What is Poverty
Introduction This essay "What is poverty ?" has been written by Jo Goodwin Parker an anonymous person from West Virginia, the Southern United States. Parker mailed her essay to George Henderson, preferring that the editor present no byline. George Henderson, a professor at the University of Oklahoma, received it while he was writing his 1971 book, America’s Other Children: Public Schools Outside Suburbia. It was signed “Jo Goodwin Parker”. No further information was ever discovered about the essay or its source. Whether the author of this essay was in reality a woman describing her own painful experiences or a sympathetic writer who had adopted her persona, Jo Goodwin Parker remains a mystery. So in keeping with the spirit of its initial publication, Parker’s essay is kept here without any biographical data about its author. This personal essay 'What is Poverty?' is about Parker who has personally experienced rural poverty. She explains her story from childhood to...