The Rhode Island Historical Society continues its free Inside the Archives series Thursday, February 24th at 7 pm with a virtual talk featuring Associate Professor of History Gabe Loiacono speaking about his work, How Welfare Worked in the Early United States: Five Microhistories.
How Welfare Worked in the Early United States explores the establishment of poor relief systems in early America by tracing the lives of five Rhode Islanders who operated or benefitted from those programs. Loiacono will discuss his research methods, the challenges of locating records of the poorest Americans, and how the RIHS archives helped him complete his work during a pandemic.
Registration is available at https://bit.ly/3zX9cvM
How Welfare Worked in the Early United States is available for purchase through Oxford University Press. Individuals will receive 30% off of their purchase of the book with the code ASFLYQ6.
Loiacono is currently an Associate Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh. As a graduate student at Brandeis University, he was surprised to learn about poor relief in early America. That story brought him to the Rhode Island Historical Society more times than he could count. With the help of several archivists there, he learned how to find and interpret old records. His recently published book How Welfare Worked in the Early United States: Five Microhistories, is based in good part on that research.