1726: The poorer residents of Philadelphia. Pennsylvania, took part in a riot that culminated in destruction and fire. The governor put the uprising down, but over the next twelve years several more such riots occurred in response to economic discrepancies and laws that hindered labor.

1850: In New York City, the homeless represented a new and growing class. Over 18.5 thousand people were forced to seek shelter in little over 8 thousand city cellars. Tenements were built by 1856 to house some of these poor, but the majority remained homeless.

1928: America's prosperity following World War I meant a decline in the number of poor from 14 million at the turn of the century to 4 million. Shortly before Herbert Hoover was elected President of the U. S. that year, he announced that "we shall soon ... be in sight of the day when poverty will be banished from the nation."

1929: On October...