore a House of Refuge, which for twenty years already has taken large numbers of boys, and a House of Refuge for Girls, holding about a score. Besides these there were a large industrial school for incorrigible boys, and a House of the Good Shepherd, and a Shelter, for fallen women. In other ways besides the establishment of such private institutions, the influences of a large, progressive community were shown in Baltimore. The city jail and the State penitentiary had been, as a rule, well-managed institutions. In the welfare of prisoners and of inmates of the almshouse, especially in their religious instruction, a number of individuals had for years taken much interest; and the Maryland Prisoners' Aid Association was just beginning work. To the great improvement of the penitentiary, the legislature had just appropriated $30,000, especially for introducing the means of working all able-bodied convicts. This system has been kept, despite labor agitators, with the result that the prison has usually more than paid its expenses, while the convicts have learned the habit of work and the means, when discharged, of an honorable self-support. Whether these means for treating paupers and prisoners were properly used depended, notably in the counties, on trustees of poor, grand juries, and other officials, all local. Inspections were usually the formal and expected visits, often turned into mere entertainment. But in 1870, officials of the Prisoners' Aid Association, empowered by law to inspect all prisons, began yearly visits to the county jails, and also to the almshouses, and to point out defects and needs both to the county officials and the public. In 1874 the State Board of Health was established, charged, besides other duties, to visit and report on all public institutions, whenever called upon so to do by the governor or legislature. Called on two years later by the governor, their secretary, a physician, made an elaborate inspection and report; and again in 1880 and 1883 inspections were ordered. In 1886 the State Lunacy Commissioner was established, charged with the oversight of all institutions, public or private, taking insane persons, including almshouses, to prevent wrongful confinement or ill-use. They must visit at least once in every six months, and report to the governor yearly. There is no further supervision of the charities and corrections of Maryland. An effort was begun, a few years ago, in Baltimore to secure a State commission for that purpose; but it was soon abandoned from the fear that the board would be made up with too great regard for politics and place. One county, Frederick, has established a local Board of Charities and Correction. When the county institutions were first inspected by these experienced eyes, two-thirds of the jails were found unfit for use (four of them had been condemned already by local grand juries; and there was generally little separation of the sexes, or of young and old, either in age or crime. In the almshouses, as a rule, young and old, sane and insane, mingled together. One-half of the aims- houses were so inadequate for the needs or so wretchedly managed as to have children born in them, frequently to imbecile mothers. In a few scattered cases, insane persons were treated like brutes "It is painful," they said, "to report the shocking condition in which many of the public institutions were found, and it is difficult to conceive that anything worse ever existed in a civilized country. By 1880, however, they could state that the almshouses, with few exceptions, had greatly improved. A number of new jails and alms- houses have been built, and the old abuses have been largely done away in the past fifteen years. Twenty-one of the twenty-three counties report nearly 2,600 persons receiving pensions, at a total cost of nearly $45,000 a year. Three counties still have no alms-houses, pensioning out or maintaining elsewhere their poor. The Prisoners' Aid Association and the Health Board have advocated, but in vain, a system of union workhouses, one workhouse for a district of several thinly peopled counties, which now keep their few poor indifferently, often in idleness, and at a greater cost than would keep the same in an intelligently managed and truly beneficial institution. The Health Board, in 1877, reported some 100 children in the almshouses. A small home, established in Easton in 1871, had taken a few girls from the almshouse. At Cumberland in Washington County the evils of child-life in almshouses, noted by grand juries and agitated at a public meeting, led to the establishment in 1883 of a Home for Friendless Children. It is supported in part by the county and part by contributions and the interest of an endowment fund. Within ten years 174 children have been received and taught, and 123 placed out and supervised in families. In 1886 the State forbade the keeping of able-bodied children in almshouses between three and sixteen years; and this law has been reasonably executed. The Lunacy Commission has urged the removal of as many insane paupers as possible to the State and the Mt. Hope Hospitals near Baltimore. Two counties have for some years maintained hospitals for insane, under separate management from their almshouses. Another county, in 1892, erected a separate building, attached to the almshouse, and removed seven patients to it from the State asylum. The commissioners of Baltimore County (adjoining the city) recently planned to erect an insane hospital, to save money to the county in the care of its sixty or more insane; but the protests of the Lunacy Commission and of public opinion stopped them. The insane department of Baltimore City almshouse has been enlarged and put under good management, but is again becoming very crowded.Two years ago a special and able committee of inquiry recommended to the legislature two measures,— one for the State to assume the care of all pauper insane, the other for a home for epileptics. A bill for the first object was passed, but was not signed by the governor. The second object was not favorably reported. Public interest in both, however, seems to be growing; and their realization may be expected. The census of 1870 gave the number of insane persons in Maryland as 1,646, of feeble-minded as 1,549. Population of insane hospitals, June 30, 1892, 1,144, besides nearly 400 at Baltimore city almshouse insane department, and over 350 insane in the county almshouses. In 1888 the State appropriated $10,000 to establish an asylum and training school for the feeble-minded. It was opened the next year, with an annual appropriation of $5,000, now $6,000. It had 1892 (June 30) 37 inmates. The Maryland School for the Blind had been opened in 1854; and in 1872 the State appropriated $20,000 for a school for colored blind and deaf, and has been since its chief support. The census of 1890 gave 819 blind in all, and 752 deaf-mutes. The State has long maintained a large asylum for deaf-mutes at Frederick. A hospital for inebriates was opened under private management about 1866, but closed after ten years' existence, when the State withdrew its customary appropriation. The law still allows inebriates to be committed after due examination to hospitals, as Mt. Hope, which will receive them. The need of a House of Correction had been long urged, and in 1874 the State appropriated $250,000 for one. It was opened in 1879, and had an average of 170 inmates that year. Meantime, to keep large numbers of colored children guilty of petty offences out of the jails or the penitentiary, the sum of $30,000 was raised by private subscription, under the influence of the Prisoners' Aid Association; and the House of Reformation for Colored Boys was opened in 1873, with an annual grant of $5,000 (now $10,000) from the State. There are several private homes for insane. There are several private homes for the feeble-minded. similar grant from the State, an Industrial Home for Colored Girls was established in 1882. In 1875 an entire change in the system of magistracy in Baltimore City cut down the score or more of committing justices paid by fees to six paid by salary, and the next years showed a decrease in the number of commitments to the jail. The fee system has since been abolished in Frederick County, with great saving to the public. In 1876 the legislature enacted a system of commutation, by which terms of imprisonment might be shortened for good behavior. In 1878 a bill was passed for the protection of children against immorality ; and a society was soon formed to see that children suffering from cruelty or immorality were put, accordingly, in the proper institutions or otherwise cared for. About that time also the more systematic employment of prisoners in the jail was carried out, the laws requiring commitment to labor having been largely a dead letter. In 1883 the offence of willful wife-beating was made punishable in Baltimore by the cowhide,- a most effectual preventive measure, if the absence of offenders be due to that law. In 1884 the Baltimore Police Board was authorized to appoint matrons to serve at the station-houses. One was soon put at the central station; but not till recently, after some agitation, was a matron secured by night and day for each of the stations. In the House of Refuge and St. Mary's Industrial School for Boys industrial training and drill have been introduced of private charitable institutions there are few outside of Baltimore, and these are smaller. In Baltimore the growth in medical Charities has been marked in twenty years, the old hospitals having, as a rule, been enlarged, and several new ones established, notably the great Johns Hopkins Hospital, with its 182 free beds. The one man, a white, was whipped soon after the law was enacted. [It is interesting to note that by an act of 1853 the medical dispensaries were partly supported by the fines levied yearly on houses of ill-fame. The last Assembly repealed this law and any implied legislative sanction to the custom in Baltimore of licensing, practically, all such houses which were quietly conducted. ] The Home for Friendless Children of the Eastern Shore at Easton, Talbot County, opened in 1871, and of the Washington County Orphanage at Hagerstown, opened in 1883, with about 20 inmates each. A Female Orphan Society was formed in Annapolis in 1828, and now cares for 4 girls. At Frederick there are two orphanages, one under the Episcopal society, the other under the Lutheran, with about 12 children each, and a Home for the Aged recently opened with 3 inmates. The Protestant Home and Infirmary of Western Maryland at Cumberland, incorporated 1888, has recently moved into a new building, with 22 beds, partly free city maintains 250 free beds at eight general hospitals, besides the hospital at the almshouse. Besides, the State, in appropriating to several of the hospitals, provides that a certain number of beds shall be free. The influence of the Johns Hopkins Training School for nurses has been plainly seen in better nursing in the hospitals. A beginning in district nursing among the poor is now being made. The old dispensaries of Baltimore have not progressed. Of the new, Johns Hopkins Dispensary has taken a great step in the right direction by asking a fee of ten cents from all who can afford it, and in 1891 about 80 per cent. paid. An evening dispensary has been established, with female doctors for women and girls who cannot leave work in the day. And one devoted woman has opened a dispensary for treatment, with plastic jackets, of children with diseases of the spine, together with a school for children too deformed to attend public schools. An outside service has generally been added to the dispensaries and lying-in hospitals. The Hospital Relief Association and the Sanitariums are all new, notably the great Wilson Sanitarium endowed with $500,000, for mothers and children. Among the many homes and asylums of Baltimore should be noticed, for their enlightened management, the McDonogh School for Boys, opened in 1873, which has now $800,000 as endowment fund, and about 100 scholars; and the Ready Asylum for Female Orphans, opened in 1887, which has a fund of over $500,000, and cares for about 50 girls. The institutions for colored adults and children have all been opened since 1869, save the orphanage, which, begun in the war-times, was transferred in 1873 to the care of a fund left by Johns Hopkins. The total population of homes for the aged in Maryland, June 30, 1892, was 667; of homes for children, about 2,000, nearly all in Baltimore. In many ways in recent years the public-spirited of Baltimore have been active. The Charity Organization Society, formed in 1881, and for some years doing but little, has become a power. Its inquiry department, for instance, is used by the mayor's office for cases of transportation from the city, at a saving of fifty per cent, of former expenditures. A Charity Organization has been established in Cumberland ; and efforts for one are now being made in Annapolis, in order to turn the generous but spasmodic giving there, of the past cold winter, into continuous efforts for permanent improvement. The time-honored Association for the Improvement of the Condition of the Poor has laid out its relief-giving on lines of modern charitable methods. The Young Women's Christian Association, founded in 1883, has developed great usefulness; and co-operative homes have been multiplied. Two day nurseries, with small fees charged, and a dozen free kindergartens, have been opened recently. The Provident Savings Bank, opened in 1886, with six branches, with the stamp deposit system added, had some 50 stations and over 14,000 book accounts and 15,000 stamp accounts in five years. The Wilson Fuel-savings Society, organized in 1880 and endowed with $100,000, was selling in the tenth year over 3,000 tons of coal and 250 sewing- machines. A Woman's Industrial Exchange and a Decorative Art Society have helped many women to help themselves; and a sewing- machine room with electric motive power has taught sewing to, and then found employment for, over 60 women in its first year. There is less need now in Baltimore of the formation of hew charities than of the reformation of many old ones and the better enforcement of corrections. The protection of society against tramps and " bummers " remains to be accomplished in Maryland. The almshouses have been much demoralized and bled by them. An anti-tramp convention was held in 1877, but failed to secure legislation. Finally, several of the northern counties, Carroll and Frederick in the lead, began to require work in pay for entertainment. The past severe winter, 1892-93, saw Baltimore flooded with idle and needy men. The almshouse was crowded largely from without the State, and hundreds of dirty men were packed at night on the floors of the station-houses and in the Free-Sunday-Breakfast Association rooms. The one Friendly Inn and Wood-yard organized in 1884 under private management could apply its work test to a few only. Within sixty days over $10,700 in cash and over $5,500 in pro visions, clothing, etc., were distributed through the police. All sources of charity were active; and free-soup houses quickly opened, gave food to all who applied. Source: Written by Jeffrey R. Brackett in the Proceedings of the National Conference of Charities and Correction;1893 Back to the MD Index Page Copyright © 2007 by: Genealogy Trails - with original rights reserved for contributors