Poverty: American History Reference

Start here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States

I would suggest to you that the economics of today differs greatly from the early 19th century, and trying to compare "poverty" between that period and today are too varied to make reasonable comparisons.

Try to get a handle on what "poverty" means during the early part of the 19th century compared to today. With so much social umbrellas available today in the US, a person of poverty in the US is probably better off than many middle-class families in third world countries.

Your topic isn't very specific and your span of years is huge. How about practicing your google skills? Try thinking up keywords that are more specific, such as:

poverty, "colonial America"

<"ending poverty", "19th-century America">

poverty, "19th-century America"

and any other keywords you can think of that are related to key concepts in your course.

I like to spell out AND in my searches, rather than putting a comma, but they say that's not necessary. The quotes are necessary to keep the string of words intact.

Just keep searching and reading about the specific topics that come up. If you search right--especially with related multi-word terms encased in quotes--more specific stuff comes up. Whatever you're interested in, give that a try. Search out poverty and 19th century or colonial America and you are also likely to find some people's solutions along with information about the problem.

-Sal