To you, IrishAm, I say thanks - and yes I’m IrishAm too.
Now, another link re the notion of the “deserving poor,” this one form the Vincentian Center:
vincenter.org/97/rider.html#IIA
and a partial quote from that link:
"Growth of poverty and changing charity policies
Into the vacuum left by the end of the old social contract, new policies to deal with the poor were developed by upper class women who ran private charities, and politicians, all men, who administered public institutions and outdoor relief (Katz, 1986). The upper classes, political economists, and politicians almost universally believed poverty to be caused by personal failure. Charity was no longer a Christian duty to provide help to those incapable of helping themselves. The result of this work by private charities and politicians was a new social contract which had three facets: incarcerating the poor away from the community, removing children from indigent parents, and exploitation of the labor of the poor.
While there were no federal policies governing charity for the impoverished, there was a strong regional similarity in the new social contract. Throughout the 1820s, New York, Boston, Philadelphia and most counties throughout the northeast exchanged delegations whose sole purpose was to unify local charity policies for both public and private institutions (Rothman, 1971). Josiah Quincy authored a pamphlet in 1821 for the Boston City Council which influenced policies passed throughout the northeast in the 1830s. Quincy opposed the existing charity system which provided some care for people in their homes, and made an almshouse available for the completely destitute. In its place, he proposed a workhouse where labor would be the divining rod separating the deserving from the undeserving poor. His statements make clear that, in his view, there were very few deserving poor, that the impoverished were so through their own personal failings. “The … poor by reason of vice, constitute … probably to a full two thirds of … adult poor … indolence, intemperance, and sensuality, are the great causes of pauperism in this country … all this class can … perform, daily, the complete task of a day laborer.” Quincy included children in the category of undeserving poor with these remarks; “Intimately connected with this topic is that of providing for those idle and vicious children, of both sexes and different ages, which often under the company … of thoughtless and abandoned parents, are found begging in our streets … beginning a system of petty stealing, which terminates often in the penitentiary” (Quincy, 1821). It was from political statements like Quincy’s that the new three-pronged policies were developed.
First, the poor were incarcerated away from the community. Prior to 1800, there were almost no buildings to house the poor and criminal. By the 1830s, every county in the northeast boasted a workhouse, orphanage, jail, or other edifice whose sole purpose was to separate the poor away from the community at large (Katz, 1986). In 1810, Boston had one almshouse, no prison, and a temporary holding facility for criminals. By 1839, there were two work farms, a juvenile jail, several orphanages, a long term prison (whose population averaged 60% male, 40% female through the 1830s), and countless private charities (Boston City Council, 1834-1839).
Second, children were removed from indigent parents. By the 1830s, virtually all poor parents applying for either public or private aid had their children removed and sent to orphanages, juvenile jails, and workhouses (Abramovitz, 1992; Katz, 1986). Most of these children spent less than a year incarcerated before they were indentured out to businesses and farmers (Boston City Council, 1834-1839). The removal of children from indigent parents had two results. One, whether institutionalized or indented out, the children were educated to become part of a docile working class (Katz, 1986). In the absence of their parents, most communities hoped to inculcate solid middle class values (Rothman, 1971). Two, this made the parents’ labor more easily exploited. Women with children who applied for aid deserved charity, only as long as they held to the strict Victorian morality standards in vogue at the time (Abramovitz, 1992). Once the mother was childless, she was no longer deserving of charity and could be forced to take any low wage job. Men in charge of children were simply deemed unfit parents.
Third, the labor of the poor was exploited. Children in institutions either made garments and furniture for sale on the open market, or were hired out as day laborers for wages paid directly to the institutions. They were indentured or apprenticed out for a fee of $100 per contract, which was paid directly to the private or public charity (Boston City Council, 1834-1839)."
