Superintending the Poor: Social Welfare in Michigan during the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries

The Michigan Historical Review 46:2 (Fall 2020): 139-174©2020 Central Michigan University. ISSN 0890-1686 All Rights Reserved Superintending the Poor: Social Welfare in Michigan during the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries By John H. Martin Michigan’s government expressed concern for the plight of the poor almost as soon as it organized as a separate territory. In 1805, more than three decades before statehood, the Michigan Territorial Legislature adopted “An Act for the Relief of the Poor.”1 A subsequent act, adopted in 1809, had a similar focus. It defined eligibility for public support and authorized judges of district courts to appoint three “Overseers of the Poor” to provide “houses, nurses, physicians and surgeons as they . . . shall judge necessary.”2 Eight years later courts were authorized to direct the sheriff to take charge of, and provide support for, a poor person.3 The sheriff was to post a notice in three public places setting a time “to receive proposals for the support of such person for the term of one year,” and then “make a contract with the person offering upon the most reasonable terms to take charge of and maintain such pauper in sufficient and proper food and clothing for the term of one year.” Clearly, the intent was to find the person who would bid the lowest amount for care of the poor person(s). No doubt competitive bidding was intended to protect public funds, but the approach also must have encouraged a minimal standard of maintenance. In 1828 the Territorial Legislative Council authorized Wayne County to establish a poorhouse, and two years later all Michigan 1 Laws of the Territory of Michigan, Volume 1 (Lansing, MI: W.S. George, 1871), 90-91. At that time, the legislature of the Territory consisted of the governor and the judges of the Territory. In adopting this law, Michigan was following the lead of an earlier act adopted in 1790 by the legislature of the Northwest Territory. Salmon P. Chase, ed., Statutes of Ohio and of the Northwestern Territory, Adopted or Enacted from 1788 to 1833 Inclusive (Cincinnati: Corey & Fairbank, 1833), 107-09. 2 Laws of the Territory of Michigan, Volume 2 (Lansing, MI: W.S. George, 1874), 40. 3 Laws of the Territory of Michigan, Volume 2, 115. This law repealed the 1805 Act. The law also authorized the court to apprentice out “poor children as have no parents or guardian, or parents or guardians who are unable or do not properly support them.” 140 The Michigan Historical Review counties were authorized to erect one.4 In doing so, the Michigan Territory joined a movement that began in New England scores of years earlier.5 The poorhouse—a specific facility to house, feed, and provide complete care for occupants—was viewed as the primary vehicle for meeting needs of the unfortunate.6 The poorhouse movement was strongly motivated by the belief that poor persons needed rehabilitation in a sheltered environment to become productive members of society.7 This was as true in Michigan as it was elsewhere, for the 1830 law authorized directors of poorhouses to “prescribe such rules and regulations as they shall think proper . . . for introducing the practice of sobriety, morality, and industry among its inhabitants.”8 The Wayne County poorhouse was always a sizeable establishment. Within several years of its establishment in Hamtramck Township, it was moved to a larger location in what is now Westland. Serving Detroit and many suburbs, it expanded over the next hundred years to become a huge, self-supporting, multi-disciplinary facility widely known as Eloise.9 It contained not only multiple residential buildings and a sizeable farm, but also a large hospital complex (including one of the nation’s largest and most respected mental hospitals), police and fire departments, railroad and trolley stations, and numerous auxiliary buildings. The poorhouses of other Michigan counties were nothing like Eloise. They usually consisted of a single residential building on a rural parcel that was sufficiently large to allow also for a county farm. The farm grew crops and produce to feed the poorhouse occupants and offer limited recreation and employment opportunities for able-bodied residents. As many Michigan counties were not...