Killing the Poormaster: The Depression-Era Murder That Put America's Welfare System on Trial - Softcover

"Holly Metz offers a grim and fascinating glimpse of Americans left to the mercy of petty bureaucrats and party pols once federal relief was withdrawn in the mid-1930s. Gripping history, Killing the Poormaster is also a warning to those who would continue to casually slash assistance programs today. A powerful and compelling book."  —Stephen Pimpare, author, A People's History of Poverty in America

"Rigorously researched and vividly recounted, this history of the death of a Hoboken Poormaster in the 1930s brings back a time, not unlike today, when a corrupt welfare system made poverty a crime, pushing honest citizens to extremes in their efforts to survive. Move over reality TV, Metz tells a story that rivals your best."  —Fred Gardaphe, Distinguished Professor, Queens College/CUNY and author, From Wiseguys to Wise Men

"This is a well-researched, engrossingly written book which in winning fashion tells a tale that needed to be told, and although unfortunately long overlooked has found a splendid chronicler in Holly Metz."  —Daniel J. Leab, Professor of History, Seton Hall University

"Holly Metz vividly reconstructs the social milieu of Depression-era Hoboken, a cauldron of ethnic resentment, passionate loyalties, and profound human suffering, all on display in a murder trial Metz recounts with the flair of a dramatist and the gritty facticity of an investigative reporter."  —James T. Fisher, author, On the Irish Waterfront: The Crusader, the Movie, and the Soul of the Port of New York