Berks County Almshouse, 1880 1880

John Rasmussen painted this “View of the Berks County Almshouse” in 1880. The painting offers a meticulous overview of the Berks County Almshouse, an institution established to care for the poor, elderly, and mentally ill during a time of growing industrialization and urbanization in America. The detailed rendering of the almshouse facilities, from the main building to the surrounding gardens and fields, speaks to the 19th-century interest in social reform and the management of poverty. The painting also reflects the complex relationship between care, control, and confinement that defined these institutions. What did it mean for a society to isolate its most vulnerable members? The inclusion of the "insane hospital steward" in the caption points to the eugenic beliefs of the time and the institutionalization of those deemed “unfit.” Look at how the composition both frames and contains the almshouse, symbolizing its physical and social isolation. Rasmussen's painting invites us to consider the human stories behind the walls of the almshouse.