The Dollar Woman

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The Dollar Woman By Alden Nowlan and Walter Learning Festival Theatre CBC Radio 27 February 1978 From Halifax Set in the Sussex area in 1898, The Dollar Woman introduces us to the world of pauper auctions, a system whereby each year the community’s poor were auctioned or "rented" to the lowest bidder. The plot follows the family of the "Overseer of the Poor," Lewis White, who was in charge of these auctions, and finding a place for the poor people or "paupers" to live for a year while their “hosts” were paid for by the government. At the end of the play, we see talk of the creation of Almshouses, which was the next attempt to "fix" poverty in New Brunswick.  The play shows the Overseer's son trying to understand what is going on, and all the characters have to deal with the issue in their own way. It was only a little over a century ago that a former newspaper editor from Sussex helped bring an end to these auctions that saw the final woman sold for a dollar.

This recording is part of the Old Time Radio collection.