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Document Type
Text
Contributing Institution
Prince Memorial Library
Publication Date
1-27-2017
Publisher
Prince Memorial Library
City
Cumberland, Maine
Language
English
Recommended Citation
Bennett, Thomas C., "Give Us Your Poor and Indigent" (2017). Cumberland Books. 59.
https://digitalmaine.com/cumberland_books/59
Rights Statement
No Copyright - United States. URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NoC-US/1.0/
The organization that has made the Item available believes that the Item is in the Public Domain under the laws of the United States, but a determination was not made as to its copyright status under the copyright laws of other countries. The Item may not be in the Public Domain under the laws of other countries. Please refer to the organization that has made the Item available for more information.
Description
Give Us Your Poor and Indigent: Maine’s Pauper Laws and the Town of Cumberland Overseers of the Poor examines the laws that authorized the creation of the Cumberland Overseers of the Poor, and how that board applied them. The so-called pauper laws were passed by the Maine Legislature in March 1821, and governed the treatment of the state’s poor and indigent citizens. The state’s mandate to its municipalities to provide for the support of their indigent residents was a continuation of the laws in effect when Maine was part of Massachusetts, which in turn were linked directly to English law, specifically the 1601 Poor Law Act and the 1662 Settlement Laws. Maine’s pauper laws remained in effect until the major revision of the general assistance law in the mid-1970s.