Annotated and Abridged Artifact
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Report From Massachusetts
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| 1 | Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Conference: | |
| 2 | The state which I represent has a system of public charities more ancient and more complicated, as you know, than that which many of the states have had occasion to adopt. So long ago as 1675, the colonies of Massachusetts and of Plymouth, not yet united in one province, provided by law for a class of public poor, who were to be relieved not by the town where they lived, but from the common colonial treasury. This distinction between the "settled" and the "non-settled" poor has continued till this day, [1 »] and under it all the public charities of the commonwealth of Massachusetts have gradually grown up. I will not dwell farther upon the peculiarity, but will to-morrow submit to the Conference a printed report, recently made by the Massachusetts Board to the Centennial Commission in which the history of our state charities is traced from 1675 to the present year. This report shows, and in brief I will state, that the people of Massachusetts now numbering 1,652,000, are annually expending in public charity, about $1,650,000, or one dollar for each inhabitant. Of this large sum the 340 cities and towns expend about $1,300,000, and the state about $350,000, including in the latter sum the net cost of the work done by the Board of State Charities and its four departments, which in 1875 was about $39,000 and will this year be somewhat less. Of this large sum ($1,650,000), about $1,050,000 was paid for the full support or in-door relief of less than 12,000 persons during some part of the year, the average number being not far from 6,800 and about $600,000 for the partial support (out-door relief) of an estimated number during the whole year, of about 50,000 persons. [2 »] At a given date, however (March 1, 1876), the number of different persons receiving out-door relief did not much exceed 25,000, and those receiving in-door relief numbered about 7,600. At the same date about 1,100 vagrants or tramps were lodged for the night, [3 »] making a total of paupers at the close of last winter, of about 33,000 then receiving relief. This included, however, at least 2,400 insane paupers of whom 1,900 were in lunatic hospitals and asylums. | |
| 3 | Estimating pauperism in Massachusetts, then, upon the basis of calculation long adopted in England, we had, on the first of March last, about one pauper for every fifty of our population. This is a much larger proportion than we had before the panic of 1873, [4 »] for I suppose that the number of paupers on the first of March, 1873, did not exceed 22,000, in a population of nearly 1,600,000, or one in 73. The increase of pauperism since has been due to the "hard times," and from December, 1873, to March, 1875, this increase was very rapid. We believe, however, that it is now checked -- that we have seen the hardest winter for the poor, and that the approaching winter will not throw upon the public so many paupers, with the exception of one special class, to be named presently, as were relieved in Massachusetts last winter. | |
| 6 | There is one class of the poor, however, which constantly increases in numbers and in cost, whether the times are good or bad -- the chronic insane. We have a great number of this class in Massachusetts and it is steadily growing larger. We do not find that recent insanity is any more common than formerly, it may be so, but there is no conclusive evidence. But that the chronic insane are more numerous is self evident, and the proper place and means of providing for them are continually under discussion in our State Board of Charities, as they are in the New York Board, the Pennsylvania Board, and elsewhere. This is the most pressing subject that we have to consider in our state, and to meet the demand for more hospital room, Massachusetts is now building two great lunatic asylums or hospitals at Worcester and at Danvers, for a total cost of between $3,000,000 and $3,500,000, yet capable of comfortably receiving no more than 1,000 patients. We have, in fact, the same tendency towards extravagance in hospital building, to which you, Mr. Chairman, have alluded as existing in New York. The Massachusetts Board of Charities has always resisted this tendency, and has long advocated, what New York has tried, and Pennsylvania is going to try, and what all the states will finally come to, in my opinion, the separation, to a great degree, of the chronic and practically incurable insane from the recent and curable cases. [5 »] When our two new hospitals are completed this separation can be better effected in Massachusetts, and our board has already agreed upon a plan for this, and for the better classification and treatment of the curable insane, a plan which will be submitted to the legislature next winter. Page 2: | |
| 7 | In respect to our public establishments in Massachusetts, hospitals, almshouses, schools for poor children, etc., I may say that they are in better condition, upon the whole, than they were a year ago. This is particularly true of our largest almshouse, at Tewksbury, where the medical management has been made recently more efficient and responsible than formerly. [6 »] The number and character of these establishments will appear from the printed report, already mentioned, which I shall have the honor to submit to the Conference to-morrow. | |
Annotations
1. Sanborn was referring to the fact that American poor law, as derived from British poor law, distinguished between poor people who could prove residence in a particular community and those who could not. Towns and counties were responsible for the former, but the state held responsibility for the latter.
2. Outdoor relief was financial or food aid that enabled the recipient to live independently; indoor relief meant living in a poorhouse.
3. During the severe economic depression of the 1870s, charity reformers became extremely concerned about the numbers of unemployed able-bodied men—generally known as “vagrants” or “tramps”—who showed up at poorhouse doors. Reformers rejected tramps’ claims that there was no work to be found, arguing that such men were merely lazy.
4. The severe economic depression that lasted from 1873 to 1878 was one of the worst downturns in U.S. history. More than three million people were left with work. Veritable armies of tramps and vagrants roamed the countryside even after the economy began to rebound in 1879.
5. New York state pioneered a system in which people deemed to be chronically insane were separated from people thought to be curable. Legislators and doctors thought that the chronic insane were a poor influence on the potentially curable. With the chronically insane, policymakers tried to reduce costs as much as possible, often establishing inmate work programs to defray the cost of maintenance.
6. Anne Sullivan was living at the Tewksbury almshouse when Sanborn wrote this report. Her experiences suggested a less pleasant situation.
