Jeff Hall (right) talks with Curator Holly Hartlerode during the installation of the exhibit "For Comfort and Convenience: Public Charity in Ohio by Way of the Poor Farm."
Hall’s photos commemorate efforts to care for the needy
Jeff Hall had never considered himself much of a history buff. But when he agreed to be part of a major project for the Wood County Historical Center and Museum, he found himself stepping back in time as he explored the towns, back roads and byways of each of Ohio’s 88 counties, in search of their “poor farms.”
Hall, a photographer and senior lecturer in Bowling Green State University’s Visual Communication Technology program, was enlisted about a year and a half ago by the museum to locate and photograph whatever remained of the state’s poor farms. The images are part of the museum’s 2019 theme exhibit, “For Comfort and Convenience: Public Charity in Ohio by Way of the Poor Farm,” which opened Feb. 1. It coincides with the 150th anniversary of the Wood County poor farm (later known as the infirmary and then the county home), and features 120 of Hall’s photos, along with an extensive interpretive exhibit about the Ohio Board of Charities’ efforts to help counties care for needy citizens.
Hall will share his adventures photographing for the exhibit with visitors during the grand opening event from 5-8 p.m. Feb. 22. The museum will also erect a monument in its “paupers cemetery” with all the names it can document of who is buried there. The monument will be dedicated April 6.
“For Comfort and Convenience” pays homage to all the poor, ill and disabled members of society who found shelter in these county havens by documenting them and sharing their story with the public, Hall said. He had become interested in collaborating with the museum after talking with Hartlerode and then-Marketing and Events Coordinator Kelli Kling (now the museum director) in 2013 at the museum’s exhibit of photographer Christopher Payne’s “Asylum: Inside the Closed World of State Mental Hospitals.”
The Wood County Historical Center and Museum is housed in the county’s former infirmary building, and is fortunate to have most of its buildings and many of its records intact. But thinking about the rest of the state, the museum staff wondered, “What’s become of all these?” Hall said.
The museum decided to include all the counties “to show that Wood County doesn’t exist in a bubble,” said Curator Holly Hartlerode, the interpretive director for the project, who has spent the last two years in research. “We made an effort to work with the other counties and we want to serve as an expert resource for them.”
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