Two Centuries Ago, Americans paid for-and relied on-an astonishing government system that provided food, housing, and medical care to those in need. How Welfare Worked in the Early United States: Five Microhistories tells stories of "poor relief" through the lives of five people: a long-serving overseer of the poor, a Continental Army veteran who was banished from town, a nurse who was paid by the government to care for the poor an unwed mother who cared for the elderly and struggled to remain with her daughter, and a young paralyzed man who worked as a Christian missionary inside a poorhouse. Of Native, African, and English descent, these five Rhode Islanders' life stories show how poor relief actually worked. Students of history and of today's social provision have much to learn about how welfare worked in the early United States.