ABSTRACT
In the early republic, poverty was one of the most urgent social issues facing the new nation. Poor people did not have access to the basic necessities of life: adequate housing, food, employment, education, and health care. Historians have estimated that the proportion of people living in poverty in the American colonies was as high as 33 percent of the population. Historian Gary Nash reported that on the eve of the American Revolution, poverty “blighted the lives
Poorhouse residents climbing a treadmill as part of their work requirement
of a large part of the population.” Urban poverty received the most amount of attention, but rural America, where more than 90 percent of the population lived in the late eighteenth century, was also home to widespread poverty.1
