Mary Hill: Municipal Government Poor Relief and Making-Shift in Antebellum New York City’
In this paper, I interrogate how Mary Hill, a poor single mother in antebellum New York City, navigated municipal government poor relief, and the methods she used to avoid it. In this period, mothers often used the economies of makeshift to supplement their familial subsistence. These were strategies such as begging, scavenging, pawning, and stealing to make ends meet. Although, these were perennial strategies, their importance, and the need to rely on them changed depending on the economic crisis felt by these mothers. However, economies of makeshift were not reliable. Begging and stealing could be met with incarceration rather than shelter over one’s head. Moreover, sudden unemployment or illness could turn scraping by, to absolute destitution. Thus, I then explore how some mothers turned to the Municipal Government, particularly the almshouse, looking for support when other means of scrapping-by had been exhausted.
Jasmin Bath is a doctoral candidate in U.S. History at Clare College, and currently the Procter Fellow at Princeton University for the 2023-2024 academic year. Her research looks at the economic, social and cultural history of single mothers in New York City between 1827 and 1857.
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This page was last updated on 14 March 2025
