Scope and Content: Resolves 1858, c 26 appointed a committee to investigate and issue a report on public charitable institutions.The report recommended the founding of a Board of State Charities. The board and its successors from 1863 onward oversaw the Massachusetts state immigration and pauper relief functions, as well as the state’s charitable and correctional institutions.  Upon his appointment to the board as secretary in 1863, F.B. Sanborn set out to learn about and report on the charitable institutions in existence, including their objectives, history, annual cost, and results. This series, presumably created by the 1858 committee and by Sanborn, contains such compiled data, similar to that found in the board’s later annual reports ((M-Ar)1318S) per St 1867, c 209. –Vol. 1, arranged by county, gives summary tabular information, 1858-1863, on poor relief and almshouses for each town, including annual statistics on numbers served, costs and expenditures per person, and assessment of town property values. –Vol. 2 contains a narrative history of paupers and almshouses in Massachusetts, along with statistics and tables, including almshouse costs. Back of volume contains brief minutes of an 1865 meeting of the Commissioners on the Hours of Labor, of which Sanborn was also secretary (see its Administrative files ((M-Ar)1692X))
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