Back to the Poor Farm We Go?
In a political climate where federal and state funding is diminishing, who will care for the poor, the indigent, and the elderly most affected? It will fall on your town and your county.
Over the hill to the poor-house--my chil'rn dear, good-by!
Many a night I've watched you when only God was nigh;
And God 'll judge between us; but I will al'ays pray
That you shall never suffer the half I do to-day. (Carleton, 1872)
My grandfather’s farm wasn’t good farm land. You could see the good farmland from his farm in the foothills above the rich soil of the Chariton River valley in Missouri. It was a poor farm, but it wasn’t “The Poor Farm.”
As a child I remember the creepy old building at the edge of town that people called “The Poor Farm.” We passed it driving from town to the little house my parents rented outside of Kirksville, Missouri. I remember my parents saying it was the old poor farm where people without a home or who couldn’t care for themselves used to go to live. Their tone made it clear this was not a place you wanted to live. It was a last resort for people with no family to care for them; for people who were too poor, too old and unable to work.1
Almshouses, poor houses and poor farms were common from colonial times to the early 20th Century all over America. The Adair County, Missouri, poor farm was built in the 19th century. With the advent of Social Security and Medicaid, poor farms were no longer necessary. The building on the outskirts of Kirksville was converted to other uses, but still stands. A cemetery behind the building contains the paupers’ graves of former residents.
“No one wanted to end up in the poor house, but they were necessary to care for the elderly and disabled who could not support themselves and had no one to care for them. For most poor houses, a cemetery was included … for those who could not afford burial elsewhere.”
*The County Farm Cemetery of Adair County. Find a Grave article, August 28, 2010.
At one time, most if not all counties in Missouri had poor houses or farms. Around 1815, the Missouri territorial legislature established that each county ‘shall relieve, support and maintain its own poor, such as the lame, blind, sick and other persons, who from age and infirmity are unable to support himself or herself.’ Historian Gary Kremer noted that the responsibility for poor relief remained with the counties giving them “wide latitude in determining who was deserving of relief and what form the relief should take.” 2 Not long after statehood, the number of counties grew from five, to 114. Disparity in care from county to county would have been significant.
I remember hearing my grandparents and other older adults talk about the poor farms in their own communities as places you did not want to live. Anne Sullivan’s experience growing up in a poorhouse in the 1870s, led her to a life of service. Sullivan is known for her work teaching Helen Keller to communicate. In an article entitled “Poorhouses Were Designed to Punish People for their Poverty,” author Erin Blakemore said Sullivan described her experience as “a crime against childhood.”
“Residents at the Massachusetts poorhouse milled about like forgotten animals. As Anne and her brother slept on the institution’s iron cots in a gigantic dormitory, rats ran up and down the spaces between beds.” - Erin Blakemore
Blakemore noted that the memory of the trauma inflicted on residents is preserved in the testimony of people like Anne Sullivan. “I doubt if life, or eternity for that matter, is long enough to erase the errors and ugly blots scored upon my brain by those dismal years,” she wrote.3
Before the poor farm system, rural counties would offer the poor to the lowest bidder for the right to use a pauper’s labor for a year and receive payment to house and feed them. When the poor farms were established, they continued to exploit the labor of their inhabitants. According to one source, even the disabled, elderly, and infirm could be expected to work to “avoid the vices of idleness and dependency considered moral failings of the pauper.” Poor farm care in Missouri was described by one contemporary observer as “a shame,” one of “squalor,” and “bestiality” in some counties, the result of cost conscious county governments unwilling to establish facilities for the mentally ill or care about the conditions on the farm.4
Though poor farms, poorhouses and almshouses are unlikely to make a comeback, what would it look like if care for the indigent fell primarily to counties and cities again? What if Federal and State appropriations for taking care of the poor, the infirm, the elderly, were drastically reduced? Who would be responsible for funding relief? Non-profits that focus on meeting social needs rely heavily on government grants for funding. What if that funding is drastically reduced? Churches and other non-profits and their resources already strain to meet the needs in their communities alongside the agencies who would have to cut back or go away if public funding were lost.
In an article from 2016, Michael R. Daley Ph.D. and Peggy Pittman-Munke Ph.D. warned of just such a possibility: “Essentially today, we face the same social problems in rural America that we did when poor farms dealt with the dependent in the local area. Yet today the very support that enabled us to move away from the poorhouse and for the poor to retain some independence are under attack from those who want to cut taxes, especially in the name of reducing dependency through cuts to the welfare state. As these trends continue responsibility for the poor will shift back to local governments where there may be little ability to respond.”5
Missouri has been dominated by a GOP majority for more than two decades. Encouraged by a similar majority at the Federal level, talk of making government smaller has led to proposals for reducing and eliminating state income taxes. If that happens, the state constitution requires a balanced budget that might trigger cuts to entitlement spending.
My mother used to cook with a pressure cooker. Lot’s of meals came out of that contraption. Some were good. Others, not so much. Not all foods improve when cooked under pressure. Mom warned us away from the stovetop putting the fear of God in us how dangerous a blow out would be.
What happens if both Federal and State legislatures make these cuts to programs at the same time? What will the subsequent fiscal compression of resources mean to local governments who must figure out how to address problems on their own? Compression puts the pressure on local resources. Any blow out or release will come there.
What if needs increase directly or indirectly as a result of an economy or of policies that leave more people jobless, homeless, less healthy, or without a safety net? How will county and local governments and local charities be impacted under the pressure created by reduced Federal and State money? I don’t believe Social Security will go away completely.6 I’m not as sure about Medicare. Medicaid is getting a near-total overhaul as we speak.
How will the compression of resources affect counties that lack local resources, where the housing market is already stressed and charities are overwhelmed or non-existent?
“(L)ocal residents understood what it was and viewed the county farm with some trepidation. Parents tended to either shelter children from knowledge of the poor farm or to use the county farm as a sort of bogeyman to keep youngsters in line.” Article by Michael R. Daley Ph.D. and Peggy Pittman-Munke Ph.D., “Over the Hill to the Poor Farm: Rural History Almost Forgotten.” September 1, 2016. Murray State University Contemporary Rural Social Work Journal.
Daley and Pittman-Munke. pg. 6.
ibid. pg. 12.
R. Douglas Arnold, guest on NPR 1A talk radio, March 19, 2025. Arnold made the statement that he believes Congress will wait until 2034 or 2035 to fix Social Security, but will not let it die, during an episode called “Social Security and the Trump Administration.” Arnold is the William Church Osborn Professor of Public Affairs, Emeritus, and Professor of Politics and Public Affairs, Emeritus, in Princeton’s Department of Politics and in its School of Public and International Affairs. He is author of the book “Fixing Social Security: The Politics of Reform in a Polarized Age.” Princeton. Princeton University Press. 2022.
Excellent article James that gives us much to think about in these changing times. I remember the county poor house on Hwy 24 between Salisbury and Keytesville Mo exactly as you describe. As a registered dietitian, later in life it was eye opening to hear what some people during those times had to eat just to survive-example:when someone reported eating dove, it wasn’t dove chocolate! Cost of social programs in my opinion is well worth in terms of the many benefits to our society.