After years of whispered rumors, in June 1881 Indianapolis began investigating allegations of rampant abuse, negligence, and fraud in its county poorhouse. In spite of fears among the poorhouse’s inmates that “They will be thrown in the dungeon” by the superintendent of the poorhouse, Mr. Wright, if they offered critical testimony, several inmates (and they were inmates, more than visitors or residents) came forward to share their experiences. There were beatings, solitary confinement in the cellar, rancid food and drink, and inadequate ventilation, heating, blanketing, and medical care. Ed Akins accused the resident physician, Dr. Culbertson, of giving him diabetes from “a peculiar kind of tea” and then denying him any medicine. Samuel Churchwell’s two-year-old child was removed from its mother, left so underclothed in winter that “its legs had been frozen,” starved to the point of being unable to recognize its parents upon being returned to them, then caught a cold and died. A newborn died when Dr. Culbertson, who had no professional experience but a legal record with a conviction for assault and battery, waited two days to examine it. Oliver Thomas, an “insane idiot” child unable to recognize his own name, whipped Harry White, another child, several times when Harry screamed after being frightened by a dog. Mr. Wright had also beaten Harry with the cowhide that Wright always kept by his side, since Harry “had used careless language and was full of fun.”
That was just the beginning. The real bad stuff, and some thoughts on our views toward poverty then and now, follow...