Eighty-year-old Sarah Nary lived in her New York City home with her 12-year-old grandson back in 1913. The boy sold newspapers on the street corners and managed to earn a small income to feed his grandmother and himself. It was not a glamorous life, but it was their life, until a charity group became involved.
The Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor provided a small amount of aid to the tiny family, but the charity group felt that the old woman needed to go to the poorhouse on Blackwell Island. The grandmother felt differently and refused to give up her life with her grandson.
In response, the charity group went before a judge and had the grandson forcibly removed from the home and committed to an institution. Next, they took away their charitable aid to the grandmother and starved her until she agreed to go to the poorhouse.
Upon hearing this sad story, a newspaper reporter confronted the charity group and asked them if the “starvation method of persuasion for those who shun the almshouse a new one or an old one?” The organization replied that it was a method employed by all charity organizations in the U.S. They believed that it was better to institutionalize children and place the elderly in poorhouses than it was to provide them with the means to continue their lives within society. [Source]
