Causes of Poverty

Between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, causes of poverty have changed with political, military, and socioeconomic events of the time. During the seventeenth century, poverty largely developed as a result of the long and arduous voyages passengers endured going across the Atlantic to the Americas. Often, passengers lacked adequate space, food, and water, while facing exposure to infectious disease during the trip. In addition, despite community solidarity in the early settlements, the colonists stilled faced hardships like starvation, illness, injury, and deprivation.

During the early eighteenth century, frequent conflicts between settlers and Indians added disabled soldiers and refugees to the impoverished population. Subsequently, as a result of these conflicts, a large number of widows and orphans increased the rising rate of destitution. In addition, economic depressions and recurring epidemics like smallpox and dysentery continued to put many individuals and families into economic distress. Similarly, the American Revolutionary War caused the same rise in widows, orphans, disabled soldiers, and refugees towards the end of the eighteenth century.

At the turn of the nineteenth century, low wages and tax increases led to economic distress for many individuals and families. A rise in immigration and urbanization also added to the problem of poverty during the nineteenth century because unemployment still remained a large issue for many Americans. Additionally, with the influx of immigration and growing number of people in need, attitudes towards poverty shifted to viewing poor persons as responsible for their condition.

(Image credit: Wounding of Braddock, Painting by Robert Griffing,  http://campmartintravels.blogspot.com/2010/10/abduction-of-mary-jemison.html)