Industrialization and the Gilded Age, 1870-1900

Just Poor Enough: Gilded Age Charity Applicants Respond to Charity Investigators Author(s): Brent Ruswick Source: The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, Vol. 10, No. 3 (July 2011), pp. 265-287 Published by: Society for Historians of the Gilded Age & Progressive Era Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/23045137 Accessed: 23-03-2020 03:48 UTC

REFERENCES Linked references are available on JSTOR for this article: https://www.jstor.org/stable/23045137?seq=1&cid=pdf-reference#references_tab_contents You may need to log in to JSTOR to access the linked references.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide

range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and

facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at

https://about.jstor.org/terms

Society for Historians of the Gilded Age & Progressive Era is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era

This content downloaded from 129.15.14.45 on Mon, 23 Mar 2020 03:48:13 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Just Poor Enou gh: Gilaea Age Charity Applicants Respond to

Charity Investigators' Brent Ruswick, University of Central Arkansas

This article examines the strategies used by charity applicants of the 1880s to present them

selves in ways most likely to win relief from the Indianapolis Charity Organization Society

(COS), while also preserving autonomy from an organization willing to use threats of star

vation or institutionalization to force compliance from the poor. Investigators treated charity

applicants as objects to he scientifically observed and categorized and then molded to conform

to middle-class mores, but the applicants' responses ranged from accommodation to complete

defiance. Successful applications to the COS ultimately depended more on the vagaries of the

investigator than on the strategies chosen by the applicant. Those applications often led to

decisions that illustrate the draconian, punitive tendencies suggested by the leading theoretical

treatises in the scientific charity movement. However, they also reveal instances where charity

applicants guided investigators toward more generous decisions.

Mary D., a fift y-year-old willow, known to tier neighbors as "a half -crazed needy old woman," was starving.2 Not knowing where else to turn, in June 1881 she wrote the mayor of Indianapolis, explaining:

Mayor Grubbs—I have written to you once before, but received no answer. Tbere was a lady called to see me and said or rather ashed me if I had written to you. She declined to tell her name, said any one that saw me could see I was

Til e author would like to thank the staff of the Indiana Historical Society, Addie Bailey and Alicia Suitt at the University of Central Arkansas's Torreyson Library, and Dave Daves at the UCA Department of History for their assistance in the researching of this article and the UCA Department of History for its financial assistance. The article benefited greatly from the insi ghtful

comments of two anonymous reviewers, whose efforts are much appreciated. I am also grateful to

friends, family, and colleagues, who contributed more intellectual and moral support than I can adequately acknowledge here.

2 At the request of the Family Service Association of Central Indianapolis, last names and other

identifying characteristics of charity recipients have heen abbreviated to protect their anonymity.

The journal of the Gilded Age an d Progressive Era | 10:3 Jul. 2011 doi:10.1017/S1537781411000053 265

This content downloaded from 129.15.14.45 on Mon, 23 Mar 2020 03:48:13 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

not able to work, yet did not do anything for me. I have lived in the city 17 years, worked when I was able. My object in addressing you is to have you come to see me, or send some one that you have confidence in, to see my suffering condition and relieve me. I am unable to work. I have noth

ing to eat and nothing comfortable. I would prefer to see you, but if you cannot come, please send some responsible person to see me as soon as you receive this. Come to my room No. 8 and oblige Mrs. Mary D.^

Unable to make kouse calls, tke mayor instead forwarded tke request to tke Indianapolis Ckarity Organization Society (COS), a group created in Decemker 1879 to evaluate cases of alleged distress ky researcking tke kis tories of ckarity applicants and investigating tkeir present circumstances, tkereky distinguisking cases of true want from fraudulent claims. Tke Indianapolis COS was among tke earliest, longest lasting, and most closely studied of over 100 organizations in towns and cities across America dedi cated to tke principles of a new reform movement known as "scientific ckarity." Tke movement developed in tke late 1870s in response to tke economic and social instakility tkat accompanied tke nation's rapid industri alization and urkanization.

Indianapolis's residents knew those phenomena well. The flexible relations between economic classes that characterized Indianapolis into the 1860s deteriorated ami d tk e economic turbulence of tke 1870s, sparking fears of social disorder or even revolution. Historian Frederick Kerskner noted

tkat altkougk tke city kad skarp, strong class divisions entering tke 1870s, "social amalgamation was more ckaracteristic tkan social cleavage. Rick and poor still moved in tke same world, consciously aware of one anotker as individuals."4 Instead, divisions ran along etknic and religious lines, ranging from anti-German and Irisk sentiments to anti-klack rioting. Religious affiliation mattered more tkan political allegiance, witk Metkodists,

3Charity Organization Casebook, 1880, BV 1198, Family Service Association of Indianapolis Records 1879—1971, Collection # M 0102, Indiana Historical Society, Indianapolis [hereafter "COS 1880"], Case Record 132. Because Charity Organization Society volunteers regularly updated entries to the casebooks, an application filed in 1880 might include updates, like this one for Mary D, extending well into the decade. On the history of begging letters, see Ruth Crocker, "'I Only Ask You Kindly to Divide Some of Your Fortune With Me': Begging Letters and the Transformation of Charity in Late Nineteenth-Century America," Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State, and Society 6 (Summer 1999): 131—60.

Frederick Doyle Kershner Jr., "A Social and Cultural History of Indianapolis, 1860—1914" (PhD diss., University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1950), 19

266 | Brent Ruswick | Just Poor Enough: Gilded Age Charity Applicants Respond to Charity Investigators

This content downloaded from 129.15.14.45 on Mon, 23 Mar 2020 03:48:13 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

then Baptists and Presbyterians claiming the largest number of prac titioners.5 Population grew from 18,611 to 48,244 during the 1860s, however. This 160 percent growth rate, matched only hy San Francisco and Chicago, was spurred hy Indianapolis's position as a railroad huh. Rapid growth tended to erode the level of interclass cohesion evident earlier.

The introduction of new wealth also threatened the privileged position of the

pre-Civil War elite. As the city expanded, social divisions acquired geo graphic manifestations, as the rapidly sprawling neighborhoods segregated along economic and ethnic lines.^ Moreover, as was common in northern cities right after the Civil War, real estate and railroad speculation fueled Indianapolis's post-war hoom, making the city vulnerable to the financial cri sis that began in 1873. Regional crop and bank failures made matters worse. By 1875, with unemployment and poverty rapidly spreading, Indianapolis residents discovered that they did not always know who was poor, or why, or how to manage and alleviate their poverty.7

In response to suck problems, scientific charity advocates sought to establish private charitable organizations in every town and city that wou Id act as cen

tralizing bureaucratic hubs, investigating all applicants for charitable relief in

order to sift out tbe unworthy and unreformable poor. "Friendly visitors" would enforce among tbe poor tbe middle-class babits of bard work, mod esty, tb rift, and cleanliness tbougbt to be lacking among tbe lower classes. Tbese volunteers would report to relief committees tbat would further inves

tigate tbe applicants in order to ensure tbat only tbe minimum amount of relief necessary went to tbose truly in need. By tbis metbod they thou ght charity would not reward laziness and thereby demoralize the industrious among the poor; instead it would coerce or even compel participation in the new wage-based economy of an industrialized society.® These precepts merged with the pro-science enthusiasm common among several strands of American reform ranging from the social gospel movement to social

5IW., 19-20. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Fifteenth Census of the United States, 1930: Population (Washington,

1931), 18-19; Kershner, "Social and Cultural History of Indianapolis," 19, 39, 54, 95. Kershner, "Social and Cultural History of Indianapolis," 39, 54, 95; Emma Lou Thornhrough,

Indiana in the Civil War Era, 1850—1880 (Indianapolis, 1965), 274—78, 559; U.S. Bureau of the Census, Tenth Census of the United States, 1880: Wages (Washington, 1886), 42, 62, 76, 142, 385—86, 414—15, 442, 465. James H. Madison notes that while the city experienced great population growth, its residents were much more likely th an other city dwellers to settle

permanently. James H. Madison, The Indiana Way: A State History (Bloomington, IN, 1986), 177-78; Clift on J. Pkill ips, Indiana in Transition: The Emergence of an Industrial Commonwealth, 1880-1Q20 (Indianapolis, 1968), 469-70. Amy Dru Stanley, Beggars Can't Be Ch oosers: Compulsion and Contract in Postbell um

America," Journal of American History 78 (Mar. 1992): 1265-93.

The Journal of the Gil Jed Age and Progressive Era | 10:3 Jul. 2011 267

This content downloaded from 129.15.14.45 on Mon, 23 Mar 2020 03:48:13 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Darwinists, promising that objective investigation and categorization of the poor would reveal scientific laws explaining the causes and proper treatments of their poverty and dependence.

In their pursuit of evidence of the causes of poverty, friendly visitors and inves

tigators quizzed a relief applicant's neighbors, extended family, employers, church leaders, and their children's teachers. In Indianapolis they examined the records of the Center Township trustee, the official responsible for deter

mining need and providing public relief, and they worked to share records with

other private charities. Visitors showed up unannounced to investigate the applicant's home, looking for any sign that mi ght be used to disqualify an appli

cant as unworthy of relief or unable to benefit from it. In the gridded standard

ization of ledger entries they documented the struggles of the poor. These application forms included entry blanks for the applicant's name, present and former addresses, time spent in the city, and assistance requested. Other requested information was the family members' names, ages, and schools; rela

tives in the city who might offer support; occupations and addresses of employ

ers; weekly income; character references; and all other present sources of relief.

Several blank lines followed for recording the statement of the applicant or an intercessor, foil owed by a longer section where investigators entered reports from the police, employers, clergy, schoolmasters, physicians, other relief agencies, and the date of the report. In some cases a file opened in 1880 might contain records transcribed from applications made to the Center Township trustee in the 1870s, then f urther updates in the report section spanning the 1880s. Finally the form gave space for the relief decision. In principle, the COS did not itself administer relief but instead acted as a gate keeper to other charitable agencies, advising them of whether relief should be given.^ In two pages of ledger, the COS could conceivably record the entire employment and residential history of a family, the opinions and interactions of the family's neighbors, friends, co-workers, and employers, as well as the family's history of encounters with the criminal and charitable institutions of

the city. These intrusions drew justification from the vision widely held among reformers of the Gilded Age that charitable gifts and their intended recipients must be disciplined—scrutinized scientifically—as the word was then understood. Only through such strict measures, they contended, could

they thwart the menace of pauperism, or willful dependence on charity.

^For instance, Olivia Sage of the Russell Sage Foundation use d the New York Ch arity Organization Society to evaluate the merit of each of the thousands of individual letters she received each year ashing for charitable assistance. Ruth Crocker, Mrs. Russell Sage: Women's Activism and Philanthropy in Gilded Age and Progressive Era America (Bloomington, IN, 2006), 203-07.

268 | Brent Ruswick \ Just Poor Enough: Gilded Age Charity Applicants Respond to Charity Investigators

This content downloaded from 129.15.14.45 on Mon, 23 Mar 2020 03:48:13 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Given the presumption that the applicant might be a con or have habits that brought about his poverty, oftentimes the only possible source of evidence that scientific charity investigators failed to consider was that offered by the poor, themselves.

Record No. /v.

;| a-—.*,.'t~uu.cu,<£»-*• 11 .*:^r~ i

.

••» . ...:-.•

»«—»-'•' 5&ro. - ^ -rf ■ « *, /f~yo, A^r 2^ „ v -hull- liLi 7«^ic Is seL*. L+XL-Cj, —^*- ,

"""*"* ">**<*/•. /'^t ,**yo "&r- ifn ■■ ^ £< V «t«^

. £%ly.a -v^o ^C*L MtUfo •&■ ■■■/ £• l»«t«^y /• « « «-'^ /•»«■ rn?k *^« t-» l-'sj"<lrfv .h «* ,»«... -»»■* '^•, 9^4"* +++J- *•'

+/>tf4** 'w * i » *.«y »■ ._ dijt, -v'c»«. ^*.-7?^,. ■ /..' — „ t^ _ —,'-■*- -£-*~-*^. t— '*•*+*% d-+-fv-ry£— ^ ~ "-r-ff&t- /*t/-J+££ if / ', r . v •

*<yvasfzy g*4- **tr *-$<■^y/* *■> *> *»- ■

" —' SU*+++* .AJ+-<r r».*

4^m jtf>r, /c—vud -ki^u^.f€.(^f) T*. wwli, •kauij »- «*• «<»•> »f f»p**tinf i«i»rm.i(» rmm rrkllt* in lv» >•- f,.m 1, miw «, fmin. « urwm. |, iwul .ml >crr~f i«,4. b.

—i "-'— * " Li,m»w*4ewl«ri t.tnwr p.f—. •. ffcpmta: », l^iuliv omf.i'. tufart.

fltfxrtt ^ | , /tf- at/»c S.I ?

+*t(j &**(& < A i-u+xsf^t tsC ^fZ. a. i*(. ~ 6^4 /f*> t A^0*^\ iu fa 3-4/ 7&x4,/+i< C&xenSj. ri^t

Figure 1. COS Casebook entry for Tk omas O., begun Marcb 8, 1880. Courtesy of tbe

Indiana Historical Society.

10COS 1880, Case Record 14.

The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era | 10:3 Jul. 2011 269

This content downloaded from 129.15.14.45 on Mon, 23 Mar 2020 03:48:13 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

It)

M of lurtwum",

M ./ (fee ■ * P ■ : ■** •C'5"1 '■ ' ■''! - ikifJtTt, 1if > *>$;.■.c _ /

■ j fm-j». la*** die lt*i tlfrnsii, n"

mZ- "j&:. ■ J-/ V. /-*/ <2^.,, /sfutA- ;■■?<■■*!.

M. fiUX. y fc*. /uM. AiCUttsC, SM. |/ft^c K.t-c. ,'iut MiJ <,<u Un wm*,. •&*>>«,.1 itA<. auM/t. &*£' &**%, ZutsC .. yU' it ^ I |j J m ! I A^iuhu. (ftopt &Ot "<L<^k2 4x £* S&. £c C*nti \h .:.■■■ 'ft. ■:■■■'• %*-■ > >/ - ' ; LUS^i.'... .

/ A.lJ- ?■//■?/-$* H'ce.U $-r ■'7-./L& '«/ , .... „ . .... . _ •iC .Ji/( Jiudhpt. 1 »h .WAfC t-u/k, &X ti ~}Uo /c$

T„d« :Jk Tm,ZQl. €r4, .,,3? ^ ... , » , l*-i-i-+yb£ "4^ ^

IuauL 4n ,A*l. rule/i ct kfo , s<rfulli . jwtUu, * ' ", ^ /£....*. iftil#]') * prt t t'. AsC a, MZ, tU£r Mtitt 6-»> >>y jbi. iyJL ft/blO- ^r>->*sC

juJbjL dXtr^yy^CLi. {rt rtu. o^i ZZ "u<* Sj,

(faiviajL UAAU/tUt

)% n )l MmU, JuAaUuM

!*» *U

flu I |\itfi. uAjl mL.v

ti

uvj.o, V

i&zyVj faaA*U4C

fcw j fyw) &■ ~ JJ/tK.£,w>uZ fflfju yKJ/VUtft Jul.

&u. £Uc fivitvL %t Uu. Ao who - j*t yZi"' £i,

in*: Mr \a*. 6

t/7 pioL y&cu.. /> 3J '// * 4 • $d*vt

01 ~j£u* VtyoAJe- JU*- w dru**-* ■ Jy-U*-.,

>'4/ ■ &*C. Ktij I /VjjUlJ. a. tfrrrM fru***-, twi ■ afcuo . ZfsxptJU H>

~ &y™. ,.V a*w ~k*/•. % tbc# Jhsk 'ftUi/ei/i. /t yiM- ....

<- </ <!'*" K(jL *. <2/td &A4s /

idvtW, £C*<.

t4 frrto tn+ayxS- & 4.. UrtUrtt^t' . %uf. r /7'7/ 'A - >y. &u> &*C Jut. e«iic hw.'U'"- *,. <%. '£c+C- r-n:7y'M MdL*C\)6?*<. s.r

^(Uw, T 4/4*1 <f/U/T/>* 7 rJyis/>sJ^J^ US J1. fou*//ras& O&L iriykX^J 'pfe**. '£tiib£fC r,

$ lUtji. ^ A jbnjJyO 4"^} &**dry>y, ^ WffUK. 'rtA/C f|-a. jpM t ruA~ tZjCy^yi^LjC fi&H. i*ur**4 6 >tf \$ml (LuLvH-uiL. M< "du*.<uc t trm. af^Z> . XlM* fovt. qmamouC

%f li f/fso* 0./J, $ ,P*m4 Qsfi-ll. %/ .£&?(■, rlg4s<J'//*ri.*C A4*-a*s fordfyn* t+M-C-C. ft£r<y\ ityU\ fwr*. Ct*yr»> . /% ifMrt Avl' & dlut/tC***. hi 4w ? jtu/t OlUt'Ct £***£.

h | iU4<rit

kiA' d&wt

th. w- a

**■ •."? * fa H .fl f^t ,' y ' *,{£*»>,a. /u/mdtd* gjt*.3>(2?7',&£**&(&..... .# 'A/|'Q w' $**£ 4 i&i

" w* tU'M '.(?./< <&&•(&**}' J ■ ■» /•'.. ->

;4,/.; u tr ■ >* .'JTJXL.^

Figure 1. (Continued)

Tke encounters o f Mary D. and so many others first with the township trus tee and then the COS expose the dissent and bewilderment among the poor toward scientific charity and its adherents' zeal for investigation, categoriz ation, and discipline. Historian Michael Katz has observed that an emphasis on how charity organization societies acted as a "force of authority in the lives of the very poor" must he balanced with recognition of poor persons' activities as they sought to respond to the new rules of charity.11 Less has

11 Michael Katz, Poverty and Policy in American History (New York, 1983), 51; also Dawn Greeley,

"Beyond Benevolence: Gender, Class and the Development of Scientific Charity in New York City, 1882-1935," (PhD diss., SUNY Stony Brook, 1995), 13-21.

270 | Brent Ruswick \ Just Poor Enough: Gilded Age Charity Applicants Respond to Charity Investigators

This content downloaded from 129.15.14.45 on Mon, 23 Mar 2020 03:48:13 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

been written about bow tbe applicants wbo showed up at cbarity organization societies negotiated tbe new movement's efforts to transform tbe landscape of poor relief and tbe poor themselves. Instead, tbe scientific cbarity move ment bas been examined for its significance in tbe institutionalization of social scientific research; tbe formation of tbe modern social work; shifts in Americans' ideology and discourse concerning dependence; and the rise of the public health, social gospel, eugenics movements, and progressivism, to name just a few.12

The responses of the poor to the investigative methods of the scientific charity movement as enacted by the Indianapolis COS reveal a set of strat egies ranging from accommodation to outright defiance. Through their complaints, objections, and resistance to the new metho ds, the poor brought to light and challenged core assumptions of the movement, like the trite optimism professed by scientific charity's theoreticians that objective investi

gation could quickly sort applicants into distinct categories of the worthy poor and unwortky paupers and tkat tkeir work would rebuild interclass har

mony amid the strike-riddled 1870s an d 1880s. In the ways they rep resented the causes of their misfortune, histories, living conditions, and needs, as well as their personal characters and gratitude, the poor further learned to adapt to the new rules of charitable relief, sometimes seemingly knowing the new standards better than the investigators did. The COS vol unteers' response to the poor furthermore highlights their diverse and often

ambiguous interpretations of the movement's supposedly cardinal principles, reinforcing recent historical work presenting the movement as a significantly more flexible one in practice and at least slightly more appreciative of the

12For instance, see Elizabeth Agnew, From Charity to Social Work: Mary E. Richmond and the Creation of an American Profession (Urbana, 2004); Nathaniel Deutsch, Inventing America's "Worst" Family: Eugenics, Islam, and the Fall and Rise of the Tribe of Ishmael (Berkeley, 2009); Ell en Fitzpatrick, Endless Crusade: Women Social Scientists and Progressive Reform (New York, 1990); Karen Tice, Tales of Wayward Girls and Immoral Women: Case Records and the Professionalization of Social Work (Urbana, 1998); Kennetb L. Kusmer, "The Functions of Organized Cbarity in tbe Progressive Era: Chicago as a Case Study," Journal of American History

60 (Dec. 1973): 657-78; James B. Lane, "Jacob A. Riis and Scientific Philanthropy during the Progressive Era," Social Service Review 47 (Mar. 1973): 32—48; Joan Waugh, "'Give This Man Work!' Joseph ine sk aw Lowell, the Ch arity Organization Society of the City of New York,

and the Depression of 1893," Social Science History 25 (Summer 2001): 217—46; Emily K. Abel, "Medicine and Morality: The Health Care Program of the New York Charity Organization Society," Social Service Review 71 (Dec. 1997): 634—51; James Leiby, "Charity Organization Reconsidered," Social Service Review 58 (Dec. 1984): 523—38; Genevieve Weeks, "Religion and Social Work as Exemplified in the Life of Oscar C. McCulloch," Social Service Review 39 (Mar. 1965): 38—52; Stephen Tk omas Ziliak, "Self—Reliance before the Welfare State: Evidence from the Charity Organization Movement in the United States," Journal of Economic History 64 (June 2004): 433-61.

The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era | 10:3 Jul. 2011 271

This content downloaded from 129.15.14.45 on Mon, 23 Mar 2020 03:48:13 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

complex interplay of causes that create dependence than its programmatic statements suggest.13

Mary D. and the Fear of Institutionalization

The case record that the COS entered for Mary D. illustrates the suspicion, even hostility, that many charity reform groups in America felt toward relief

applicants, tut also the efforts of those applicants to retain some modest amount of control over their destinies in the most difficult of circumstances.

Mary's husband bad abandoned her without further communication for twelve or perhaps fifteen years when he suddenly returned and, discovering

she had remarried, cut her out of his pension. Mary's second hushand died a short time after this, necessitating that from 1873 onward the Marion County and Center Township of Indianapolis relief agencies support her through the winters with fuel and an occasional payment of her rent. Those sources of relief however often proved unreliable, reducing her to beg ging. When Mrs. K., a shopkeeper, complained to the township trustee that she "cannot 'shake' her" from begging around her store, this prompted one of the trustee's agents to pay Mary a visit in November 1878. Advised that she would have to go to the poor house, Mary threatened to drown herself first.

The COS first sent its own visitor in April 1880 to inspect her circum stances, with the trip yielding a similar conclusion: Mary D. ought not receive charitable relief but sh ould go instead to a public institution like the county asylum or the home for the aged. A visitor sent to follow up on Mary's letter to the mayor in 1881 noted that the rent was too expensive and that Mary D. reportedly had moved to this dwelling "because [she] got into trouble with the janitor" at her previous residence. The visitor was unimpressed by what she saw. The small room was "completely filled by old bedding, trunks, stove, wood," and Mary herself "was barefooted and moving things about without any particular object that could be discovered." Intent on identifying any hint of fraud, the visitor noticed that although Mary claimed to have gone three days without foo d, sh e "saw some new biscuit and cold victuals in a trunk, evidently given her," a sin of omission that Mary D. th en acknowledged. Again she swore that she "won't go to the P. H. and even if it is made decent to live in, will commit suicide first." While she proposed that the COS help her find a room somewhere "on a floor where there is

13See esp. Agnew, From Charity to Social Work; Joan Waugh, Unsentimental Reformer: The Life of Josephine Shaw Lowell (Cambridge, MA, 1997), 93; Brent Ruswick, "The Measure of Worth iness: The Rev. Oscar McCulloch and the Pauper Problem, 1877—1891," Indiana Magazine of History 104 (Mar. 2008): 3—35; Greeley, "Beyond Benevolence."

| Brent Ruswick | Just Poor Enough: Gilded Age Charity Applicants Respond to Charity Investigators

This content downloaded from 129.15.14.45 on Mon, 23 Mar 2020 03:48:13 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

water," the agency decided that unless Mary D. had a change of mind about going to an institution, she did not need further aid.14

Mary D.'s refusal to move to the poor house, at the time a sign of her pur ported insanity or perhaps, as the COS described severa loth er opinionated applicants, "impudence," might instead have teen proof of her lucidity. A few

weeks after penning her letter, in July 1881, the former governor of Indiana, Thomas Hendricks, argued a case before a board of commissioners that the Marion County Poorhouse had been mismanaged, resulting in the abuse and neglect of inmates. The governor a lleged that the farmer who supervised the

poorhouse, Peter Wright, had used a cowhide to beat an inmate, Harry White, because White "had used careless language and was full of fun." Hendricks furtker claime d tkat tke professionally inexperienced resident physician, a Dr. Culbertson, who already had on his record an unrelated con viction for assault and battery, ignored the needs of the insane residents.15 A former inmate, Ed Atkins, testified that "he had been given the diabetes from drinking a peculiar kind of tea" given to kim by Culbertson, who then

wi th Wright's approval refused to provide to Atkins the necessary medicine. Several inmates reported suffering from substandard food and blankets and otker injustices and deprivations. Samuel Ckurckwell testified that his young child had been separated from its mother, left underclothed during winter, and thereby had caught a cold and died. Not all abuse came directly from the hands of the supervisors; an inmate described as an "insane idiot," Oliver Thomas, whipped Harry White between two to six times in reaction to White screaming after a dog had frightened him.^

Charity reformers, many of whom were drawn to the movement hy their own revulsion at the care offered at state charitable and correctional institutions,

understood this fear and used it to their advantage when dealing with relief applicants who did not show them sufficient deference. An African American couple, Ezra and Milly M., had a reputation for "complaining." The COS record hooks included the Center Township trustee's report that Milly "is the woman that does so much talking at the office" and that "if they grumhle at . . . [receiving only] fuel, send them to the Poor House."17 From this and their own visits, the COS concluded the family did not merit relief. Sarah H. similarly resisted sending her eighteen-year-old son, Fred, to any public institution. When a COS visitor arrived at her house,

14COS 1880, Case Record 132. 15"Tke Poor Farm," Indianapolis Sentinel, July 13, 1881.

"Grind ing Away," Indianapolis News, July 8, 1881. 17COS 1880, Case Record 191.

The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era I 10:3 Jul. 2011 273

This content downloaded from 129.15.14.45 on Mon, 23 Mar 2020 03:48:13 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

she explained that Fred had "lost his mind" during a spell of "brain fever" at the age of ten. The visitor found him "simple" and "utterly unfit to do any thing. The proper place for him would he either the Insane Asylum or County Asylum." Sarah, however, refused to consent to his institutionaliza tion. The township trustee had noted this reluctance years earlier and com plained that a woman long dependent on charity ought to let the county dictate the terms of that relief, including sending Fred to the poorhouse. To Sarah, however, the trustee was a "hard-hearted hugger." When the COS finally took up the case, it collected testimony from several sources affirming she was an "industrious, honest, hard-working woman" and decided to offer relief during Fred's present hout of illness so that she could pay the

rent, hut they too affirmed that afterwards the hoy must go to the County Asylum. The source of contention became a moot point when the updated entry a week later noted that Fred had died.18 That Sarah H. and Mary D. chose to defy the COS hy refusing to submit to institutionalization suggests that the poor were well aware of what awaited them in the poor houses and asylums and might risk starvation at home over neglect and atro phy in an institution.

Mary's case—and perhaps Sarah's as well—represent the face of scientific charity most commonly seen hy historians: a movement neither especially scientific nor charitable, driven to end public relief and curtail private aid with little scientific justification beyond a crude social Darwinism and a highly moralized view of poverty as an event due to single causes, which could he categorized either as misfortune or misdeeds.^ In their first years of implementing charity reform, many of the charity organization societies worked hard to earn the scorn heaped on them by the poor and more traditional charities that saw their work as mean-spirited and insuffi cient. The Indianapolis COS's response to John and Anna B.'s request for help demonstrates as much. John B.'s work as a packer for a tobacconist

18lbid. Charity reformers saw issues of economic dependence and mental disabilities as closely related phenomena, and the historical evolution of reformers' understanding and treatment of each demonstrate their intertwined history. See James W. Trent, Jr., Inventing the Feeble Mind: A History of Mental Retardation in the United States (B erheley, 1994).

1 For instance, see George M. Frederickson, The Inner Civil War: Northern Intellectuals and the Crisis

of the Union (New York, 1965); Walter I. Trattner, From Poor Law to Welfare State: A History of Social Welfare in America (New York, 1974), ck. 4, 75—95; Paul Boy er, Urban Masses and Moral Order in America, 1820-1Q20 (Camkridge, MA, 1978), ck. 10, 143-62; Mickael Katz, In the Shadow of the Poorhouse: A Social History of Welfare in America (New York, 1986), 83—86, 113; and Katz, Poverty and Policy in American History, 90—92; Marvin E. Gettleman, "Pkil antkropy as Social Control in Late Nineteentk-Century America: Some Hypotkeses and Data on tke Rise of Social Work," Societas 5 (Winter 1975): 49—59; Akel, "Medicine and Morality."

274 | Brent RuswicU | Just Poor Enough: Gilded Age Charity Applicants Respond to Charity Investigators

This content downloaded from 129.15.14.45 on Mon, 23 Mar 2020 03:48:13 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

had damaged his lungs, and he had heen injured the prior autumn when a log rolled over him. He th en had a sunstroke and went insane. At the time of

application to the COS, he and Anna B. had pneumonia, and a daughter was dying of consumption. John B. died a few weeks later, leaving his wife dependent on the income of her ten-year-old son who worked for a cooper for one dollar a week. She also received 60 cents per dozen overa lis that she and the youngest daughters sewed. Other than having the Flower Mission attend to the ill, the COS concluded no relief was needed.20

Just Enough Filth

20COS 1880, Case Record 73.

Scientific charity leaders' fervor for suppressing charitable fraud drew from

their belief that paupers were a group economically, morally, and biologically

distinct from the normal poor. Using the language of heredity and degener ation, they perceived paupers as biologically different from and inferior to the rest of the population, incapable of improvement. Through the combined forces of heredity and environment, paupers had sunk so far into a state of willful dependence that they could no longer live otherwise. Their supposed licentious ways and aggressive pursuit of alms by any fabrication allegedly consumed the majority of charitable relief given and threatened to drown the nation in an ever-rising tide of chronic beggars. The founder of the Indianapolis COS, Reverend Oscar McCulloch, became a national star of the movement by arguing that his genealogical research into a family that for generations appeared on the relief rolls demonstrated that pauperism was an inheritable trait.^1 Such genealogical studies affirmed the scientific charity leaders' faith that dependence could be studied objectively and thereby relieved more efficiently.

McCulloch contended that unsanitary surroundings often marked the onset of pauperism. Scientists had proven, lie explained, "that when the rabbit war

ren was not properly cleaned, the female hilled her young and the male became quarrelsome. The organism of the animal was injured and rendered miserable by dirt, and nervous irritability akin to insanity was the result." Likewise, the "sufferings and crimes" of the pauper might be cause d by filthy

1Oscar McCull och, "Associated Charities" in Proceedings of the National Conference of Charities and

Correction, ed. Frank Sanborn (Boston, 1880), 122—35; "The Tribe of Ishmael: A Study in Social Degradation" in Proceedings of the National Conference of Charities and Correction, ed. Isabel C.

Barrows (Boston, 1888), 155—59; Deutscb, Inventing America's "Worst" Family; Ruswick, "The Measure of Worthiness"; Genevieve Weeks, "Oscar C. McC ulloch: Leader in Organized Charity," Social Science Review 39 (June 1965): 209—21; Nicole Hahn Rafter, ed., White Trash: The Eugenic Family Studies, 1877—1Q1Q (Boston, 1988).

The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era | 10:3 Jul. 2011 275

This content downloaded from 129.15.14.45 on Mon, 23 Mar 2020 03:48:13 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

physical conditions.^ The Indianapolis COS' s surveys of the poor documen ted in its 1880 record hook further indicate how investigators used dirt and untidiness as a source of evidence pointing toward incurable, biologically hased pauperism. An article hy the Indianapolis Herald placed in the COS file on Andrew G. warned readers of his children, who allegedly supported the house by be gging. Andrew G. was "a victim of hereditary pauperism and bad wbisky. He is a good workman spoiled by public indulgence." His family was "dirty, slothful, and vicious."^3

A relief applicant had to thread a narrow needle when the visitor came to inspect her Lome, if a home looked too well kept, it might be a sign that the applicant did not truly need help. A COS visitor suspected one woman of dishonesty because she was "very toney, dresses well."^4 More commonly, however, the homes of the poor struck the visitor as too dirty and decrepit, sig

nifying a lack of "industry" and desire to help one's self. In their reports visitors

often sounded obsessed with dirt, treating it as evidence of an applicant's unworthy character. Eliza H., a widowed woman with two children at home sick with whooping cough, lived in rooms that a visitor judged "nearly empty and everything in a very disordered condition. Table knives lying around loose on the bedroom carpet and dirt and filth everywhere. Two beds a stove and a few chairs seemed to constitute the bulk of the furniture. [She] was as slovenly looking as usual and in addition looked sickly."^® A visitor in another case judged Marinda D.'s residence to have "a general look of don't care-a-tive-ness."^ Mary G. was a "lazy careless creature not capable of self-government or support."^ Even when a visitor judged the living con ditions of the poor to he a consequence of their poverty, not a sign of pauper ism, it did not relieve the poor of their shame. One of the township trustee's investigators hluntly—if perhaps correctly—remarked that the hest that could he done for Frank C. would he if someone hurned down "that old shell he lives

in" and forced him to move to a healthy environment.28

Ann L.' s response to her investigators demonstrates the difficulty in presenting a

Lome that was neither hopelessly filthy nor suspiciously tidy. In the spring of

McCulloch, "Associated Charities," 124, 125. See Victor Hilts, "Obeying the Laws of Hereditary Descent: Phrenological Views on Inheritance and Eugenics," Journal of the History of the Behavioral

Sciences 18 (Jan. 1982): 62—77. " COS 1880, Case Record 79 241 ibid., Case Record 198 25lbicL, Case Record 103. 2 ibid., Case Record 62. 27lbid., Case Record 63.

ibid., Case Record 105.

2 76 | Brent Ruswick \ Just Poor Enough: Gilded Age Charity Applicants Respond to Charity Investigators

This content downloaded from 129.15.14.45 on Mon, 23 Mar 2020 03:48:13 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

1880, Ann's grandson arrived at the COS office with a letter from Ann L. In it, she referred to the Indianapolis Benevolent Society, the primary charitable relief

society that took guidance from COS investigations; she admitted that she "can not help think it strange that societies claiming 'Benevolent' does as they do in this

city." In response to an earlier request for aid, another charity associated wi th the

COS, the Fl ower Mission, had sent "two young lady callers" who promised to help

find some work sewing and bring some flowers, one of the signature small gifts the

Mission gave the city's sic k. They never returned. Ann L. complained:

We could starve to death waiting on them and I have heen sick 10 mos. and never rec'd a flower from tkem. ... I nursed 2 rick sick ladies tkat kad more flowers tkan was

any use, sent ky tke Mission ladies. We would ke glad to get work wken akle to work; in our case it is work we want kut Mrs. Hicks calls us paupers. If tkat is rig kt i d o not know w kat is wrong. Tkose wko need do not get kut tkose wko kave akundance get plenty.^

Ann L.'s letter is unusual both in its existence—poor persons' documenta tions of their encounters with charity organization societies can not help hut he dwarfed in comparison to the documentation generated hy a group dedicated among other things to better record keeping—-and in its stridency.

Ann affirmed her willingness to worh and explained the circumstance hy which at sixty-one she could not sufficiently provide for her "feeble" dau ght er and grandson. Challenging the intentions or wisdom of the COS, however, hrou ght the risk of heing labeled "impudent," a charge of ingratitude that suggested one did not appreciate the obligation to prefer work over relief and to accept any relief with humility and a tinge of embarrassment. The first charity organization society in London, England, and the many incar nations of scientific charity and charity organization in America all empha sized visiting and investigating as a way of reestablishing social bonds between the middle classes and the poor. These bonds were to fasten the poor to their stations in life, extinguishing any prospects for radicalism as

they learned instead to humbly accept manual labor for whatever wages they could receive and to adopt middle-class standards and behavior as best they could. "Industrious" and "sober" were the adjectives most commonly

assigned to the worthy poor, and often visits to the poor amounted to pur portedly objective measurements of their industriousness, sobriety, and modesty.

9lbid., Case Record 179.

The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era | 10:3 Jul. 2011 277

This content downloaded from 129.15.14.45 on Mon, 23 Mar 2020 03:48:13 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Those who called on Ann L. found a woman of industry and sobriety, hut also of sharp opinions. She washed, sewed, and nursed when she could and had temporarily moved to the country to seek out a living. Now she was "too o Id to do much." She told the last agent of the Center Township trustee to visit before the COS toot up the case that nursing no longer paid better than any other work avai lable to a woman as a glut of poor job seekers flooded the market. The visitors were unimpressed with this or with her reported explanation "that old age is creeping on, and she is not able to do regular housework." The COS's record on Ann L. includes the obser vation from the trustee's office that "rumor has it that Mrs. L. ... is meddle

some and talkative in families," which "is the cause of her failure," and that she was "dictatorial and talkative outside, which is against her."30

In addition to the talkative personality that allegedly made her an unpopular

choice for housework, Ann L. tried too hard to impress. An October 1880 visit from the COS found "Mrs. L. . . . dressed up in a nice new calico wrap per and looking the 'good grandmother' to perfection. Mrs. C. . . . [her dau ghter] occupying a rocking chair and looking well and happy, notwith standing her statements ahout severe suffering after cleaning house—her favorite occupation." Noting the daughter's claim to do some washing for extra money, in spite of it heing "too hard" for her, the visitor parenthetically

added in her notes, "A tuh was in si gkt, evidently so placed for dramatic effect."31 Ann L. had succeeded too well in presenting exactly the image COS investigators wanted to see: clean, responsible persons willing to work hard and adopt middle-class values. This, combined with her meddle some, talkative, dictatorial hahit of expressing her opinion on the state of charitable relief and the labor market, won for her an unsurprising decision of "no aid" from the COS. The charity reformers' interests in restoring inter class bonds left all responsibility on the poor to change their tune.

Alth ough most COS investigators did not share the leadership's scientific interests or concern for the supposed biological origin of pauperism, occasion

ally they too would present dirtiness as symptomatic of an underlying hio logi cal condition that gave rise to pauperism. In Anna R.'s case, she visited one of

the COS's district offices in March 1880 to explain how her hushand had died thirteen years earlier working on the railroad. She added that she did not "think this a good city for the poor. They don't look after the poor enou gh." Th e record of her encounters with the township trustee and then

°IW. 31IW.

278 | Brent Ruswich | Just Poor Enough: Gilded Age Charity Applicants Respond to Charity Investigators

This content downloaded from 129.15.14.45 on Mon, 23 Mar 2020 03:48:13 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

with the COS suggests as much. The COS's investigation into her file with the trustee revealed tkat in December of 1876 her family was sleeping on a "pile of rags on the floor" and lacked "enough clothing to cover themselves." Anna went barefoot in the snow. She had five children from the ages of eigh teen to thirteen, one of whom at the time of her trip to the COS had typhoid fever, chills, and "lung disease." Only two or three times had she asked for relief from tke townskip trustee, and ske "kad always worked," and ker oldest daugkter did so wken possikle. Furtker examination of tke trustee's records revealed tkat ske kad keen skipped to Indianapolis from Greencastle in 1874, wkere tke local trustee kad furnisked ker witk a pass out of town.3^ Tke old practice of passing tke poor from city to city was still commonplace in Gilded Age America. Indianapolis's solution for many kopelessly poor per sons was to pay for a one-way ticket to tke city of tkeir nearest relatives and kope tke destination point's townskip trustee did not send tkem rigkt kack.33

These tragic circumstances might suggest an immediate need for charitable relief, and indeed the report concluded that Anna R.'s family was destitute. The responsibility, however, was in their own moral and biological failings. "This old Irish fraud depends on public charity for a living," which "has made her chronic," explained the trustee's initial report from 1876. She was a "pro fessional liar an d beg gar." No amount of help could ma he the R. f amily "live any

other way than like hogs. They are stable bred and cannot rise above their breed

ing." When the COS took up her case in March 1880, its review of the trustee's

report resulted in an initial decision to deny the family any relief.34

Deeper investigation into Anna's circumstances belied the claims of an easily identified distinction between worthy and unworthy cases of need. When a COS visitor first called on Anna R. at her home, two months later at the end of May, she noted that Anna's thirteen-year-old son Johnny worked when he could but had "typho-malarial fever," while her oldest, Mary, simi larly was too ill to work. She wrote, "This combination of circumstances has

made it necessary for her to solicit aid from the benevolent to support her family and pay her rent and in my opinion, under these circumstances, with which I am reasonably well acquainted, I think she is deserving." In the same entry where the visitor declares Anna R. deserving appears an addendum noting the contrary opinion of Father Bessonies, a member of the COS committee that ultimately determined who would receive relief

ibid., Case Record 80.

Ibid., Case Record 80. ^For instance, ibid., Case Records 95, 113, 123, 193.

The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era | 10:3 Jul. 2011 279

This content downloaded from 129.15.14.45 on Mon, 23 Mar 2020 03:48:13 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

and in what kind. He found one of the daughters to he a "had girl with "not muck [that] could be said in her favor."35

Was Anna R. an undeserving hog, a pauper feeding from public and private troughs alike with ill-hehaved children inheriting her manners as their birth right, or was she the deserving poor, afflicted by death and disease and old age? The vagaries in investigators' evaluations of the poor confounded both the leadership of scientific charity and the poor who showed up at their door to request relief. The former earnestly thought that poor relief could and must be brou ght under proper scientific scrutiny and that by doing so they could easily sift out the paupers who had brought about their own troubles from the poor who suffered through no fault of their own. The poor, meanwhile, both struggled to present themselves as they ima gined the investigators desired, and they resented and resisted the intrusions,

moral condemnations, and outright coercion. 1 he difference between relief and rejection often might depend on which visitor knocked at the door.

Complaining Versus Stoicism

35IW.

Charity applicants also walked a narrow and winding path in explaining to investigators the severity and nature of their distress. Scientific charity's mis sion was predicated on the belief that the industrious, modest poor who were

most proud of their self-sufficiency and most deserving of relief were also those least likely to complain or ash for relief. In contrast the duplicitous pau per told sensational tales of suffering in order to heg for relief that ri ghtf ully belonged to those who would never advertise their want. How could one in need of relief ever hope to gain it hy ashing, when just showing up at the COS office mig ht he judged as a sign of heing undeserving? Mary D. went to the office to ash for employment or groceries for herself and her eleven and nine-year-old children. Trained as a nurse, she had left her ahusive, reportedly insane hushand in Hot Springs, Arkansas thirteen years earlier and headed for Indianapolis. Her children were in the orphan asylum due to her inability to support them, and another child had died in infancy from illness. Evaluating her merit, her former employers informed the COS that she was "competent hut somewhat given to complaining of her hard life. Is learning to feel that she has a claim upon charity and to demand

aid." The visitor advise d that "nothing more should he given except employment."3*'

3^lbicl., Case Record No. 160. See also Timothy A. Hacsi, Second Home: Orphan Asylums and Poor Families in America (Cambridge, MA, 1997).

280 | Brent Rusivick | Just Poor Enough: Gilded Age Charity Applicants Respond to Charity Investigators

This content downloaded from 129.15.14.45 on Mon, 23 Mar 2020 03:48:13 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Bringing suffering to the attention of others failed as often as not; for an applicant the key was to have a third party bring her case to the COS's atten tion and to couch the request in the most reluctant and humble of terms. Mary C. insisted she and her husband "never had a particle of help from any source. Never asked anyone. . . . Would work fingers off bef ore would ask. . . . Never thought would have to go a begging." The first words entered after the COS officer entered after taking her statement were "A worthy case."3"? The entry for William L. and his wife Mary began witb the statement of a friend asking relief on their behalf. The friend explained that Will iam "has kept poverty to self. No use to explain poverty to everybody." Further investigation by the COS turned up testimony from two of William L's acquaintances that he was "sober and industrious," the two adjectives of choice for describing worthy cases.38

The L. family almost undid the favorable testimony offered by tbeir friends, ironically, by appearing too congenial and appreciative. A COS visitor, Miss Raridan, complained tbat tbey were "very profuse in demonstrations of grati tude for visits." Such prostrations mi ght be the sign of paupers thinking they had found a naive victim to manipulate; a second opinion would be needed to verify their worth. The following day, that second visitor reported that the

L.s "did not show any of the gushiness which Miss Raridan reports on her visit, only expressed themselves as very grateful in the hearty English man ner." ' The second visitor's more sympathetic interpretation of the family's gratitude prevailed, as they won a recommendation for relief, even after a neig hb or advised "don't give money. They hoth occasionally drink heer."^

The Gossip Mill

ibid, Case Record 170. 39IW.

Given the assumption tnat many applicants were not poor but paupers, con genitally predisposed to lying about their circumstances in order to win relief,

the COS dismissed virtually all testimony and explanation offered by relief applicants themselves. Instead tbe COS's relief committee listened to the supposedly more objective views of tbe friendly visitor and tbe evidence sbe accumulated from interviewing neighbors, schoolteachers, and employers

concerning the applicant. Oftentimes this amounted in practice to rumor mongering, the COS 1 edger booh filling up with gossip recorded as fact. Elizabeth N. came to the COS on March 10, 1880, with news that her hus band, Richard, who had abandoned her on four different occasions, the pre sent one spanning the last five years, wanted to return. There are no records

COS 1880, Case Record 127.

The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era | 10:3 Jul. 2011 281

This content downloaded from 129.15.14.45 on Mon, 23 Mar 2020 03:48:13 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

to indicate what investigations or actions the COS took until December 2, 1889, when Richard N. and his new wife, Nancy, applied to the COS for an order of groceries. After commenting on Nancy's maiden name, and the name, medical history, financial history, employment status, and church affiliations of her first husband and children, the COS investigator explained that Rich ard had left Elizabeth for Nancy and lived with her before Elizabeth's death. Such facts were relevant to the COS's investigators as they might reveal well-to-do relatives who might already be supporting Richard and his family, making their request for relief unfounded.

From there the records turned to Richard's personal life, one reportedly full

of sex and violence. Rumors told "about the lady patients of a certain Dr. who were taken to her [Nancy's] house ... at night, and were taken away at night, after some days or some weeks." A talk with Harry L., a former son-in-law of Richard who was now divorced from the daughter, revealed that although he "don't like to talk ahout the fami ly," he offered that "N ... is a brute" and claimed that "the former wife was found dead, on the floor, with ugly hruises on her person and a chair lying on her head." Although Harry "does not directly accuse N . . . , he leaves the impression that he was responsible." The divorced son-in-law further claimed that "a 14 yr. old daughter died, some yrs. ago, from the effects of an abortion pro cured [s/c] on her at her father's instance [s;c].' Nancy's son from the former

marriage was either in reform school or prison due to larceny. Concluding, Harry insisted that Richard "is a brute and a scoundrel and his present wife is as bad as he. You need not fear to insist on that as you can prove it by the relatives of the family all of whom know the ugly facts." Such hearsay suggests that Ric hard N. likely had done nothing but bring suffering upon himself and anyone nearby, exactly the sort of man that COS investigators understandably sought to dislodge from the city's charitable institutions. However, in addition to not leaving any record of a relief decision, the entry on Richard N. also leaves no indication that anyone checked in with Richard to learn his view o f the ugly facts.40

To avoid becoming grist in tke gossip mill, an applicant mi gkt confess her sins

to tke COS and claim to be reformed. Cynthia R. appeared at the office on March 18, 1880 to ask for help with the rent and explained that she "has heen had, but is now living a good life and intends to." She admitted to having taken coal each midnight from a railroad watckman wko surreptitiously tkrew

it from tke passing train, and ske agreed to move out of ker present

(ibiJ, Case Record 18.

282 | Brent Ruswick | Just Poor Enough: Gilded Age Charity Applicants Respond to Charity Investigators

This content downloaded from 129.15.14.45 on Mon, 23 Mar 2020 03:48:13 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

neighborhood. Visits from a Mrs. Roberts on behalf of the COS, however, indicated that Cynthia "has the same told, pseudo-frank manner, persisting that she is doing 'right' now." ' Talks wi th h er neighbors further revealed that they "all unite in giving her a bad name, that she is the special terror and disgrace of that street" and that "she is on very familiar terms with the rail

road men." That perhaps explains Cynthia's initial admission of receiving coal

at midnight from the watchman. Later entries include a newspaper clipping of her involvement in a "bastardy suit" over her second child, and later still an entry reporting she had married, but her husband did not live with her because

"his parents won't leth im." In spite of her claims of reform and penitence, the

opinions of her neighbors resulted in a denial of relief.41

Cynth ia R. had good reason to expect that her chosen strategy of admitting her failings and ashing for penitence would win her relief; it had worked before. Another applicant to the COS for relief that March, Theodore O., had gone to the Center Township trustee the year before where he "begged for like a cur, and the trustee who knew him told [Theodore] how unworthy he was, what a contemptible, mean, corrupt life he had led, and he acknowl edge^] it all." The trustee then ordered relief for Theodore.42 What accounts for the different results from the same strategy? Especially for women, a reputation for sexual adventures meant a ticket into the "undeserving" cat egory with even more consistency than a man's reputation for drunkenness. Theod ore O. for instance was "a drunkard for a husband" even by h is own wife's report. This also may have indirectly worked in the O. family's favor; although Theodore was worthless, his wife Maria could be seen as a quiet and worthy sufferer at her husband's side. That it was the township trus

tee who ordered relief for the family and not the COS certainly also might be a factor. However, for all of the criticism scientific charity reformers leveled at supposedly spendthrift public officials, in Indianapolis the trustee's records often show even greater suspicion and hostility toward the poor than those of the COS. Economic historian Stephen Ziliak has observed that the COS and the trustee at the time, Smith King, generally worked quite well together.43

African American Encounters with the COS

The complicated dynamics between charity investigator and applicant til at often resulted in idiosyncratic and arbitrary decisions were com pounded when the all-white COS volunteers investigated requests from

41 ibid, Case Record 42. 4 ibid, Case Record 14.

Ziliak, "Self-Reliance before the Welfare State," 438.

The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era | 10:3 Jul. 2011 283

This content downloaded from 129.15.14.45 on Mon, 23 Mar 2020 03:48:13 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Indianapolis's African American citizens. Scientific charity's leading theor ists insisted that their charitable work must encompass all o f the poor, not discriminating on the hasis of race or creed. An unusual position in 1880s America, this must he understood in reference to the lurking pauper menace. The dividing line between the worthy poor and unworthy pauper concerned scientific charity organizations far more than did racial or religious lines. Poor whites did not hold monopolies on either the trait of industry or of idleness. Similarly, persons of any race of creed mi ght pass on the hereditary taint of pauperism. To ensure that charity was not stolen from the industrious by the idle and to combat the rising tide of biological paupers, all must be investigated; a few movement leaders even added the progressive suggestion that racism mig ht be a cause of much poverty. Steph en Humphreys Gurteen, who advised Oscar McCulloch in the founding of the Indianapolis COS and authored foundational manifestos on the prin ciples of scientific charity, argued that "if there has been in the past one thing more than another that has led to pauperism and all its attendant evils it is the existence of denominational exclusiveness and racial prejudice."44 McCulloch similarly showed compassion toward poor European immigrants in his controversial 1886 sermons defending the Haymarket anarchists.4® His private diary entries similarly express concern that the injustices inflicted on African Americans would only end through a violent claiming

of rights 46

Unsurprisingly, person-to-person interactions in Indianapolis did not always meet this ideal. Nancy H.'s request for groceries included the positive rec ommendation of her doctor, who thought her "a soher and industrious woman" who was too poor to help her sick son. An inspection of the trustee's records of previous relief, however, indicated that the white man she had brought to "add force to her statements" was in fact "blacker in character than she is in color." Her oldest hoy was a "hoodlum too lazy to work"

44S. Humphreys Gurteen, "Beginning of Charity Organization in America," Lend a Hand 15 (Nov.

1894): 353—67. Also see Verl S. Lewis, "Stephen Humphreys Gurteen and the American Origins of Charity Organization," Social Service Review 40 (June 1966): 190—201; to the contrary, Alvin

Kogut has argue d that Af rican Americans were heyond the purview of charity organization societies.

Alvin B. Kogut, "The Negro and the Charity Organization Society in the Progressive Era," Social Service Review 44 (Mar. 1970): 11—21. 45"Mr. M'Cullock and tke Anarchists," Indianapolis Journal, undated clipping found in Oscar McCullock Diary, Nov. 30, 1886, folder 2, box 4, Oscar C. McCullock Papers, Indiana State Library; also entry for May 7, 1886; Ruswick, "Tke Measure of Worthiness," 25—28.

4 Oscar McCulloch Diary, Dec. 24, 1885, folder 1, box 4, McCullock Papers; Stephen Ray Hall, "Oscar McCull och and Indiana Eugenics" (PhD diss., Virginia Commonwealth University, 1993), 228.

284 | Brent Ruswick | Just Poor Enough: Gilded Age Charity Applicants Respond to Charity Investigators

This content downloaded from 129.15.14.45 on Mon, 23 Mar 2020 03:48:13 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

and the family "a tad crew. °47 The COS file does not record any decision either for or against Nancy H. The hrief record of Charles an d Milbry B.'s application includes the trustee's earlier evaluation that Charles "appears an industrious darky," hut even the typically relief-winning term "industri ous" did not motivate the COS to follow up or to record the verdict of its final decision regarding relief.48

In one of the rare instances in which a COS publication presented data that brohe applications down along racial lines, an 1898 report indicated that only 34 percent of African American cases were "old" or returning appli cants, whereas 44 percent of white cases were. This suggests that fewer African Americans felt encouraged by their experience to return to the COS for help. An 1886 report from the trustee further supports this hypothesis. It stated that "negroes" accounted for 60 percent of applicants for public relief, followed hy the Irish at 20 percent, "Americans" (that is, native-horn whites) at 15 percent, and Germans at 5 percent.49 Similarly, a tabulation of the number of follow-up visits conducted by COS visitors in the 1880 record booh reveals that the society revisited twenty of thirty seven African American applications, 54 percent, compared to 104 of 160 Caucasian applications, 65 percent. Entries in African American cases also appear more commonly to be truncated, with perfunctory statements of decision like "no relief" or "no more aid." John F.'s case indicates only that lie was "Col'd" and had lived in the city for three months wi th his wife Hester and their four children. From the COS, he received the decision:

"No more aid needed."50 Through some combination of choice, alternatives sources of relief, and white indifference and racism, African Americans tended to go elsewhere than the COS for help.

That tendency had notable exceptions, underscoring just how unsettled early notions of worthiness and "objective" evidence were in the Indianapolis COS. Hattie L., an African American woman with three children whose husband

had deserted her, ashed the COS for aid, having been in Indianapolis only three months. Her recent arrival oug ht to have been cause for suspicion, and

her race certainly did not help her with the COS. Yet just eight days after visiting the COS office to request aid, the organization through which the COS d ispensed relief, the Indianapolis Benevolent Society, paid Hattie L.'s rent of $2.®* For an organization philosophically opposed to casually

47COS 1880, Case Record 89. ibid, Case Record 99

49"Tke Public s Poor," Indianapolis Mews. Jan. 25, 1886. 50COS 1880, Case Record 127.

The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era | 10:3 Jul. 2011 285

This content downloaded from 129.15.14.45 on Mon, 23 Mar 2020 03:48:13 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

handing over any sort of "material aid" tut especially financial assistance, this fit of generosity is unusual. More confounding are the COS's futile efforts to recoup the $30 they lent Swedish immigrant Oolo f Y. to huy a horse and wagon in order that he may resume "huckstering."52 Hattie L. had in her favor her status as an abandoned wife who immediately declared her willingness to work. Oolof's case does not suggest any such jus tification; the COS normally scoffed at promises such as he made of paying hack the loan once he had regained his financial footing.

Accommodation and Defiance to Investigation

Suck willingness to provide financial relief defies every official pronounce ment of anyone closely associated with the scientific charity movement's first fifteen years. Several historians have criticized scientific charity refor

mers for holding principles that were perhaps Loth logically inconsistent and certainly inconsistently applied, and the calculus by which Hattie L. or Oolof Y. were judged worthy must have seemed ineffable to Mary D. and Anna B. as they were informed of their unworthiness. But instead of emphasizing the charity reformers' record of success or failure in applying

their principles of objective, standardized investigation onto the poor, the work of the Indianapolis COS migkt alternately suggest tke unanticipated difficulty in rationalizing and standardizing a process as complex and indi vidualized as the negotiations between strangers over requests for charitable relief.

Faced with few appealing choices, many of the applicants to the COS tried to accommodate the investigators by showing deference to their views of worthi ness, as hest as those views could he deciphered. Applicants at once professed

their dire and tragic circumstances while wearing their hest clothing and try ing to act as gracious hosts to unannounced visitors. The applicants insisted they did not expect sympathy and did not prefer charity while trying to justify

their deservingness for each. Like joh hunters they lined up references from respected community leaders, especially physicians and employers, or barring

that, at least neighbors, and they actively managed their reputations, trying to

diminish, deflect, or deny the most damaging reports of their behavior. Some

agreed to accept institutionalization for sick relatives or work arrangements suggested by the COS, no matter how menial. Others changed or ended their

drinking habits, moved residences, or called on relatives whom they mi ght have preferred avoiding in order to seek help. In countless ways the poor

51 COS 1880, Case Record 181. 52lbid, Case Record 31.

286 | Brent Ruswick \ Just Poor Enough: Gilded Age Charity Applicants Respond to Charity Investigators

This content downloaded from 129.15.14.45 on Mon, 23 Mar 2020 03:48:13 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

worked to modulate their appearances and habits in ways that they thought mi ght win the approbation of the COS.

But b oth as objects for moral reformation and of scientific inquiry, appli cants for charity also proved more elusive than scientific charity reformers anticipated. Besides extreme gestures like Mary D.'s threats of suicide, resist ance took more subtle forms. Some refused to invite visitors in to inspect their homes or dropped their requests when they th ought the lines of ques tioning became too intrusive. Children begging in the streets learned to lie to

visitors who inquired why they were not in school, or they simply ran away. Knowledge of the exact percentage of applicants who were in fact trying to live the life of a pauper, scamming charities for relief, also remained just out of reach: The COS unsurprisingly could not readily coordinate charitable relief across the city or unearth an applicant's lies so as to extinguish pauper

ism. Hopes of restoring a bygone era of supposed interclass harmony simi larly died on the vine. The Indianapolis COS predicated its work on the assumption that the worthy poor needed and wanted to learn the ways of middle-class probity. On the contrary, I have not found a single testimonial from an applicant thanking COS visitors for their moral guidance. Scientific

charity reformers looked at the poor as a scientific problem to be studied, managed, and controlled. The poor had no choice but to endure the policy successes of scientific charity as its advocates tightened public and private relief allowances in cities across America. In spite o f the COS's efforts, the conditions giving rise to poverty and dependence remained far more ambiguous, their amenability to easy categorization far more restricted, than the proponents of scientific charity cared to admit.

The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era | 10:3 Jul. 2011 287

This content downloaded from 129.15.14.45 on Mon, 23 Mar 2020 03:48:13 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms