The Workhouse Effect

ANNETTE TELLS TALES People would rather die than go there. That was their point. But what if you entered one anyway?

The boys of Crumpsall Workhouse, Manchester, England, 1895. By the time this photo was taken, it was sixty years after the Poor Law Amendment Act had created what we might call modern workhouses. Things had improved since then, including for these children. But conditions were still dreadful—and dreaded. Why were these kids and the other inmates treated…