A History of the Morgan County, Illinois Poorhouse and Farm
Most of what we know about poorhouses and farms in the 19th century comes from various scholarship and stories, many of which describe the horrors of living at these institutions, rife with stories of persons kept in pens and basement dungeons, and run like forced work camps. The Morgan County Poorhouse and Farm in Jacksonville, Illinois, as author Dr. Joe Squillace shows, served a wide array of persons with various human, mental and social needs, a product of the intellectual and religious surrounding community. What is revealed is an institution that struggles, like today’s institutions, to meet the needs of those living in poverty with resource constraints and the current knowledge base of how to address complex needs. The Morgan County poor farm often served as a model institution for the rest of the state of Illinois. Squillace traces the history of the poorhouse and farm, outlines the various groups served by the institution, and reveals stories that profile the type of “characters” that the poor farm served, whether they be pregnant women needing health care or the community drunkard. The author visited many of the geographic locations and delved deep into historical records, including a 2,700 record database of all the “inmates” admitted throughout its history. As a whole, the book demonstrates that the poorhouse and farm was a predecessor social and health care service institution to many of later 20th century institutions, such as day care facilities, hospitals and urgent care centers, and nursing homes. A History of the Poorhouse and Farm in Morgan County, Illinois is not simply the story and events from long ago, but through seeing the names and faces, hearing the stories of the people residing there, the book provides a tangible connection to a frontier rural county’s struggle with handling poverty as it developed through the 19th and 20th centuries.
Purchases can be made through Amazon (forthcoming) (click link).
Book is published by the Morgan County, Illinois, Historical Society .
ISBN: 978-0-692-04291-5
A FREE Chapter on the Irish, their work on the Central Illinois railroads, and their interaction with the poor farm can be found in the STORE tab.
A 148-page ,pdf file listing all the persons buried at the Poor farm is available in the STORE tab.
