The East Side Freedom Library and the Ramsey County Historical Society invite you to History Revealed: Geographies of the Ramsey County Poor Farm, from Minnesota Territory to the New Deal, a special presentation by Macalester College Geography students.

Register here to join this event on Zoom.

Poor farms were government-run homes for poor and vulnerable people that doubled as working farms. As a local response to extreme poverty, poor farms spread across the US in the 19th Century up until the federalization of anti-poverty relief in the New Deal era. Minnesota’s first poor farm was founded by pioneer landholders in Ramsey County in 1854, making it one of the first residential facilities in Minnesota Territory. Across four different sites, the Ramsey County Poor Farm would shelter thousands of unpaid county residents while providing income to paid supervisors and workers and would provide nutrition to countless patients at the county hospital. Yet abuse and neglect at the Poor Farm – as well as ableist, classist, and anti-immigrant stigmatization of poor farm residents – kept this program a continual target of criticism.

Map of the Poor Farm’s third location at the present-day Minnesota State Fairgrounds. Excerpted from “Map of Ramsey County, Minn” by A. T. Andreas, 1874.

The presentation explores the regulation of livelihood as a key mode of power in the colonial frontier. We seek to honor the often overlooked lives and ambitions of impoverished and marginalized people who lived and died on poor farms. We ask, How might consideration of this often-overlooked institution and its residents shape ongoing popular debates about land, dispossession, welfare and belonging?

Drawings by Grace Jones, a senior at Macalester College who is majoring in Geography and minoring in Studio Art.

Presenters are Jack Acomb, Eva Stromgren, Marisa Williamson, and Henry Yackel – students in Geography at Macalester College. Jesse McClelland is their Professor. The presentation traces main archival findings for a practice-based advanced course, Unearthing the Poor Farm: Local geographies of land, law and livelihood, which will be shared on a forthcoming website.

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