Lowell viewed the very poor as "worthless men and women" who were "vicious and idle" individuals that needed to "learn to enjoy work." She proposed imprisoning "all women under thirty who had been arrested for misdemeanors or who had produced two illegitimate children." She blamed New Yorkers who gave to the poor for the death of a baby who was living on the streets with her poor mother during a cold winter. She believed that the very poor should be "committed, until reformed, to district work-houses, there to be kept at hard-labor, and educated morally and mentally."