Table of Contents:
  • Introduction: "The best poor man's country?" / Billy G. Smith
  • Poverty and politics in early American history / Gary B. Nash
  • Lives of the poor: Dead bodies: poverty and death in early national Philadelphia / Simon Newman; Malthusian miseries and the working poor in Philadelphia, 1780-1830: gender and infant mortality / Susan E. Klepp; Slaves and poverty / Philip D. Morgan
  • Poor relief: "Who died an expence to this town": poor relief in eighteenth century Rhode Island / Ruth Wallis Herndon; Gender and the political economy of poor relief in colonial Philadelphia / Karin Wulf; Poor relief "without violating the rights of humanity": almshouse administration in the Philadelphia region, 1790-1860 / Monique Bourque; Bound by charity: the abandoned children of late eighteenth century Charleston / John E. Murray
  • Politics, religion, and the creation of poverty: Poverty and politics in the Hudson River Valley / Thomas Humphrey; "God helps those who help themselves": religious explanations of poverty in colonial Massachusetts, 1630-1776 / J. Richard Olivas; The Delaware Indians and poverty in colonial New Jersey / Jean R. Soderlund.