Shaping Poor Relief for the Sick‐Poor in Indiana's Pioneering Era, Tippecanoe County, Indiana, 1826‐1846

Abstract

Poor relief practices in rural Tippecanoe County first involved boarding the sick‐poor in the community and later broadened to include institutional care. Local officials implemented these changes not to achieve social control of an increasing and more diverse population but, at first, to consolidate the costs of caring for the chronically ill. Although the farm was not cost effective, it continued and expanded to include some acutely ill. County officials' pragmatic attention to local conditions, personal needs, and attitudes toward poverty and health informed their actions, shaping the county's relief program—a program that served only a minority of the sick‐poor.