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Prairie Paupers: North Dakota Poor Farms, 1879-1973, Steven R. Hoffbeck

Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the history of county poor farms in North Dakota and places them within the wider perspective of poor relief in the United States.

North Dakota inherited its system of poor relief from the Elizabethan and American colonial poor laws. Poorhouses were a part of poor relief practices that also included local responsibility, outdoor relief, indenture of paupers, the poor list, expulsion of non-resident paupers, pauper burial, discouragement of vagrancy, and family responsibility for the poor.

Chapter One outlines Elizabethan poor laws and poor relief in the American colonies. The increase in numbers of poor farms in the …