Sussex Correctional Institution and Alms House in 1970

This photograph from the archives of the Delaware Economic Development Office shows the entrance to Sussex Correctional Institution in Georgetown and its associated Alms House.  Alms houses were constructed to house a variety of dependent people including the poor, insane and chronically ill.  They were provided housing and cared for by governmental institutions funded by a variety of mechanisms to care for the less fortunate.  They eventually gave way to other welfare facilities and public hospitals that needed more accommodations to take care of growing responsibilities.

Alms houses and poor houses date back to the earliest settlements in Delaware.  Here is a portion of material about them from Delaware Public Archives. “Community responsibility for the poor has, in all probability, existed in Delaware since its earliest settlements. The Swedes, the Dutch, and the English sent many of their less fortunate, their unemployed, and their criminals to their colonies. Consequently, even though the need for poor relief emerged later in Delaware due to its small population, the existence of a dependent class of citizens in the colonies can be assumed.” Early relief in Delaware was patterned after the European model which attempted to “fix financial responsibility, curb expenses [to the community], eliminate undesirables, and care for those the community believed to be their responsibility.”