Thank God We Were Poor

Thank God we were poor

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Appalachian Bluebird: Appalachia’s poor farms were for those with nowhere left go

In the quiet corners of Appalachia, there once stood institutions that carried the weight of both mercy and shame. They were known as poor farms, or sometimes called almshouses. These were not farms in the romantic sense, but places where the region’s most vulnerable were sent to live and work when they had nowhere else to go. Their existence tells a story of poverty, resilience and the moral struggles of a society trying to care for its own.