"there are dark corners in history where we find things we don't want to study, but it's my job" I love your passion and approach to these videos. I have to say the "poor" series of your videos have been among my favorites. Like you say, it's not often spoken about but it's an important part of our history.
My Grandpa was born in 1904 and at 2 years old his mother had died and his father was in and out of prison in what is now part of Glasgow. All 4 kids were sent to /raised in a workhouse. By the time they were teens they were out working. My Grandpa was in the merchant marines at 13 or 14 during the war. Not sure what happened to him in between there but he indentured himself to come to Canada in 1929 or 1930 - working as a farm labourer until the debt of passage and room/board was paid off. Eventually working his way across the country where he met my Grandma (both marrying late in life). He prided himself on building a "house" out of two box cars, no water or power even in the 1950s but it was his. My Dad and his two brothers shared a small room. That's not so distant in the past and things were tough. The house still stands (however it's been added to) and is now part of a busy area in the city - I wish I could buy it as a reminder of how far that man came and how much he suffered that he refused to talk about it
Jon, I just want to say I really appreciate the attention and respect your team gives to the downtrodden of society. You all never fail to make sure in this sea of historical content we are blessed with today that their stories are being heard.
It's only being honest. If he omitted it, it would be a lie of omission. It's less about serving a particular group, and being honest to the public. Still a good thing, and I'd argue a better thing, since his principles are impartial, instead of biased. I respect that kind of genuineness.
I agree, we have so much material about the movers and shakers of the past. The aristocrats and royalty and politicians and industrialists, but the common people and the poor shaped their times too.
I'm neither from America nor am I poor but this video reminds me of the times my grandmother would tell me about her childhood growing up poor. She along with her parents and 7 siblings moved to Malaysia from China during WW2, during the Japanese occupation. She used to help my great grandmother do the neighbourhood's laundry until the wee hours of the morning just to get by. She worked hard even as an adult and is now happily retired and living a good life. While I may not know what it's like to be poor, hearing my grandma's experience about what it was like for her makes me grateful for the life that i have and has made me learn the importance of money and being frugal at an early age, which I'm thankful for.
There was a similar way for poor peasant families in the Alps in the 19th century and up to the 1920s. Families in the Alpine mountains that were so poor that they couldn't feed all of their children would send their children away to the Upper Swabian (german: Oberschwaben, thus the children were called "Schwabenkinder") region where these children would be sold to rich farmers as farm labourers for one farming season. At the end of the season the children would be send back to their families. I know this because it happened on the fringe of my home region.
@@chrissewell1608 Equal parts community service and employment. The children would eat while they worked, have a warm bed and a fire, and the parents could fend for themselves better when they didn't have children to care for. The farmer got some extra labour, but had to feed, clothe, and warm these children for a whole year. Not much different than in the USA where whole families would abandon their homestead, and move in with a farmer and trade labour for rent in the barn, that ended with the great dustbowl wiping out many farms though.
The idea of "binding" children out kinda existed far more recently than that. My grandmother was the eldest of her generation during the depression (about 10) and was adopted out to a much wealthier family who had her help operate their inn. All in all, she was treated more as a servant than as an adopted child in the modern sense of adoption, but it was one less mouth to feed for her parents (which seems to have made the difference between not quite enough to get by and just enough to get by), and she got decent room and board and was cared for and raised decently well, so by and large it worked out for everyone involved.
My father grew up on the prairies and told me that it wasn't anything unusual for a childless couple to go to a family that had too many children and ask for one - they wouldn't be refused! Let's appreciate how blessed we are that those kind of choices no longer need to be made.
@@humblesparrowAccording to our modern sensibilities. I like the idea of communities caring for everyone, even though not related. Children don't need parents, they need consistent adults in their life who care about them.
My parents unofficially adopted 3 sisters from an impoverished family down the street. Room, board, clothing, all of it. They called them my "foster sisters," though there was never any legal proceedings involved. It was just a deal between my folks and their mum.
@@kahl4077 Sounds like a much more caring situation than the old style - in my grandmother's case, the adopting family was primarily seeing it as acquiring a young but mostly-fully-capable employee who didn't have to be paid more than room and board. No accounts of this suggest there was any abuse involved, but it was not something the adopting family was doing out of charity and care for the girl they adopted; despite eating at their dinner table and so on, she was never really seen as part of that family in any way. Which sounds awful, but when the alternative is starvation for the whole family, the eldest child being sent off to work for and live with one of the richer folks in town is a pretty decent deal. And it's not like she was entirely cut off from her actual family.
We tend to forget/ignore that the idea of a 'childhood' as a fairly recent development from Victorian era England. Child labor was all too common up until recently.
@@KairuHakubi at least teens should do it. 12 years old may be too young to handle the risks of beying under a strager's supervision... Specially now when employers request 5 years experience for theyr first job. It does not means experience in the area (unless specified), just means they need to have knowledge about the realities of working. Pretty sure if they had some years as a part-time clerk in a shop it whould be taken into consideration. I started at 14 as a mechanics aprentice, btw. After school, part-time, salary paid. It even counts towards my retirement...
@@carloshenriquezimmer7543 yeah i wouldn't trust anyone below teens to work a REAL job-job, but kids should be able to be.. let me think.. assistants reaching things on low shelves.. order-write-downers.. bagging assistants.. welcomers at a restaurant.. Y'know not too many hours, but honestly nobody should be working many hours. if you work even half as much as you sleep, where is your life?
@@KairuHakubi sure, I did many of those jobs, when I was 7 or so, but it was in my parents's store, not in a stranger's one. The problem with too-young kids is having them under the "supervision" of adults that may have certain "inclinations" towards them... many stories of abuse to turn a blind eye to this side of the question.
@@carloshenriquezimmer7543 Exactly. Child abuse, sexual abuse, unwanted pregnancies at a tender age, hunger, sleeping on the floor, no blanket, no shoes, many sad stories. 😭💔
I am glad to see videos like this. I want to see the parts of history that people don't want to talk about. The bits people want to forget about always seem to be more telling than their idealized self-history.
@@Libertaro-i2uAlternative: We want escapism. We dont like looking at the problems in our daily lives, why would we look to the past just to see more misery? It's good to understand the realities of the time, but people are allowed to indulge fantasies of the past to alleviate sufferings of the present.
We weren't well off growing. Pretty poor in terms of my parents going without any luxury for their children. Mom not eating the good food, so us kids had more. Buying hand me down clothes and furnishings, and buying food on sale and clearances. Saving money all year for Christmas gifts. I learned a great deal about wants and needs, and how to save and budget, and cooking and preserving. We never went hungry, or cold, or unclothed. I feel I had it good compared to parents who didn't work hard and with less money sense. My parents didn't smoke, drink very often, or gamble. I can't imagine how hard some kids had it, where parents refused to work or had addiction.
Bless you John Townsend, never stear away from truth, no matter how painful. You're the best Social Studies professor our country has. Love and support always Nutmeg Master ❤
In Switzerland, they actually still have this system of community responsibilty. No matter what, you can always return to your family's "place of origin" to recieve help. (Given the trends of urbanization, some families have been living outside their "place of origin" for many generations!)
One of my great grandmas was sold into indentured servitude as a young girl to pay off a family debt. I can't imagine selling my child to pay off a debt, but it was common. She ended up pregnant by a man in the house and was released from service.
My great grandfather was sold by his family from the time he was around six years old. His father was an alcoholic and it was easier to sell your child rather than sober up and get a job. That was around the late 1860s.
My great-grandmother was one of many children in a very poor family that had a richer branch of the family living on a farm within walking distance (the poor family had a smaller farm), and when she was a small child, she and her slightly older sister were sent to the richer family to be adopted by them (since that family couldn't have children). In the end, the older sister ran away to return to her family and only my great-grandmother was actually adopted and raised as their daughter. And of her siblings, the only ones that stayed in Sweden were those in the graveyard. Everyone else moved to "the Americas".
I read that during the great depression in the dust bowl some places published the names of people receiving government assistance in the local papers. Imagine not being able to have a successful crop for maybe 4 years due to drought and low selling prices and even though your whole town is coming apart there are members of the community who feel the need to publicly shame the people receiving enough assistance to barely stay on their land. And the assistance often required hard physical labor on public projects but the recipients still had their names printed. That was less than 100 years ago.
I just wanted to say that I've been watching your videos off and on for years, though this one is the first time in a while that one of yours has come up as recommended. I come from an impoverished family, and over the years, I felt called to dive deep into where I came from. Sometimes in impoverished families, history gets erased. Your content really helps with replacing things that should have gotten told and passed down, but didn't. Thank you.
Henry Knox was taken out of school at age 9 and apprenticed to a bookseller. It was in the same town of Boston, so he may have still lived with his mother. He worked there til age 21. Then he opened his own store. He didn't run it very long before the Revolutionary War started. He became one of Washington's most trusted confidants and general of artillery, as well as the 1st secretary of war.
i love how the early american heroes were largely made of poor-ish immogrants and hard workers. not so much anymore, but the spirit of yesterday is still something to remember i think.
My 104 yr old farmer friend in WV was lent out and lived with a farmer at the age of 8 yrs old. To keep his feet warm while working outside in winter without any shoes, he would step in warm cow pies, bc it was warm, to keep from freezing.
I wonder if he builded up an immune system by stepping into the cow manure. Cows have two stomachs their manure is really healthy for plants. Because living to104 is really rare.
Poor kid without shoes working outside in ice and snow. Today we would scream 😱 child abuse and child labor, and make a very big stink about it. No doubt. Just 8 years old.
My Grandmother, born in 1903 was farmed out to her great aunt because her father(my great grandfather)ran off to the oil fields of Oklahoma and left my Great grandmother destitute. As a result my Great grandmother received help from her aunt for the remaining two young children.
Great video! I didn't know any of this before the video, specifically the link between the poor and their community. Thank you for exploring a rarely talked- about subject like this.
Your exploration of the history of everyday life is so important! I’m so thankful that you cover in depth the lives of people who did difficult jobs, necessary jobs, low wage jobs, and the poor. These situations are still with us today and looking back we can see where we came from, what we tried, and how we can do better to support and improve the lives of the people in our communities today. And hopefully recognize how ineffective tactics like shame have been. I really appreciate this work that you and your team do, Jon. Thanks for the depth of research, the way you make the past come to life, and the respect with which you treat each topic. You’re all awesome! ✌️😌✨
Thank you for doing a video on some dark stuff! Humans will be humans and we have to see the cruelty, oppression, and neglect of ALL cultures as well as their golden wonderful aspects. Keep being the wonderful historian/chef that you are Jon!!
My first direct male ancestor in the US was sentenced to transport due to charges of stealing a handkerchief tied around a couple shilling and pence from a church. Maybe true or maybe not as the level of proof then was not what it is today. He came from near the S Wales boundary. He or his son was a drover that supplied Washington's army when there was anything to haul which I gather wasn't often. (Have physical proof of this) His descendants (one or the other) would up in Virginia and founded a church, Baptist and the building is a preserved historical building that exists today, and he is listed as a fonder. His descendant would up in Texas before statehood (Houston) and a descendant moved to central Texas. I still live in Texas although not the central part. Thanks! for the Videos! Love them!
John, thanks for going into this difficult topic. Something you touch on at the end that would be interesting but I’m sure would be difficult: what would happen to the enslaved or indentured if those who held their indenture themselves became destitute?
My husband's grandma and her siblings were separated after the death of their mother in the 1920s. They were split between family members, orphanages far and near, or became servants in homes. Their father gradually dropped them off on his way up to St. Louis. The 1930s census was a good trace of his grandma's family. His great-grandfather started a new family and had two girls in an orphanage, not more 1-1/2 miles from his new family and a daughter working and living for a rich family over by Forest Park in St. Louis.
This is not uncommon - my grandmother was born in 1894 in Canada and while her immediate family did not suffer like that, her grown brother in the 30s did have to break up his children after the death of his wife - it was just the way it was, there was no child care if the mother was dead or gone, and the fathers had to work long hours, and often away from home for days at a time.
The problem is even more pronounced now because back then poor people could actually do work and get paid for helping out with the town/village subsistance at farms, mines or other services. the Industrial Revolution killed the self subsistent rural communities as people started moving to cities to get "better wages" which become more precarious because now you needed a degree for even the most baseline clerk job. Now we are seeing people actually getting out of the cities to buy rural housing but it's all people with stablished jobs who have the finances to buy the properties while the actually poor people are living on the streets and surviving out of trash.
The jobs in the city are only part of the story and definitely a part of it the industrial revolution is definitely truly when things turned heavy, alot of it also has to do with corporate farming and industrial agriculture, corporate control of food resources especially corporations that produce and started producing shelf stable foods canned, boxed etc, leveraged farming trends often making it hard for small producers to compete, and subsidized farming, and many policies and regulations government agencies implement, have been lobbied for and are actually designed to push small producers out and Centralize agriculture, and were of great benefit to mass scale corporate farming since they were created the amount of farmers and the cheap prices on commodities are pretty good evidence of this statistically, despite the messages they sell of promoting agriculture and farming and all the "great loans they give to farmers." Lol
I learned that people were indentured even into the 20th century. A person I follow on Facebook commented that his great grandfather came from Switzerland in 1918 as an indentured servant.
My Grandpa was in 1930. He signed/agreed to it himself so he could gain passage to Canada from Scotland. He worked the land until his debt/room & board was paid off. [I don't know how long it lasted]
the first ancestor from the anglo side of my family was a burglar who was transported to the colonies by force as an indentured servant as opposed to accepting punishment in England!
My grandfather, one of 4 children, was a 'Barnardo' boy who came to Canada as a young person. His father was in and out of the poor houses of England. There is no mother mentioned, so she must have died. He served in both world wars and had a steady job until he retired.
Coming from Indiana, I wonder if you ever looked into the "poor farms" or "county farms" used of providing for the poor and elderly in the early to mid-20th century? The remnants of one (along with a small graveyard) can be found in Paoli. It was usually referred to by the locals as "the old county farm).
Opportunities were once in a few even one to none, I can see why the older crowd sees loyalty towards a company or patron; those times are long gone. Trust has been eradicated on both sides of the employer and employee since the dismantling of America's industrial plants and factories.
My family were indentured servants, the scotch-Irish, and most likely took part in the whiskey rebellion. I'm guessing that is why I have the last name Poor. We were poor before and very much so after. It's great to hear history about poor people because that is what my family is named for.
@@xAlexZifko That is a possibility but who the hell would keep the name Poor? I'm proud of it myself, as many of my family are hardened hillbillies, which has a bad name now, but they are the salt of the earth. My great grandmother had an amazing farm, people in Wilburton know her for not only her generosity but for her ability to grow great crop. I'm proud to be a Poor. So if it was a mistake, and maybe it was, I am very proud of my name. Poor true and proud :) Just wish I could make those who came before me proud. . . But yeah the name sucks sometimes :P
There're a surprising amount of roads named things like - for instance - "Poverty Flat Road" (in Pendleton, Oregon) or "Poverty Hill Road" (Ellicottville, NY).
I happened upon your videos watching a documentary on Colonial America and have subscribed. My mother's family have been in the US since the late 1600s and early 1700s on 9 surnames I could trace. Not only that, they were mixed race (white from England and Holland, African slaves and Native American). I've been researching them since 1988 and love how your videos bring the 18th and early 19th centuries to life!
The definition of poor is completely different than it used to be hell the definition of being homeless it's completely different people suffer today but they do not understand true suffrage
Very informative! No system is perfect. We all need to learn from history and determine what tweaks need to be made in order to make the current system better for all humans involved in it.
On one side of my family, the lineage can be traced to a single orphan girl in the 1800s who was taken in by a family. Apparently it was rare at that time and in that region for orphans to be adopted. I don’t know if she was made a servant or treated as a daughter, but today it does not make a difference. That anyone took her in is part of the reason why I’m alive. While we look back and think that these situations were horrid, for the time, they might have been considered quite generous. There is no biological imperative to take care of anyone who is not blood, it is only our moral imperative that we do so.
Thank you for this fascinating insight into the management of poverty in olden times. It deserves to be noted that generally in the western world, a very large portion of the burden for poverty support was carried not by the state, but by Christian churches. Obviously, support was primarily directed at loyal church members, but not exclusively.
Got to expand on that a little. Being an indentured servant means you are being put to work by someone else, so I don't see what you mean by them having to find work or compete for it.
In rural areas there was the "poor farm," where the work was farming, which provided food. The sick and elderly also went to the farm, again due to the amount of food available.
My ancestor arrived in South Carolina in around 1735 as an indentured servant from Switzerland. He and 2000 other Swiss immigrants were from abject poverty in europe and sent to America to make a better life for themselves. I guess nobody told them about the 80 to 90% death rate in South Carolina to waterborne diseases. Luckily he was sold to an inland farmer away from the lowlands. Of course my great grandmother's family arrived with money in 1635, and related to the guy who founded Jamestown. Her family lived a very different life of elitism owning one of the largest plantations in Virginia, then Kentucky.
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" - George Santayana (1863-1952) "The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress" 1905-1906 vol.1 "Reason in Common Sense" page 284 THIS is why the records of history should never be modified no matter how horrid or painful.
I'd like it to be noted, that the white convicts and the indigenous Australians lived well together and often had mixed community encampments that were often raided and dispersed by military. The reason I want it noted is to demonstrate that it is the ones in power who want us divided, it's not part of human nature.
If ducks and geese are pretty expensive today, I'd imagine domesticated ones back then, in their economy would be worth a bunch too. Folks today would say things were cheaper back then(even in my years on earth, this is so and I'm 60 years old), but people generally made a whole lot less money per week too back then. My grandma said during the Depression she worked on the marsh pulling onions and received a dime for every crate filled. My grandpa worked as a mechanic in Kenton fixing tractors. When they both got home, they ate, then worked their own farm. Grandma said that one time they only had onions, lard and bread, so ate that as a sandwich.
Stealing things like ducks, chickens and live stock was a serious crime because of how important and expensive they were, providing food like eggs and meat could mean wealth or poverty for 17-18c people. It's hard-to-understand now but getting shipped off to a colony was probably a light sentence.
Basically an equivalent of stealing your vehicle, and yes usually the outcasts and persecuted were sent to the colonies not just the British. Look at Australia initially.
@@ianfinrir8724 or even worse, stealing the propriety of someone's LANDLORD, that would have the teanent held accountable for it. Basically the teanent would be sent to jail, if the theft could not be prooven to be reason for the lost livestock. Just like Ned Kelly's father, sent to Australia for killing his landlord pigs (2, if I remember), but he sworne that they were stolen. IDK if the story is the truth or an anecdote, told to ilustrate the injustices that Kelly was figthing against;but, given that it was told as if was true, it certanly was not an uncommon happening.
So true...I read a book on the history of a small town in Vermont...If you were from the community, support was there;, not from the community...you were forced out....and told to move along.
That poor law with having relatives and only allowing communities to integrate would be perfect in modern america. There are too many of the wrong people moving here to the south, not sending their best.
8:33 While not as explicit, this is still very much a part of policy today. Food stamps and EBT cards serve this purpose, identifiers for kids on lunch assistance, and plenty more. When we look back on history we have to acknowledge that in some ways we do better, and in some ways we are still just as cruel as those that came before.
Thank You for researching so much about how poor people had to live. I grew up in poverty, and I still owe my life to the support I get now. I never even knew there was support for the poor back then (so it was actually slightly better than I thought lol). Definitely puts things in perspective..
In several towns in New England, you will see a "Poor Farm Road", where the poor farm used to be. I think it was farmland made available for people who couldn't afford to own or rent land to grow food for themselves. Part of Brown University, in Providence, RI, is built on Dexter's Asylum which was for the poor.
Families stayed together back then. There were no safety nets. No social security. Grandparents were supported by the family and never left the family home. Back then, it took the whole family working and struggling just to keep "the wolf" away from the door.
@@Tinil0 Nothing wrong with families staying together and working toward a common goal. Today's welfare is what is messed up about this country and creates no responsibility for one's own actions.
The importance of community is crucial to the survival of humanity. If you want to know what will happen next in our lives, just look back into history. We've done it all before!
"there are dark corners in history where we find things we don't want to study, but it's my job"
I love your passion and approach to these videos. I have to say the "poor" series of your videos have been among my favorites. Like you say, it's not often spoken about but it's an important part of our history.
Human history is dark af.
My Grandpa was born in 1904 and at 2 years old his mother had died and his father was in and out of prison in what is now part of Glasgow. All 4 kids were sent to /raised in a workhouse. By the time they were teens they were out working. My Grandpa was in the merchant marines at 13 or 14 during the war. Not sure what happened to him in between there but he indentured himself to come to Canada in 1929 or 1930 - working as a farm labourer until the debt of passage and room/board was paid off. Eventually working his way across the country where he met my Grandma (both marrying late in life). He prided himself on building a "house" out of two box cars, no water or power even in the 1950s but it was his. My Dad and his two brothers shared a small room. That's not so distant in the past and things were tough. The house still stands (however it's been added to) and is now part of a busy area in the city - I wish I could buy it as a reminder of how far that man came and how much he suffered that he refused to talk about it
What a horrible childhood I am so sorry for them.
Proud for him that he fouhgt his way through.
@@extendedpinky ❤
@@Vanda-il9ul ❤
Jon, I just want to say I really appreciate the attention and respect your team gives to the downtrodden of society. You all never fail to make sure in this sea of historical content we are blessed with today that their stories are being heard.
Agreed! Thank you for telling the stories of the poor
It's only being honest. If he omitted it, it would be a lie of omission. It's less about serving a particular group, and being honest to the public. Still a good thing, and I'd argue a better thing, since his principles are impartial, instead of biased. I respect that kind of genuineness.
@@sinisterthoughts2896why are you the way you are
I agree, we have so much material about the movers and shakers of the past. The aristocrats and royalty and politicians and industrialists, but the common people and the poor shaped their times too.
@@sulkthehulkbecause he likes being nuanced and precise.
Never apologize for telling the truth of history. To many have forgotten that's why we are where we are today.
I'm neither from America nor am I poor but this video reminds me of the times my grandmother would tell me about her childhood growing up poor. She along with her parents and 7 siblings moved to Malaysia from China during WW2, during the Japanese occupation. She used to help my great grandmother do the neighbourhood's laundry until the wee hours of the morning just to get by. She worked hard even as an adult and is now happily retired and living a good life. While I may not know what it's like to be poor, hearing my grandma's experience about what it was like for her makes me grateful for the life that i have and has made me learn the importance of money and being frugal at an early age, which I'm thankful for.
There was a similar way for poor peasant families in the Alps in the 19th century and up to the 1920s. Families in the Alpine mountains that were so poor that they couldn't feed all of their children would send their children away to the Upper Swabian (german: Oberschwaben, thus the children were called "Schwabenkinder") region where these children would be sold to rich farmers as farm labourers for one farming season. At the end of the season the children would be send back to their families. I know this because it happened on the fringe of my home region.
Sounds like leased slavery to me!
@@chrissewell1608 Equal parts community service and employment. The children would eat while they worked, have a warm bed and a fire, and the parents could fend for themselves better when they didn't have children to care for. The farmer got some extra labour, but had to feed, clothe, and warm these children for a whole year. Not much different than in the USA where whole families would abandon their homestead, and move in with a farmer and trade labour for rent in the barn, that ended with the great dustbowl wiping out many farms though.
@@chrissewell1608 it was, switzerland had Verdingsbuben into the 20th century. Some still are alive.
same thing happend in norway, its caled "barnevandrerene" or child walkers, as they walked to the rich southern farms of kristiansand to work a season
there is even a movie about it under the same name
The idea of "binding" children out kinda existed far more recently than that. My grandmother was the eldest of her generation during the depression (about 10) and was adopted out to a much wealthier family who had her help operate their inn. All in all, she was treated more as a servant than as an adopted child in the modern sense of adoption, but it was one less mouth to feed for her parents (which seems to have made the difference between not quite enough to get by and just enough to get by), and she got decent room and board and was cared for and raised decently well, so by and large it worked out for everyone involved.
My father grew up on the prairies and told me that it wasn't anything unusual for a childless couple to go to a family that had too many children and ask for one - they wouldn't be refused! Let's appreciate how blessed we are that those kind of choices no longer need to be made.
@@humblesparrowAccording to our modern sensibilities.
I like the idea of communities caring for everyone, even though not related.
Children don't need parents, they need consistent adults in their life who care about them.
@@jaegrant6441 It is rather poignant when you think about it, but boy oh boy what a different world.
My parents unofficially adopted 3 sisters from an impoverished family down the street. Room, board, clothing, all of it. They called them my "foster sisters," though there was never any legal proceedings involved. It was just a deal between my folks and their mum.
@@kahl4077 Sounds like a much more caring situation than the old style - in my grandmother's case, the adopting family was primarily seeing it as acquiring a young but mostly-fully-capable employee who didn't have to be paid more than room and board. No accounts of this suggest there was any abuse involved, but it was not something the adopting family was doing out of charity and care for the girl they adopted; despite eating at their dinner table and so on, she was never really seen as part of that family in any way.
Which sounds awful, but when the alternative is starvation for the whole family, the eldest child being sent off to work for and live with one of the richer folks in town is a pretty decent deal. And it's not like she was entirely cut off from her actual family.
We tend to forget/ignore that the idea of a 'childhood' as a fairly recent development from Victorian era England. Child labor was all too common up until recently.
since labor is no longer back-breaking, we can safely let kids start doing it again
@@KairuHakubi at least teens should do it. 12 years old may be too young to handle the risks of beying under a strager's supervision...
Specially now when employers request 5 years experience for theyr first job. It does not means experience in the area (unless specified), just means they need to have knowledge about the realities of working.
Pretty sure if they had some years as a part-time clerk in a shop it whould be taken into consideration.
I started at 14 as a mechanics aprentice, btw. After school, part-time, salary paid. It even counts towards my retirement...
@@carloshenriquezimmer7543 yeah i wouldn't trust anyone below teens to work a REAL job-job, but kids should be able to be.. let me think.. assistants reaching things on low shelves.. order-write-downers.. bagging assistants.. welcomers at a restaurant.. Y'know not too many hours, but honestly nobody should be working many hours. if you work even half as much as you sleep, where is your life?
@@KairuHakubi sure, I did many of those jobs, when I was 7 or so, but it was in my parents's store, not in a stranger's one.
The problem with too-young kids is having them under the "supervision" of adults that may have certain "inclinations" towards them... many stories of abuse to turn a blind eye to this side of the question.
@@carloshenriquezimmer7543
Exactly. Child abuse, sexual abuse, unwanted pregnancies at a tender age, hunger, sleeping on the floor, no blanket, no shoes, many sad stories. 😭💔
I am glad to see videos like this. I want to see the parts of history that people don't want to talk about. The bits people want to forget about always seem to be more telling than their idealized self-history.
Some people have this utopian view of the past. The rose colored glasses are stuck on them.
@@Libertaro-i2uAlternative: We want escapism.
We dont like looking at the problems in our daily lives, why would we look to the past just to see more misery? It's good to understand the realities of the time, but people are allowed to indulge fantasies of the past to alleviate sufferings of the present.
We weren't well off growing. Pretty poor in terms of my parents going without any luxury for their children. Mom not eating the good food, so us kids had more. Buying hand me down clothes and furnishings, and buying food on sale and clearances. Saving money all year for Christmas gifts. I learned a great deal about wants and needs, and how to save and budget, and cooking and preserving.
We never went hungry, or cold, or unclothed. I feel I had it good compared to parents who didn't work hard and with less money sense. My parents didn't smoke, drink very often, or gamble. I can't imagine how hard some kids had it, where parents refused to work or had addiction.
Always a joy when Townsends releases a video! Cheers, all!
Bless you John Townsend, never stear away from truth, no matter how painful. You're the best Social Studies professor our country has. Love and support always Nutmeg Master ❤
In Switzerland, they actually still have this system of community responsibilty. No matter what, you can always return to your family's "place of origin" to recieve help. (Given the trends of urbanization, some families have been living outside their "place of origin" for many generations!)
One of my great grandmas was sold into indentured servitude as a young girl to pay off a family debt. I can't imagine selling my child to pay off a debt, but it was common. She ended up pregnant by a man in the house and was released from service.
Horrific. ❤️🩹
that was nice of him !!!
Leave an unmarried pregnant woman to fend for herself.
My family history has indentured servitude as well.
My great grandfather was sold by his family from the time he was around six years old. His father was an alcoholic and it was easier to sell your child rather than sober up and get a job. That was around the late 1860s.
My great-grandmother was one of many children in a very poor family that had a richer branch of the family living on a farm within walking distance (the poor family had a smaller farm), and when she was a small child, she and her slightly older sister were sent to the richer family to be adopted by them (since that family couldn't have children).
In the end, the older sister ran away to return to her family and only my great-grandmother was actually adopted and raised as their daughter. And of her siblings, the only ones that stayed in Sweden were those in the graveyard. Everyone else moved to "the Americas".
I read that during the great depression in the dust bowl some places published the names of people receiving government assistance in the local papers. Imagine not being able to have a successful crop for maybe 4 years due to drought and low selling prices and even though your whole town is coming apart there are members of the community who feel the need to publicly shame the people receiving enough assistance to barely stay on their land. And the assistance often required hard physical labor on public projects but the recipients still had their names printed. That was less than 100 years ago.
Poverty shaming is still a thing to this day. The problem is some in society see poverty as a moral failing rather than a societal one.
If you're in genuine need, it shouldn't be stigmatized.
😢
All I can think of is how many of these people got taken advantage of in these situations, especially kids. You absolutely know that it happened.
Absolutely. Child molestation is not a new phenomenon.
@@Sigmund1924Agreed. Goes back to ancient times.
I just wanted to say that I've been watching your videos off and on for years, though this one is the first time in a while that one of yours has come up as recommended. I come from an impoverished family, and over the years, I felt called to dive deep into where I came from. Sometimes in impoverished families, history gets erased. Your content really helps with replacing things that should have gotten told and passed down, but didn't. Thank you.
Henry Knox was taken out of school at age 9 and apprenticed to a bookseller. It was in the same town of Boston, so he may have still lived with his mother. He worked there til age 21. Then he opened his own store. He didn't run it very long before the Revolutionary War started. He became one of Washington's most trusted confidants and general of artillery, as well as the 1st secretary of war.
i love how the early american heroes were largely made of poor-ish immogrants and hard workers. not so much anymore, but the spirit of yesterday is still something to remember i think.
My 104 yr old farmer friend in WV was lent out and lived with a farmer at the age of 8 yrs old.
To keep his feet warm while working outside in winter without any shoes, he would step in warm cow pies, bc it was warm, to keep from freezing.
Truly a time when America was Great, as the Founding Fathers intended.
@@TootTootUSA One particular party wants to be back to those days.
I wonder if he builded up an immune system by stepping into the cow manure. Cows have two stomachs their manure is really healthy for plants. Because living to104 is really rare.
@@annarowden9457 cows actually have 4 stomachs I have learned as a child. Stuff really gets chewed well and again, and well digested.
Poor kid without shoes working outside in ice and snow. Today we would scream 😱 child abuse and child labor, and make a very big stink about it. No doubt. Just 8 years old.
My Grandmother, born in 1903 was farmed out to her great aunt because her father(my great grandfather)ran off to the oil fields of Oklahoma and left my Great grandmother destitute. As a result my Great grandmother received help from her aunt for the remaining two young children.
Great video! I didn't know any of this before the video, specifically the link between the poor and their community. Thank you for exploring a rarely talked- about subject like this.
Your exploration of the history of everyday life is so important! I’m so thankful that you cover in depth the lives of people who did difficult jobs, necessary jobs, low wage jobs, and the poor. These situations are still with us today and looking back we can see where we came from, what we tried, and how we can do better to support and improve the lives of the people in our communities today. And hopefully recognize how ineffective tactics like shame have been.
I really appreciate this work that you and your team do, Jon. Thanks for the depth of research, the way you make the past come to life, and the respect with which you treat each topic. You’re all awesome! ✌️😌✨
Thank you for doing a video on some dark stuff! Humans will be humans and we have to see the cruelty, oppression, and neglect of ALL cultures as well as their golden wonderful aspects. Keep being the wonderful historian/chef that you are Jon!!
As a professional hurdy-gurdy busker, the thumbnail grabbed me right away! Fascinating topic!!
I'd like to see a video covering the other groups and how they took care of each other.
My first direct male ancestor in the US was sentenced to transport due to charges of stealing a handkerchief tied around a couple shilling and pence from a church. Maybe true or maybe not as the level of proof then was not what it is today. He came from near the S Wales boundary. He or his son was a drover that supplied Washington's army when there was anything to haul which I gather wasn't often. (Have physical proof of this) His descendants (one or the other) would up in Virginia and founded a church, Baptist and the building is a preserved historical building that exists today, and he is listed as a fonder. His descendant would up in Texas before statehood (Houston) and a descendant moved to central Texas. I still live in Texas although not the central part. Thanks! for the Videos! Love them!
Great video Jon! I live in NH and am just a few miles up the road from a former town Poor Farm. It's a fascinating period of history
Thanks for sharing with us Jon.
John, thanks for going into this difficult topic. Something you touch on at the end that would be interesting but I’m sure would be difficult: what would happen to the enslaved or indentured if those who held their indenture themselves became destitute?
My husband's grandma and her siblings were separated after the death of their mother in the 1920s. They were split between family members, orphanages far and near, or became servants in homes. Their father gradually dropped them off on his way up to St. Louis. The 1930s census was a good trace of his grandma's family. His great-grandfather started a new family and had two girls in an orphanage, not more 1-1/2 miles from his new family and a daughter working and living for a rich family over by Forest Park in St. Louis.
This is not uncommon - my grandmother was born in 1894 in Canada and while her immediate family did not suffer like that, her grown brother in the 30s did have to break up his children after the death of his wife - it was just the way it was, there was no child care if the mother was dead or gone, and the fathers had to work long hours, and often away from home for days at a time.
The problem is even more pronounced now because back then poor people could actually do work and get paid for helping out with the town/village subsistance at farms, mines or other services. the Industrial Revolution killed the self subsistent rural communities as people started moving to cities to get "better wages" which become more precarious because now you needed a degree for even the most baseline clerk job. Now we are seeing people actually getting out of the cities to buy rural housing but it's all people with stablished jobs who have the finances to buy the properties while the actually poor people are living on the streets and surviving out of trash.
The jobs in the city are only part of the story and definitely a part of it the industrial revolution is definitely truly when things turned heavy, alot of it also has to do with corporate farming and industrial agriculture, corporate control of food resources especially corporations that produce and started producing shelf stable foods canned, boxed etc, leveraged farming trends often making it hard for small producers to compete, and subsidized farming, and many policies and regulations government agencies implement, have been lobbied for and are actually designed to push small producers out and Centralize agriculture, and were of great benefit to mass scale corporate farming since they were created the amount of farmers and the cheap prices on commodities are pretty good evidence of this statistically, despite the messages they sell of promoting agriculture and farming and all the "great loans they give to farmers." Lol
Our history is so important.
Thank you for everything you all do !
I learned that people were indentured even into the 20th century. A person I follow on Facebook commented that his great grandfather came from Switzerland in 1918 as an indentured servant.
My Grandpa was in 1930. He signed/agreed to it himself so he could gain passage to Canada from Scotland. He worked the land until his debt/room & board was paid off. [I don't know how long it lasted]
So much great information, I always love your content. Keep making amazing stuff!
Thanks for covering this subject. I found it very interesting.
the first ancestor from the anglo side of my family was a burglar who was transported to the colonies by force as an indentured servant as opposed to accepting punishment in England!
Dang, didn't know that one of Townsend's ancestors was a hardened criminal. Spiciest youtuber controversy of the 18th century!
This is way I like this channel. The unvarnished TRUTH about those times.
My grandfather, one of 4 children, was a 'Barnardo' boy who came to Canada as a young person. His father was in and out of the poor houses of England. There is no mother mentioned, so she must have died. He served in both world wars and had a steady job until he retired.
Coming from Indiana, I wonder if you ever looked into the "poor farms" or "county farms" used of providing for the poor and elderly in the early to mid-20th century? The remnants of one (along with a small graveyard) can be found in Paoli. It was usually referred to by the locals as "the old county farm).
When I was young, there was a really good show about a poor person from South Philadelphia, who became a prince…..
Thanks for the awesome video and all the amazing content!!!!
Opportunities were once in a few even one to none, I can see why the older crowd sees loyalty towards a company or patron; those times are long gone. Trust has been eradicated on both sides of the employer and employee since the dismantling of America's industrial plants and factories.
My family were indentured servants, the scotch-Irish, and most likely took part in the whiskey rebellion. I'm guessing that is why I have the last name Poor. We were poor before and very much so after. It's great to hear history about poor people because that is what my family is named for.
Wow lol
I wonder if some form got filled out mistakenly once leading to it
@@xAlexZifko That is a possibility but who the hell would keep the name Poor? I'm proud of it myself, as many of my family are hardened hillbillies, which has a bad name now, but they are the salt of the earth. My great grandmother had an amazing farm, people in Wilburton know her for not only her generosity but for her ability to grow great crop. I'm proud to be a Poor. So if it was a mistake, and maybe it was, I am very proud of my name. Poor true and proud :) Just wish I could make those who came before me proud. . . But yeah the name sucks sometimes :P
Thanks Jon, As Always A Very Interesting Topic!
Very interesting topic. You give such a great insight into history
thank you for another wonderful, informative video
Thanks for another wonderful video!
I always love this channel, and I love how they live back then.
everyday I learn something new, thanks townsends :)
Outstanding video Jon!
Well done. Thank you.
FIRST :D Love you channel! Always a Joy to watch your vids and learn a thing or two.
REKT DELETE THIS
Incorrect
There're a surprising amount of roads named things like - for instance - "Poverty Flat Road" (in Pendleton, Oregon) or "Poverty Hill Road" (Ellicottville, NY).
Thanks! Some things I never knew about. Great comments section too!
My mothers ancestors were indentured servants coming over in 1711 coming from the German Palatinate community.
I happened upon your videos watching a documentary on Colonial America and have subscribed. My mother's family have been in the US since the late 1600s and early 1700s on 9 surnames I could trace. Not only that, they were mixed race (white from England and Holland, African slaves and Native American). I've been researching them since 1988 and love how your videos bring the 18th and early 19th centuries to life!
John keep up the good work 😄💯
THIS CHANNEL IS GOLD. PROTECT IT!
i am the poor in modern america
Going to cry shenanigans because you're here and making that claim.
@@Alte.Kameradenyou can be poor and still be on the internet, the internet is one of the most basic needs after all
The definition of poor is completely different than it used to be hell the definition of being homeless it's completely different people suffer today but they do not understand true suffrage
Me too!
Same and im in nyc 😢😢😢😢
Very informative! No system is perfect. We all need to learn from history and determine what tweaks need to be made in order to make the current system better for all humans involved in it.
On one side of my family, the lineage can be traced to a single orphan girl in the 1800s who was taken in by a family. Apparently it was rare at that time and in that region for orphans to be adopted. I don’t know if she was made a servant or treated as a daughter, but today it does not make a difference. That anyone took her in is part of the reason why I’m alive.
While we look back and think that these situations were horrid, for the time, they might have been considered quite generous. There is no biological imperative to take care of anyone who is not blood, it is only our moral imperative that we do so.
this video was fascinating, it could have been an hour long and still have been too short
The last time I was this early to a video, we were still IN early America...
My ancestors were dumped in New Orleans from Paris prisons for bootlegging salt.
Thank you for this fascinating insight into the management of poverty in olden times. It deserves to be noted that generally in the western world, a very large portion of the burden for poverty support was carried not by the state, but by Christian churches. Obviously, support was primarily directed at loyal church members, but not exclusively.
The former indentured servants would then have to compete with new indentured servants for work. Often, the new people would be younger and cheaper.
Got to expand on that a little. Being an indentured servant means you are being put to work by someone else, so I don't see what you mean by them having to find work or compete for it.
We need to bring these systems back.
We have way too many indolent people these days who could benefit from a work house
In rural areas there was the "poor farm," where the work was farming, which provided food. The sick and elderly also went to the farm, again due to the amount of food available.
I was born in the late 1950's and there was a poor farm in our area even then.
My ancestor arrived in South Carolina in around 1735 as an indentured servant from Switzerland. He and 2000 other Swiss immigrants were from abject poverty in europe and sent to America to make a better life for themselves. I guess nobody told them about the 80 to 90% death rate in South Carolina to waterborne diseases. Luckily he was sold to an inland farmer away from the lowlands. Of course my great grandmother's family arrived with money in 1635, and related to the guy who founded Jamestown. Her family lived a very different life of elitism owning one of the largest plantations in Virginia, then Kentucky.
I appreciate you talking about non-European poor, both the Native American and Black (freed and enslaved).
Thanks Jon and Crew👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼 🍂🍁🍂
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" - George Santayana (1863-1952) "The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress" 1905-1906 vol.1 "Reason in Common Sense" page 284
THIS is why the records of history should never be modified no matter how horrid or painful.
I always thought Australia was the dumping ground for convicts.
Australia only became that dumping ground once North America was no longer available after the Revolution.
You aren't wrong, but it was the next one.
I'd like it to be noted, that the white convicts and the indigenous Australians lived well together and often had mixed community encampments that were often raided and dispersed by military.
The reason I want it noted is to demonstrate that it is the ones in power who want us divided, it's not part of human nature.
This was a really nice history lesson.
If ducks and geese are pretty expensive today, I'd imagine domesticated ones back then, in their economy would be worth a bunch too. Folks today would say things were cheaper back then(even in my years on earth, this is so and I'm 60 years old), but people generally made a whole lot less money per week too back then. My grandma said during the Depression she worked on the marsh pulling onions and received a dime for every crate filled. My grandpa worked as a mechanic in Kenton fixing tractors. When they both got home, they ate, then worked their own farm. Grandma said that one time they only had onions, lard and bread, so ate that as a sandwich.
My Mom ate lard n onion sandwiches to when she was a kid during Depression!
Stealing things like ducks, chickens and live stock was a serious crime because of how important and expensive they were, providing food like eggs and meat could mean wealth or poverty for 17-18c people. It's hard-to-understand now but getting shipped off to a colony was probably a light sentence.
Yeah... I thought the same. The numbers he posited were rather high and the damages and value of the crime and goods would have been steep.
Stealing livestock is quite literally taking food from someone's mouth.
Basically an equivalent of stealing your vehicle, and yes usually the outcasts and persecuted were sent to the colonies not just the British. Look at Australia initially.
@@ianfinrir8724 or even worse, stealing the propriety of someone's LANDLORD, that would have the teanent held accountable for it. Basically the teanent would be sent to jail, if the theft could not be prooven to be reason for the lost livestock.
Just like Ned Kelly's father, sent to Australia for killing his landlord pigs (2, if I remember), but he sworne that they were stolen.
IDK if the story is the truth or an anecdote, told to ilustrate the injustices that Kelly was figthing against;but, given that it was told as if was true, it certanly was not an uncommon happening.
So true...I read a book on the history of a small town in Vermont...If you were from the community, support was there;, not from the community...you were forced out....and told to move along.
Great topic. I love to learn more about everyday life in the time period.
Thanks for this video.
Another portion of awesome knowledge 👍👍👍
Fascinating, thank you.
This vid was well worth my time to watch 1
That poor law with having relatives and only allowing communities to integrate would be perfect in modern america. There are too many of the wrong people moving here to the south, not sending their best.
I like learning these things!
8:33 While not as explicit, this is still very much a part of policy today. Food stamps and EBT cards serve this purpose, identifiers for kids on lunch assistance, and plenty more. When we look back on history we have to acknowledge that in some ways we do better, and in some ways we are still just as cruel as those that came before.
The best we'll ever have are trade off's.
Thank You for researching so much about how poor people had to live. I grew up in poverty, and I still owe my life to the support I get now. I never even knew there was support for the poor back then (so it was actually slightly better than I thought lol). Definitely puts things in perspective..
Thank you for covering my life right now 🎉❤
I doubt you live "right now" as the impoverished lived then. Unless you live in the wilderness, which I doubt since you are on the internet.
It may seem harsh in these times, but don’t doubt for a moment that these times may return.
Very insightful.
Great thumbnail. Grave topic. Then as well as today.
Very interesting historical perspective on dealing and helping with the poor.
Excellent comment .. "It's my job as a historian ..."
Thank you! I will do some research on this!❤
In several towns in New England, you will see a "Poor Farm Road", where the poor farm used to be. I think it was farmland made available for people who couldn't afford to own or rent land to grow food for themselves. Part of Brown University, in Providence, RI, is built on Dexter's Asylum which was for the poor.
Second only to the intriguing history lesson, my favourite parts of these videos are the B-roll footage in the woods.
Families stayed together back then. There were no safety nets. No social security. Grandparents were supported by the family and never left the family home. Back then, it took the whole family working and struggling just to keep "the wolf" away from the door.
And to think, some conservatives want to return to that!
@@Tinil0 Nothing wrong with families staying together and working toward a common goal. Today's welfare is what is messed up about this country and creates no responsibility for one's own actions.
The importance of community is crucial to the survival of humanity. If you want to know what will happen next in our lives, just look back into history. We've done it all before!
Pretty good video, thanks a lot 😃👍