When I was a kid, our family were itinerant farm workers. The camps we stayed in would distribute food, but we had to go to the local church for Sunday school and the weekly sermon. The denial of food as a mechanism for Christian adherence is just plain blackmail. #poorhouses #workhouses

With a hope of heaven, the fear of the poorhouse Vermont’s poor houses and farms were “the last word in disgrace and for the aged, the poor, the diseased, the insane, and the crippled to be sent there was almost like receiving a death sentence.”

The last of Vermont's poor farms didn't close until the 1960s.

A repost of an article from a couple of years ago, now on my blog, Vermont When.
#vermont #history #vermonthistory #poorhouses #poorfarms