Elizabeth Poor Laws: Why were they so important in the development of social welfare in North America?: The Elizabeth Poor Law advocated and placed responsibility of the poor to the churches and government. If parishes could not meet the responsibilities, counties were required to assume relief-giving functions. The government became the chief enforcer of poor relief. However, the local parishes fulfilled their welfare responsibilities in several ways. They provided outdoor relief to persons in the homes; provided indoor relief to person in special institutions that came to be variously known as almshouse, poorhouses or workhouses; or required person to become indenture servants or apprentices. It also required relatives to care for their impoverished relatives. The poor were provided with unemployment relief, initiated works; regulated local prices to help poor persons; gave in-kind assistance such a as food, clothing, and wood, provided health care; and removed children from abusive households’ and gave legal protection . Many local jurisdictions possessed “laws of settlement” that entitled people to receive local poor law relief after a year’s residence. The Elizabeth Poor Law, Act of 1601: were very important in the development of social welfare in North America because, of the migration of American settlers from England and Europe in the early part of the 17th century. They came with semi-feudal ideas and, created communal, hierarchical and regulated enclaves that conformed to older traditions. As North America gained strong popularity, and the increase in population, it was important to have a foundation or a guide that would help addressed the needs of the poor. The Elizabeth Poor Laws served as the guide f... ... middle of paper ... ...s that were adopted from the Elizabethan Poor Laws. I feel that the TANF, unemployment, health care, and many other social welfare programs need to be review and restructure. North America is a rich country, but the richer are getting richer and poorer are getting poorer. In order to improve the economy and raise the poor standard to higher economic status, we must not ignore the poor. We must understand them and leave the punitive attitude in the past. As per the advice of a friend, when I had my first child, I became a single parent and she encouraged me to applied for temporary government assistance (TANF). I mentioned it to my father and his reply was “over my dead body” public assistance is for the poor, the drug addicts, the lazy, stupid and the ones that have no goals for themselves or their children. This was enough to discourage me.
In Complaint of an Indentured Servant, Sprig writes a letter to her father back home telling him about the poor living conditions and treatment she was receiving. Elizabeth Sprig, however, didn’t have a strong relationship with her father during this time, it was actually far from that. She begins by asking her father for forgiveness because she feels like she might never leave from the torment. She tells him that the treatment she and the other English indentured servant suffer is beyond the comprehension of those back in England. Sprig begins to talk about how little they had to eat and how little they had to wear. She tells her father about the scarce amount of Indian corn and salt for their meals, and how they were almost naked because of the lack of clothes they received. The indentured servant had no shoes, nor stockings to wear and also no place to sleep. They were lucky to get offered a blanket to wrap up in on the ground. If they did something against owners, they were tied up and beaten as if they were animals. Elizabeth Sprig begs for some compassion from her father by asking him to simply sending her some clothes and a letter back. She even goes as far as telling him how to send these items over by ships. This was the treatment that almost every woman received when arriving in the new world. Women who found
It seems like the Welfare system treats its recipients with disrespect and shame to discourage them from joining the system. The people who made and run Welfare in the 1990s made Welfare into a blame game and forces recipients to solely blame themselves for their poverty. The moral prescriptions in individually getting rid of poverty according to TANF are the Work Plan/Family Plan. The focuses on work and family are contradictory because of how little time there is to get both goals done and each goal perpetuates the idea that it is the most important part of ending poverty. It seems like Welfare is more about getting people off of Welfare than eradicating poverty. There is a difference in the goals and that is reflected in how the recipients are treated and how Welfare is run.
In the summer of 1996, Congress finally passed and the President signed the "Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996", transforming the nation's welfare system. The passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act sets the stage for ongoing reconstruction of welfare systems on a state-by-state basis. The combined programs will increase from nearly $100 billion this year to $130 billion per year in 6 years. Programs included are for food stamps, SSI, child nutrition, foster care, the bloss grant program for child- care, and the new block grant to take the place of AFDC. All of those programs will seek $700 billion over the next 6 years, from the taxpayers of America. This program in its reformed mode will cost $55 billion less than it was assumed to cost if there were no changes and the entitlements were left alone. The current welfare system has failed the very families it was intended to serve. If the present welfare system was working so well we would not be here today.
In fact, many believed the poor were just worthless idlers who were not even trying to better there own situations, but instead were taking the high roads away from taxes and worries (Document 11). There were many observed instances in which those in poverty, when given the opputinity to better their lives, chose to stay poor and recieve handouts. One such cause comes from William Turner, and English Physican for Lord Earl of Somerset when he recounts how poor folks often begged on the Earl's door but when Turner offered to help health wise, they chose to stay sick and beg (Document 6). Similar to modern day abusers of the American Wellfare system, officals became very angry with idlers who did nothing but feed off the wealth of the working class in the form of alms. They even believed that idlers should be expelled from their communites as they only bring economics down (Document 5). Many also thought that in order received any aid at all a person must be working. Reforms such as the Workhouse Test Act in 1723, though this occured later than the period of discussion, were a result of these opinions. This act, among others, required that people work a set amount of hours before they could receive any aid. Even the famous Cardinal Richelieu of France believed that the idlers were “good-for-nothings” who were restricting those who actually needed help from getting it while they were being lazy and greedy (Document 8). This opinion of certain poor indivudals being lazy and abusing resources remains amoung those in power even today in
In this essay, we will examine three documents to prove that they do indeed support the assertion that women’s social status in the United States during the antebellum period and beyond was as “domestic household slaves” to their husband and children. The documents we will be examining are: “From Antislavery to Women 's Rights” by Angelina Grimke in 1838, “A Fourierist Newspaper Criticizes the Nuclear Family” in 1844, and “Woman in the Nineteenth Century” by Margaret Fuller in 1845.
Families with limited financial resources had to sell their personal goods or labor to feed and clothe themselves. In poor families, the housewives had to cook meals, make clothing, and clean in addition to making household goods to use and sell. Middle class and upper class women shared in most of these chores in their households, but often had servants to help.
In today’s America, there are many people who would either be disgusted at the very mention of Welfare or be highly grateful for its existence. I believe that in order for welfare to be more effective in America, there must be reform. From the time of its inceptions in 1935, welfare has lent a helping hand to many in crisis (Constitution Rights Foundation). However, at present many programs within the system are being abused and the people who are in real need are being cheated out of assistance. The year after the creation of welfare unemployment was just about twenty percent (Unemployment Statistics). The need for basic resources to survive was unparallel. Today, many people face the same needs as many did during the 30s. Some issues with
Women spent majority of their day ironing, washing clothes, baking, sewing clothes and raising their children (page 17). Religion also added to women’s lesser status (page 18). Religion was at the core life of Americans, female submission was decreed to be part of God’s order (page 18). Lucretia Mott soon pointed out that many scriptures celebrated female strength and independence (page 18). As a young girl Elizabeth Cady Stanton learned about laws that limited rights of wives and as an adult found ways to reform marriage and divorce laws (page 23). Things were looking up for women, by 1850 female wage workers made up nearly a quarter of the manufacturing labor work force (page 30). Women were still excluded from occupations such as the military, ministry, law, medicine and jobs felt inappropriate for women (page 32). During this antebellum period women were starting to rise up and realize they deserved to have the same rights and privileges men received. This gave women hope that things could change. By the second quarter of the 19th century few positive changes for women pushed Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Susan B Anthony, Lucy Stone and others to challenge injustices and reform efforts (page
Poverty is not just an issue reserved for third world countries. Instead, poverty is a multifaceted issue that even the most developed nations must battle
Collapse of medieval social structure paved the way for the policies which majorly concentrated on the upliftment of poor. This resulted in the poor relief act for the betterment of the underprivileged people of the society. During 1547 beggars were grouped as ‘V’ and were forced to slavery for two years. The law of 1572 continued this approach stating that beggars should be punished and for a third offence should be given death penalty. The only help for poor people was through private charity. Growing numbers of beggars and vagrants were of great concern to the then ruling government. They were of the view that this might lead to social disorder and hence a distinction was being made between the poor. The poor then were categorized into deserving and the undeserving poor. The deserving poor consisted of the elderly and the very young and families who occasionally found themselves in financial difficulties due to a change in circumstance they were considered deserving of social support. The undeserving poor were those people who often turned to crime to make their living, migrant wo...
Millions of people in the United States today are on some type of public assistance. Some Americans are on Medicare, which provides to the people who cannot afford private health insurance and for those 65 or older. Another type of public assistance is TANF, which many families are on; an organization that helps needy families with some grants and guidance provided by the government. Some states are taking all obligatory measurements to make sure that the taxpayers’ money for public assistance is being used properly by those people who actually need the help and not to buy drugs and alcohol. These public restrictions are put in place, so the people who actually need the help to survive and who wish to live their lives with the American dream in mind, may have a chance.
contributed to this. The Poor Law “was the first comprehensive legislation to the poor.” The poor
The pre-feminism concept of gender differences is captured by Harvey C. Mansfield: “Formerly society recognized the differences between the sexes, and with laws and customs accentuated those differences (435).” And indeed, accentuate them it did, as women were left without many opportunities enjoyed by their male counterparts. The absence of such opportunities, included voting rights, education, and property rights, is documented in Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s Declaration of Sentiments (411). Stanton does not speak to innate gender differences per se, but roundly testifies of the political injustice experienced by American women in the 1800’s. She shines the “equal station to which they [women] are entitled” through the prism of the Declaration of Independence, matching the inequality of women to men with the colonies to the English Crown, to reveal a sad portrait of female personhood (411-412, Italics mine).
In the world today there is a lot of poverty. There is a great divide
In conclusion, sometimes actions take place that changes a person’s outlook on life and as you can see poverty is one that can have a huge effect on not only one person, but also the people around him/ her.