History of poverty in the United States: Difference between revisions

 

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During the Depression, the government did not provide any [[unemployment Insurance|unemployment insurance]] until Social Security began in 1935, so people who lost jobs easily became impoverished.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://depts.washington.edu/depress/economics_poverty.shtml|title=Economics & Poverty|website=depts.washington.edu|access-date=2019-12-10}}</ref> People who lost their jobs or homes lived in [[Shanty town|shantytowns]] or [[Hooverville]]s. Many [[New Deal]] programs were designed to increase employment and reduce poverty. The [[Federal Emergency Relief Administration]] specifically focused on creating jobs for alleviating poverty. Jobs were more expensive than direct cash payments (called “the dole”), but were psychologically more beneficial to the unemployed, who wanted any sort of job for morale.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://content.lib.washington.edu/feraweb/index.html|title=::: Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) Photographs of King County, 1933-1935 :::|website=content.lib.washington.edu|access-date=2019-12-10}}</ref> Other New Deal initiatives that aimed at job creation and wellbeing included the [[Civilian Conservation Corps]] and [[Public Works Administration]]. Additionally, the institution of [[Social Security (United States)|Social Security]] was one of the largest factors that helped to reduce poverty.<ref name=”Washington post”>[https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2013/11/08/poverty-in-13-states-is-worse-than-we-thought/?tid=article_nextstory Poverty in 13 states is worse than we thought] Washington Post November 8, 2013</ref>

During the Depression, the government did not provide any [[unemployment Insurance|unemployment insurance]] until Social Security began in 1935, so people who lost jobs easily became impoverished.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://depts.washington.edu/depress/economics_poverty.shtml|title=Economics & Poverty|website=depts.washington.edu|access-date=2019-12-10}}</ref> People who lost their jobs or homes lived in [[Shanty town|shantytowns]] or [[Hooverville]]s. Many [[New Deal]] programs were designed to increase employment and reduce poverty. The [[Federal Emergency Relief Administration]] specifically focused on creating jobs for alleviating poverty. Jobs were more expensive than direct cash payments (called “the dole”), but were psychologically more beneficial to the unemployed, who wanted any sort of job for morale.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://content.lib.washington.edu/feraweb/index.html|title=::: Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) Photographs of King County, 1933-1935 :::|website=content.lib.washington.edu|access-date=2019-12-10}}</ref> Other New Deal initiatives that aimed at job creation and wellbeing included the [[Civilian Conservation Corps]] and [[Public Works Administration]]. Additionally, the institution of [[Social Security (United States)|Social Security]] was one of the largest factors that helped to reduce poverty.<ref name=”Washington post”>[https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2013/11/08/poverty-in-13-states-is-worse-than-we-thought/?tid=article_nextstory Poverty in 13 states is worse than we thought] Washington Post November 8, 2013</ref>

==1940 to 1960==

== to ==

{{Main|War on poverty}}

{{Main|War on poverty}}

A number of factors helped start the national [[war on poverty]] in the 1960s. In 1962, [[Michael Harrington]]’s book ”[[The Other America]]” helped increase public debate and awareness of the poverty issue. The war on poverty embraced expanding the federal government’s roles in education and health care as poverty reduction strategies, and many of its programs were administered by the newly established [[Office of Economic Opportunity]]. The war on poverty coincided with more methodological and precise statistical versions of studying poverty; the “official” U.S. statistical measure of poverty was first adopted in 1969.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL33069.pdf|title=Poverty in the United States: 2013|last=Gabe|first=Thomas|date=January 29, 2015|website=Congressional Research Service}}</ref>

A number of factors helped start the national [[war on poverty]] in the 1960s. In 1962, [[Michael Harrington]]’s book ”[[The Other America]]” helped increase public debate and awareness of the poverty issue. The war on poverty embraced expanding the federal government’s roles in education and health care as poverty reduction strategies, and many of its programs were administered by the newly established [[Office of Economic Opportunity]]. The war on poverty coincided with more methodological and precise statistical versions of studying poverty; the “official” U.S. statistical measure of poverty was first adopted in 1969.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL33069.pdf|title=Poverty in the United States: 2013|last=Gabe|first=Thomas|date=January 29, 2015|website=Congressional Research Service}}</ref>

After 1945 politicians and the public during the unexpectedly prosperous years had given little attention to poverty. However, according to Edward Schmitt, James Patterson, and Michael B. Katz, social scientists were studying “poverty in the midst of plenty.” Their work provided the intellectual foundation for Johnson’s War on Poverty. They were divided into three schools of thought. First the economists led by [[Paul Samuelson]] and [[James Tobin]] following the aggregationist approach of [[Keynesian economics]] were confident the economy would continue to grow its productive capacity, and that Washington could be trusted to handle large-scale programs. They argued that economic expansion would naturally offer greater opportunities, thereby reducing poverty in an absolute sense and mitigating class conflict. Secondly were the structuralists inspired by [[Gunnar Myrdal]] and led by [[John Kenneth Galbraith]]. They identified persistent structural limits within the booming economy that left certain groups behind. These limitations were attributed to factors such as race, geography (e.g., “depressed areas” like Appalachia), and vocational skills deficits. They recommended targeted interventions like job training, racial integration, regional economic development, and income redistribution via social welfare spending and progressive taxation. Finally, the “[[Culture of poverty]]” approach led by [[Oscar Lewis]] and popularized by Michael Harrington’s ”[[The Other America]]” (1962) argued that persistent poverty had generated a set of attitudes and behaviors that rendered poor individuals culturally incompatible with norms demanded by the mainstream American society and economy. Meanwhile outside of academe conservative activists viewed poverty as a result of deeper factors, especially the old 19th century individualist notion of poverty as caused by poor character or moral shortcomings. This conservative approach influenced Congress and it scored well in Gallup Polls that indicated an equal division in public opinion between individual guilt and external forces as the cause of poverty.<ref>Edward R. Schmitt, “The War on Poverty” in ”A Companion to Lyndon B. Johnson” edited by Mitchell B. Lerner (2012): pp. 93-110. [https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=3CrDygRnbnYC&oi=fnd&pg=PR8&dq=Mitchell+Lerner+Companion+Baines+Johnson.&ots=cAYiIFHigl&sig=j_9VrX5LFgWRW6QeM5w1SgjgG14 online]</ref><ref>James T. Patterson, ”America’s Struggle Against Poverty, 1900–1980” (1986) pp.99–141.</ref><ref>Michael B. Katz, ‘ In the Shadow of the Poor House” (1986) pp.251–291.</ref><ref>See also the essays by social scientists in Christopher Jencks, and Paul E. Peterson, eds. ”The urban underclass” (Brookings, 1991) [https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Urban_Underclass/daXEEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%27%27The+urban+underclass%27%27&printsec=frontcover online]</ref> .

After 1945 politicians and the public during the unexpectedly prosperous years little attention to poverty. However, according to Edward Schmitt, James Patterson, and Michael B. Katz, social scientists were studying “poverty in the midst of plenty.” Their work provided the intellectual foundation for Johnson’s War on Poverty. They were divided into three schools of thought. First the economists led by [[Paul Samuelson]] and [[James Tobin]] following the aggregationist approach of [[Keynesian economics]] were confident the economy would continue to grow its productive capacity, and that Washington could be trusted to handle large-scale programs. They argued that economic expansion would naturally offer greater opportunities, thereby reducing poverty in an absolute sense and mitigating class conflict. Secondly were the structuralists inspired by [[Gunnar Myrdal]] and led by [[John Kenneth Galbraith]]. They identified persistent structural limits within the booming economy that left certain groups behind. These limitations were attributed to factors such as race, geography (e.g., “depressed areas” like Appalachia), and vocational skills deficits. They recommended targeted interventions like job training, racial integration, regional economic development, and income redistribution via social welfare spending and progressive taxation. Finally, the “[[Culture of poverty]]” approach led by [[Oscar Lewis]] and popularized by Michael Harrington’s ”[[The Other America]]” (1962) argued that persistent poverty had generated a set of attitudes and behaviors that rendered poor individuals culturally incompatible with norms demanded by the mainstream American society and economy. Meanwhile outside of academe conservative activists viewed poverty as a result of deeper factors, especially the old 19th century individualist notion of poverty as caused by poor character or moral shortcomings. This conservative approach influenced Congress and it scored well in Gallup Polls that indicated an equal division in public opinion between individual guilt and external forces as the cause of poverty.<ref>Edward R. Schmitt, “The War on Poverty” in ”A Companion to Lyndon B. Johnson” edited by Mitchell B. Lerner (2012): pp. 93-110. [https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=3CrDygRnbnYC&oi=fnd&pg=PR8&dq=Mitchell+Lerner+Companion+Baines+Johnson.&ots=cAYiIFHigl&sig=j_9VrX5LFgWRW6QeM5w1SgjgG14 online]</ref><ref>James T. Patterson, ”America’s Struggle Against Poverty, 1900–1980” (1986) pp.99–141.</ref><ref>Michael B. Katz, ‘ In the Shadow of the Poor House” (1986) pp.251–291.</ref><ref>See also the essays by social scientists in Christopher Jencks, and Paul E. Peterson, eds. ”The urban underclass” (Brookings, 1991) [https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Urban_Underclass/daXEEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%27%27The+urban+underclass%27%27&printsec=frontcover online]</ref> .

==See also==

==See also==

The History of poverty in the United States covers poor people and antipoverty efforts from the colonial era to the 1950s. The history of poverty and social welfare in the United States begins when English started planning its new colonies and these issues are deeply intertwined with the major political, economic, and social developments that have shaped the American experience.

Throughout American history, female-headed households had much higher poverty rates compared to their male-headed counterparts. They had fewer assets and much lower incomes, and had multiple children to care for. Many had been servants and had no inherited wealth. This economic vulnerability rendered them the most frequent recipients of support and subjects of intervention from external agents, including Informal aid from kinship networks, charity provided by churches and voluntary organizations, and poor relief administered by local governments.^[1][2]

In the early history of the United States, poverty was deeply rooted in the foundational processes of European settlement, including immigration, conquest, and the widespread use of enforced labor. Even as poverty became a more common experience, this era simultaneously fostered the powerful notion of America as a “land of plenty” and the birthplace of a revolutionary ideology. This ideology—centered on freedom and opportunity—would later be utilized by future generations to challenge persistent social and economic inequalities and the poverty they created. The English perception was heavily influenced by promotional efforts in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe. Richard Hakluyt, an English social theorist, argued in his Discourse on Western Planting (1584) that colonizing America would serve as a crucial outlet for the children of England’s “wandering beggars,” providing them a place to be “unladen” and “better bred up.” Gabriel Thomas, in his Historical and Geographical Account of the Province and Country of Pensilvania (1698), described Pennsylvania as a place where poor people could earn three times the wages they would in England or Wales. He further painted a picture of abundance, noting cheap and plentiful food, attractive children, and harmonious residents who “live friendly and well together.”^[3]

All the colonies had poor relief systems, usually as variations on the English model that emphasized the local parish.^[4]

Colonial North Carolina had a few rich planters, but largely comprised subsistence white farmers. They typically lived in small log huts, lit only by smokey pine-knot candles. A few owned slaves. Poverty was rare. Land was cheap and the warm climate gave a long growing season and a mild winter. Families produced their own food and traded with neighbors. “Provisions here are extremely cheap and extremely good, so that people may live plentifully at a trifling expense,” noted William Byrd, a close observer. “In truth it is the Best poor mans Cuntry I Ever heard of,” one resident wrote in 1770.^[5]

Starting with the Revolutionary War, servicemen who had significant injuries or were unable to provide for their household were financially supported by the first pension law, which was enacted by the Continental Congress in August 1776. It provided half pay for life or during disability for veterans who were so badly disabled during their service as to be incapable of earning a living.  Veterans with partial disability received partial benefits. ^[6] Similar laws covered all later veterans^[7]

Thomas Jefferson in 1826 viewed poverty as a significant societal challenge in the new nation.^[8] He argued that assistance to the needy was a civic duty. He was narrowly focused on white men. Small farmers every year gambled their herds and crops against disease and drought to feed their families and the nation. He recommended localized poor relief systems, believing aid was best administered by local communities rather than a centralized national authority. He considered beggars as morally suspect and placed them outside the bounds of organized, legitimate charity. Jefferson maintained an optimistic outlook regarding the efficacy of the nascent American poor-relief system. Nonetheless, poverty remained a persistent, endemic issue throughout the early nation, highlighting a gap between his idealized vision for relief and the on-the-ground reality.^[9]

Poor houses or almshouses and their rural counterpart, poor farms, were dominant public welfare institutions in the United States throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries. These facilities were deliberately designed to be “spartan and uncomfortable” to encourage residents to work their way out of poverty, reflecting the societal stigma and shame placed on the indigent. They served as a local solution to poverty before the establishment of modern federal welfare programs like Social Security and Medicaid. Poor farms were typically working farms where able-bodied residents were required to labor in the fields and perform housekeeping/care tasks to the extent their health allowed. The terminology for this sort of residential welfare was “indoor relief”; cash payments made to poor people living on their own was called “outdoor relief.”^[10][11]

Poor houses were common during the 19th and early 20th centuries. These locally-run public institutions were the major instrument to deal with poverty . They were intended to be “spartan and uncomfortable” as a way to convince paupers of the value of working themselves out of poverty.^[12] As governments sought to relocate the poor beneficiaries outside of city centers to more rural areas, poorhouses became known as poor farms, which in effect exposed the “stigma and shame society placed on those who were unable to support themselves”.^[13]

Poor farms were based on the American tradition of county governments (rather than cities, townships, or state or federal governments) providing social services for the needy within their borders. Following the 1854 veto of the Bill for the Benefit of the Indigent Insane by President Franklin Pierce, the federal government did not participate in social welfare for over 70 years. In a poor-farm system, indigent people were often situated on the grounds of a farm in which able-bodied residents were required to work. A poorhouse could even be part of the same economic complex as a prison farm and other penal or charitable public institutions. Most were working farms that produced at least some of the produce, grain, and livestock they consumed. Residents were expected to provide labor to the extent that their health would allow, both in the fields and by providing housekeeping and care for other residents. Rules were strict and accommodations minimal.^[14][15]

The harsh conditions in poorhouses played a crucial part in shaping the history of organized child placements in the United States, as private organizations sought to bridge the gap in services catered to the poor, specifically children.^[16] Notably, the patterns from the poorhouse system reinforced the perception that available public services are “barren and stigmatized,” which promoted the idea that motivated private individuals or organizations are better suited to provide specialized care to children.^[16] As such, there was a shift from poorhouses to institutions like Orphanages for childcare.

The poor farms gradually declined in the U.S. after the Social Security Act took effect in 1935, with most disappearing completely by about 1950. Since the 1970s, funding for the care, well-being and safety of the poor and indigent is now split among county, state and federal resources. Poor farms have been replaced by subsidized housing such as public housing projects, Section 8 housing, and homeless shelters.

Progressive era reformers 1890s to 1920s reoriented the issue of poverty and its cures to combat poverty through systematic sociological research. Catalyzed by Henry George‘s 1873 book Progress and Poverty, public interest became concerned in how poverty could persist even in a time of economic progress Reformers rejected the outmoded laissez-faire approach and called for action through local government and private philanthropy. The rhetoric shifted from “relief” for the poor to more general “welfare” for everyone. Their rhetoric shifted the spotlight from the unemployed father to the impoverished children.^[18] Reformers emphasized publicity, and had support from the newspapers and from private welfare organizations. The first round of success came with raising the Legal working age to reduce Child labor.^[19][20]

The scientific social survey began with the publication of Hull House Maps and Papers in 1895. This study included essays and maps collected by Florence Kelley and reformers working at Hull House and at the United States Bureau of Labor. Hull House focused on studying the conditions of the slums in Chicago, including four maps color-coded by nationality and income level.^[21] Another social reformer, Jacob Riis, documented the living conditions of New York tenements and slums in his 1890 work How the Other Half Lives. It motivated urban reformers.^[22]

By the 1920s the National Conference of Charities and Correction and the National Consumers League were enacting workmen’s compensation and mothers’ aid. Local governments set up Juvenile courts and dedicated social service agencies.^[23][24]

Hookworm was a major disease that was widespread throughout warm, wet regions of the rural South by 1900, affecting a majority of the poor farmers. Hookworms get into the intestines and eat the best food. The loss of essential nutrition leaves the victim tired, distracted and listless. Their productivity sharply declines and that worsened their poverty. Scientific research identified the hookworm’s life cycle, and dubbed it the “germ of laziness.” Humans became infected through their toes by walking barefoot in areas where people often defecated. With 40% of school children already infected, grassy areas around schools that lacked outhouses were transmission points. The spread can be controlled through the use of outhouses and shoes–but those were uncommon in very poor areas. By 1910 a treatment was found: the patients drank a special chemical that loosened the hookworm’s grip. Then they took a heavy dose of laxatives that washed the worms out. When most residents in a locality get treated then the spreading stops and the disease fades away locally. The Rockefeller Foundation funded state health departments which set out successfully to eradicate the disease across the South during the 1910s.^[25][26][27]

A group especially vulnerable to poverty consisted of poor sharecroppers and tenant farmers in the South. These farmers consisted of around a fourth of the South’s population, and over a third of these people were African Americans.^[28] Historian James T. Patterson refers to these people as the “old poverty,” as opposed to the “new poverty” that emerged after the onset of the Great Depression.^[29]

During the Depression, the government did not provide any unemployment insurance until Social Security began in 1935, so people who lost jobs easily became impoverished.^[30] People who lost their jobs or homes lived in shantytowns or Hoovervilles. Many New Deal programs were designed to increase employment and reduce poverty. The Federal Emergency Relief Administration specifically focused on creating jobs for alleviating poverty. Jobs were more expensive than direct cash payments (called “the dole”), but were psychologically more beneficial to the unemployed, who wanted any sort of job for morale.^[31] Other New Deal initiatives that aimed at job creation and wellbeing included the Civilian Conservation Corps and Public Works Administration. Additionally, the institution of Social Security was one of the largest factors that helped to reduce poverty.^[32]

A number of factors helped start the national war on poverty in the 1960s. In 1962, Michael Harrington‘s book The Other America helped increase public debate and awareness of the poverty issue. The war on poverty embraced expanding the federal government’s roles in education and health care as poverty reduction strategies, and many of its programs were administered by the newly established Office of Economic Opportunity. The war on poverty coincided with more methodological and precise statistical versions of studying poverty; the “official” U.S. statistical measure of poverty was first adopted in 1969.^[33]

After 1945 politicians and the public during the unexpectedly prosperous years gave little attention to poverty. However, according to Edward Schmitt, James Patterson, and Michael B. Katz, social scientists were studying “poverty in the midst of plenty.” Their work provided the intellectual foundation for Johnson’s War on Poverty in 1964-1968. They were divided into three schools of thought. First the economists led by Paul Samuelson and James Tobin following the aggregationist approach of Keynesian economics were confident the economy would continue to grow its productive capacity, and that Washington could be trusted to handle large-scale programs. They argued that economic expansion would naturally offer greater opportunities, thereby reducing poverty in an absolute sense and mitigating class conflict. Secondly were the structuralists inspired by Gunnar Myrdal and led by John Kenneth Galbraith. They identified persistent structural limits within the booming economy that left certain groups behind. These limitations were attributed to factors such as race, geography (e.g., “depressed areas” like Appalachia), and vocational skills deficits. They recommended targeted interventions like job training, racial integration, regional economic development, and income redistribution via social welfare spending and progressive taxation. Finally, the “Culture of poverty” approach led by Oscar Lewis and popularized by Michael Harrington’s The Other America (1962) argued that persistent poverty had generated a set of attitudes and behaviors that rendered poor individuals culturally incompatible with norms demanded by the mainstream American society and economy. Meanwhile outside of academe conservative activists viewed poverty as a result of deeper factors, especially the old 19th century individualist notion of poverty as caused by poor character or moral shortcomings. This conservative approach influenced Congress and it scored well in Gallup Polls that indicated an equal division in public opinion between individual guilt and external forces as the cause of poverty.^{[34][35][36][37]} .

• Baldwin Sidney. Poverty and politics : the rise and decline of the Farm Security Administration (1968) online in 1930s

• Berkowitz, Edward, and Kim McQuaid. (1992) Creating the Welfare State: The Political Economy of Twentieth-Century Reform (UP of Kansas, 1992)
• Betten, Neil. “American attitudes toward the poor: A historical overview.” Current History 65.383 (1973): 1-5.

• Bremner, Robert H. From the Depths: The Discovery of Poverty in the United States (1956) , a major scholarly history

• Bremner, Robert H. The Public Good: Philanthropy and Welfare in the Civil War Era (Knopf. 1980).

• Brown, Josephine Chapin. Public Relief 1929–1939 (1940) online

• Browning, Grace. Rural Public Welfare (1941) online

• Cumbler, John T. “The Politics of Charity: Gender and Class in Late 19th Century Charity Policy.” Journal of Social History 14#1, 1980, pp. 99–111. online

• Hamilton, David E. “Revisiting Rural Poverty and Farm Policy in the Age of Roosevelt.” Agricultural History 95.2 (2021): 362-370. on 1930s

• Harrington, Michael. The other America: Poverty in the United States (1962), highly influential expose that helped motivate the War on poverty of 1960s. online

• Haymes, Stephen, et al. eds. The Routledge Handbook of Poverty in the United States. (2015). online

• Herndon, Ruth Wallis, and John E. Murray, eds. Children Bound to Labor: The Pauper Apprentice System in Early America (Cornell UP, 2009)

• Hoff, Derek S. “The Worsening of the Great Depression: Hoovervilles, Farm Troubles, Bank Crises.” A Companion to Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover (2014): 444-464.
• Hunter, Robert. Poverty (1904), influential report from the Progressive Era. online

• Jernegan, Marcus W. Laboring and dependent classes in colonial America, 1607-1783: Studies of the economic, educational, and social significance of slaves, servants, apprentices and poor folk (1931) online

• Jones, Jacqueline. The Dispossessed: America’s Underclass from the Civil War to the Present (Basic Books, 1992).
• Jones, Jacqueline. Labor of Love, Labor of Sorrow : Black Women, Work, and the Family from Slavery to the Present (1985) online

• Katz, Michael B. In the Shadow of the Poorhouse: A Social History of Welfare in America (2nd ed. 1996) online

• Katz, Michael B. Poverty and Policy in American History (1983) online
• Katz, Michael B. ed. The Undeserving Poor: America’s Enduring Confrontation with Poverty (Oxford UP, 2013).
• Katz, Michael B., ed. The ‘underclass’ debate: Views from history (Princeton University Press, 1993) 14 essays by American historians.

• Klebaner, Benjamin J. Public Poor Relief in America, 1790–1860 (1952);
• Lubove, Roy, ed. Poverty and social welfare in the United States (1972). excerpts from essays by experts.

• Melder, Keith. “Ladies Bountiful: Organized Women’s Benevolence in Early 19th-Century America.” New York History 48.3 (1967): 231-254. [Melder, Keith. “Ladies Bountiful: Organized Women’s Benevolence in Early 19th-Century America.” New York History 48.3 (1967): 231-254. online], National coverage with emphasis on New York City.

• Mink, Gwendolyn, and Alice O’Connor, eds. Poverty in the United States: An Encyclopedia of History, Politics, and Policy (2 vol. ABC-CLIO 2004).

• Olasky, Marvin. The tragedy of American compassion (1992) chapters 1-9 cover history to 1960. online

• Patterson, James T. America’s Struggle against Poverty in the Twentieth Century (Harvard UP, 2000) , A major scholarly history. online.

• Recent Social Trends (2 vol 1933) online, wide ranging scholarly summary of 1920-1932.

• Schweik, Susan. The Ugly Laws: Disability in Public (History of Disability) (NYT, 2009) online

• Singleton, Jeff. The American dole: Unemployment relief and the welfare state in the Great Depression (Greenwood, 2000).
  • Singleton Jeffrey. “Unemployment relief and the welfare state 1930–1935.” (PhD dissertation Boston University; ProQuest Dissertations & Theses,  1987. 8707075).

• Smith, Billy G. ed. Down and Out in Early America (Penn State UP, 2004), scholarly articles
• Smith, Daniel Scott. “Female Householding in Late Eighteenth-Century America and the Problem of Poverty.” Journal of Social History 28#1 1, 1994, pp. 83–107. online
• Sterner Richard, The Negros Share: A study of income, consumption, housing and public assistance (1943) online

• Tickamyer, Ann et al. eds. Rural Poverty in the United States (Columbia UP, 2017)
• Trattner, Walter I. From Poor Law to Welfare State: A History of Social Welfare in America (Free Press, 1999),

• Villegas, Christina G. Poverty in America: A Reference Handbook (Bloomsbury, 2025).

• Wakin, Michele. Homelessness in America: A Reference Handbook (ABC-CLIO, 2022)

• Wilson, J. Matthew. ” “Blessed are the Poor:” American Protestantism and Attitudes Toward Poverty and Welfare.” Southeastern Political Review 27.3 (1999): 421-437.

• Zarefsky, David. President Johnson’s war on poverty: Rhetoric and history (U of Alabama Press, 2005) online

• Alexander, John K. Render Them Submissive: Responses to Poverty in Philadelphia, 1760–1800 (U of Massachusetts Press, 1980).
• Altschuler, Glenn C., and Jan M. Saltzgaber, “Clearinghouse for Paupers: The Poorfarm of Seneca County, New York, 1830-1860.” Journal of Social History 17.4 (1984): 573-600. online</ref>
• Bernhard, Virginia. “Poverty and the Social Order in Seventeenth-Century Virginia.” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 85#2 1977, pp. 141–55. online
• Blakey George T. Hard Times and New Deal in Kentucky 1929 –1939 (1986). online
• Bolton, Charles C. Poor Whites of the Antebellum South: Tenants and Laborers in Central North Carolina and Northeast Mississippi (Duke University Press, 1993).
• Boney, F. Nash. Southerners All (2nd ed. 1990).
• Boney, F.N. “Poor Whites.” New Georgia Encyclopedia (2020) online

• Brown, Roy M. Public poor relief in North Carolina (1928) online

• Burgess, Charles O. “The newspaper as charity worker: Poor relief in New York City, 1893-1894.” New York History 43.3 (1962): 249-268. online

• Canning, Charlotte, et al. “White trash fetish: representations of poor white southern women and constructions of class, gender, race and region, 1920-1941.” (PhD Dissertation, U Texas, 2005). online, with bibliography pp 225–36

• Cray, Robert E., Jr. Paupers and Poor Relief in New York City and Its Rural Environs, 1700–1830 (Temple University Press, 1988) online

• Flynt, J. Wayne. Dixie’s Forgotten People: The South’s Poor Whites. (1979) online

• Flynt, Wayne. Poor But Proud: Alabama’s Poor Whites (University of Alabama Press, 1989). online
• Goodwin, Joanne L. “Social Services,” Encyclopedia of Chicago (2005) online
• Grosjean, N. “Poverty in the Archives: Poor People and Poor Relief in Dutchess County, c. 1831-1904.” Yearbook of the Dutchess County Historical Society (2023), 102, 92–100. upstate New York.
• Herndon, Ruth Wallis. Unwelcome Americans: Living on the margin in early New England (U of Pennsylvania Press, 2001).

• Kelso, Robert W. The history of public poor relief in Massachusetts, 1620-1920 (1922) online

• Kusmer, Kenneth L. “The Functions of Organized Charity in the Progressive Era: Chicago as a Case Study.” Journal of American History 60 (December 1973): 657–678.

• Lien, Scott. “Social services” Encyclopedia of Chicago (2005) online

• Mackey, Howard. “The operation of the English old poor law in colonial Virginia.” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 73.1 (1965): 29-40.

• McMullin, Thomas A. “Overseeing the Poor: Industrialization and Public Relief in New Bedford, 1865-1900.” Social Service Review 65#4, 1991, pp. 548–63. in a Massachusetts city online

• Maher, Daniel. “Poverty” Encyclopedia of Arkansas (2025) online
• Mohr, John W., and Vincent Duquenne. “The duality of culture and practice: Poverty relief in New York City, 1888-1917.” Theory and society 26.2/3 (1997): 305-356.
• Nash, Gary. “Urban wealth and poverty in pre-revolutionary America” Journal of Interdisciplinary History (1976) 6#4 pp.545–584. Covers Boston, Philadelphia, and New York City.

• Schmid, Calvin F. Social trends in Seattle (1944); see also pp.286-293 on Hooverville; online

• Schneider, David M., and Albert Deutsch. The history of public welfare in New York State (1941, reprint 1969) online
• Smith, Billy G. “The ‘Lower Sort’: Philadelphia’s Laboring People, 1750-1800” (1990)

• Spalding, Elizabeth and Kimberley Rhodes.”Head Start” Encyclopedia of Indianapolis. (2021) online

• Stein, Alan Harris. “Unemployment” Encyclopedia of Chicago (2005) online

• Wray, Matt. Not Quite White: White Trash and the Boundaries of Whiteness (2006) online
  • Wray, Matthew Taylor. “Not quite white: Poor rural whites in the Southern United States, 1877–1927” (PhD dissertation,  University of California, Berkeley|ProQuest Dissertations & Theses,  2000. 9979864).