But in America, middle-class commentators stoked fears of class warfare and a “great Communist wave.”7 As they had following the 1819 Panic, white economic elites responded to the growing militancy of poor and working-class people by attacking welfare. They asked: How can legitimate need be tested in a communal lodging house? How can one enforce work and provide free soup at the same time? In response, a new kind of social reform—the scientific charity movement—began an all-out attack on public poor relief.
