James Leiby

State Welfare Institutions and the Poor

case, the interpretations in this article rest mainly on the authors own research in New Jersey and California, with reference also to Massachusetts, New York, and Illinois, for which the secondary literature is relatively full. The established view is that state institutions were set up to segregate especially dangerous, hopeful, or worthy clients from the general almshouses and jails. The earliest institutions, created before the Civil War, were designed for felons and the insane. In the postwar period there appeared institutions for veterans and the orphans of veterans, juvenile delinquents, and handicapped persons (blind, deaf, and feeble-minded); reformatories for first offenders and females; hospitals for the tuberculous and inebriate; and villages for the epileptic. The institutions were typically managed by honorary boards of trustees, responsible to the governor in theory and the legislature in fact. Central state boards of charities usually exercised supervision over the institutions, inspecting them and encouraging their systematic and progressive development. In general, the state boards gave form to the common interests and problems among institutions and to James Leiby, Ph.D., is Associate Professor, School of Social Welfare, University of California, Berkeley, California.