A talk by Will Tatum, Dutchess County Historian.

From 1864 until 1998, Dutchess County government operated a facility to care for indigent and ill residents in the town of Washington. Initially consisting of a poor house, insane asylum, and pest house, this facility transformed into an almshouse in the 1870s, then into an infirmary in the 1930s. Drawing on surviving poorhouse records, newspaper accounts, and scrapbooks kept by residents, this presentation will explore how life for denizens of the poorhouse changed over its 134 years of operation.