David Wagner explores the lives of poor people during the three decades after the Civil War, using a unique treasure of biographies of people who were (at one point in time) inmates in a large almshouse, combined with genealogical and other official records to follow their later lives. "Ordinary People" develops a more fluid picture of poverty as people 's lives change over the course of time. The voices of the inmates of the infamous Massachusetts State Almshouse at Tewksbury resonate in remarkable ways today, helping us to understand that many individuals living in poverty make inventive, bold moves to escape it.