This poem is told from a woman’s point of view, whose life had been ruined by alcoholism. Her father, husband, and children were all affected by drinking problems, eventually landing her in a “poorhouse”. Poorhouse refers to a place that is paid for by taxes, donations, etc. for poor people to live in. The mood of the poem is extremely depressing, going into detail about how “Poorhouse Nan” slowly lost her family members throughout her life until she had nothing left at all. Although the poem has a happy ending when her lost son was returned to her, the poem gives readers a great insight to the financial and emotional burdens which alcohol had on families and especially women during that time.

This is the second consecutive poem which Prudence has put in her scrapbook about the negative effects of alcohol families and society, further indicating that a possible personal negative experience with alcohol.

These poems can further be related to the temperance movement, a push for prohibition that continued all the way into the early nineteenth century. Prudence would have experienced the third major wave of the movement, and even the passing of the eighteenth amendment in 1919 which led to the Prohibition era. A major organization of this time was the Anti-Saloon League, largely responsible for the successes of the temperance movement.
(The poem is continued on the following page(page 76) of the scrapbook)

Vocabulary:
Toper: drunkard; first known use of word was in 1661

"Temperance Movement." Dictionary of American History. 2003. Encyclopedia.com. 18 Feb. 2014 .

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