"Over the Hill to the Poorhouse": Kansas Poor Relief.

The article talks about the history of poorhouses in counties of Kansas as the centerpiece for relief for the poor locals. Topics discussed include the concept of a poor farm originating in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century legal and social traditions such as the English Poor Law of 1601, creation of workhouses for able-bodied poor in 1697, and the English law of 1788 that established almshouses for the sick, aged and women and children unable to work.