The rise of industries in the late 1800s eroded the tradition of people living together in multi-generational households, where old and young worked together to provide for everyone.

Nuclear families became the norm.

Younger generations moved to cities to take good-paying industrial jobs, leading lives distant from their older, often infirm, relatives.

And they became consumed with the struggle to support their own children.

With the traditional family support system eroded, poverty became pervasive among older Americans.

It afflicted about half of the elderly.0

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