The Ugly Laws

Though known today as the ugly laws, the discriminatory legislation restricting who was allowed to exist in a public space are more accurately described as unsightly beggar ordinances (Long). During a time of modernization, immigration, and increasing class tensions, these laws were meant to impose a sense of social order and decency the privileged classes feared was disappearing (Heli 169-170). In the decades between the Civil War and WWI, urban areas implemented unsightly beggar ordinances to eliminate mendicancy and pauperism.

Mendicants, or beggars, and paupers, who subsisted off charity, were unsightly in the shame they evoked in the upper classes (Heli 172). But this hatred of the poor was multiplied by their other intersecting identities, such as disability, race, gender, sexuality, and immigration status; all were “‘marked as inferior bodies to be concealed and to be controlled’” (Schweik, qtd. in Long). The ugly laws were also in kinship with contemporary “measures banning cross-dressing, prostitution, and other sex and gender transgressions’” and not-so-coincidentally coincided with the height of Jim Crow (Franzino 429).

But if they did not exclusively target those with physical disabilities or deformities, how did the ugly laws earn their moniker?

The first “ugly law” was passed in San Francisco in 1867 as “Order No. 783. To Prohibit Street Begging, and to Restrain Certain Persons from Appearing in Streets and Public Places” (Schweik and Wilson). But despite being first, another was much more notorious. This infamy belonged to the city of Chicago in 1881, who declared:

“Any person who is diseased, maimed, mutilated or in any way deformed so as to be an unsightly or disgusting object, or an improper person to be allowed in or on the streets, highways, thoroughfares or public places in this city shall not therein or thereon expose himself or herself to public view under penalty of one dollar for each offense. On the conviction of any person for a violation of this section if it shall seem proper and just, the fine provided for may be suspended, and such person detained at the police station, where he shall be well cared for, until he can be committed to the county poor house” (Coco 23).

When this law was finally repealed in 1973, critics called it “cruel and insensitive,” “barbaric,” “a throwback to the dark ages,” and “an affront to everyone” (Coco 23). But when it was first passed, it was publicly celebrated: The Chicago Tribune called it “A PUBLIC BENEFIT” because crippled beggars were a “shock to the ordinary nerves” (Coco 26).

Because of the ordinance’s introduction, which addressed “[a]ny person who is diseased, maimed, mutilated or in any way deformed so as to be an unsightly or disgusting object,” modern scholars came to call such pieces of legislation “ugly laws.” This terminology is especially popular in disability studies (Heli 169). But because of eugenic influence, disability, poverty, homelessness, and criminality were largely conflated (Coco 27, Schweik and Wilson).

What may be surprising is that Chicago law only applied to disabled people who were also poor or homeless. Because of her social standing, someone like Helen Keller never would have been targeted (Long). Freak show performers were explicitly excluded from the law until the state of Illinois passed new legislation in 1899 (Coco 30). Civil War veterans who returned home disfigured by war and missing limbs were “venerated” (Coco 24). Disabled people were expected to participate in the labor force, and the rise in industrial accidents made many workers aware that they could become disabled at any time, too (Coco 28).

Of course, not all disabled people had the privilege of class or the ability to maintain a job and earn a sufficient wage. These were the “unworthy poor,” one side of “the same poverty (and nuisance) coin” as “tramps” (Coco 27). Since eugenics claimed disability, poverty, and crime were hereditary, disabled paupers were no longer an "individual problem” but one that could “infect the community” (Coco 33).

So while the semantic definition of "unsightly beggar ordinance" is correct, criminalizing being poor and disabled was an ugly law indeed.

In 1886, Robert Louis Stevenson published his novella The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, which can be read for free here. The plot revolves around a well-respected scientist, Dr. Jekyll, who accidentally creates a mixture that turns him into the crazed and deformed Mr. Hyde. Though it can be read many ways, the story is in part a reflection on Victorian England’s hatred of the poor. If Mr. Hyde were to have taken a trip to Chicago, he would have violated the law there completely. 

At this link you can watch a clip from the 1990 movie Jekyll and Hyde, starring Michael Caine as the titular characters. Content warning: Body horror.

Officially, the last ugly law was repealed in 1974 in Omaha, Nebraska, after a police officer dug up the legislation as pretext to arrest a homeless man, who he cited for having “marks and scars on his body” (Long). But in meaningful ways the laws live on.

The United States’ passion for criminalizing poverty was reignited during the Reagan era (Edelman). Cities and police departments were effectively empowered to monetize arrests, and “[e]xorbitant fines and fees designed to make up for revenue shortfalls are now a staple throughout most of the country” (Edelman). Many places have criminalized, or made illegal, panhandling and homelessness, and arrests for these infractions can result in fines; but being so poor that one must resort to panhandling or doesn’t have a home means that these fines often go unpaid—which, in turn, is also criminalized (Edelman). In 2017 over 10 million Americans, “representing two-thirds of all current and former offenders in this country, [owed] governments a total of $50 [billion] in accumulated fines, fees, and other impositions” (Edelman).

These modern ugly laws are highly racialized and designed to take advantage of the most vulnerable (Edelman). Because of institutional racism, which is embedded in social and legal systems, a disproportionate number of those affected by the criminalization of poverty are Black. Chronic nuisance ordinances allow police departments to give fines if they are contacted too many times by an individual; this extends to women who frequently call for help in situations of domestic abuse (Edelman). When someone is sent to jail for poverty-related reasons, they can “lose their liberty and often lose their jobs, are frequently barred from a host of public benefits, may lose custody of their children, and may even lose their right to vote. Immigrants, even some with green cards, can be subject to deportation” (Edelman).

There is a growing movement to fight back against inappropriate criminalization and carceral punishment, and it is necessary that we participate in it (Edelman). Author and activist Peter Edelman instructs:

“The ultimate goal, of course, is the end of poverty itself. But as we pursue that goal, we must get rid of the laws and practices that unjustly incarcerate and otherwise damage the lives of millions who can’t fight back. We must fight mass incarceration and criminalization of poverty in every place where the exist, and fight poverty, too.

We must organize—in neighborhoods and communities, in cities and states, and nationally. And we must empower people to advocate for themselves as the most fundamental tool for change.”

Otherwise, it’s going to get ugly out there.

Where poverty isn’t criminalized today, it’s still cruelly discouraged. Hostile architecture purposely alters the usual form of public structures to be uncomfortable so as to discourage “‘undesirable use’” (Ruetas). The primary group targeted by hostile architecture is homeless people, who rely on safe, accessible public spaces, but hostile architecture is often inaccessible to disabled people too.

Different types of hostile architecture are pictured and explained at this link. Do you see any of these elements around your city? What other ways do we make our society inhospitable to the poor and homeless, who disproportionately represent oppressed identities? And how can we make our environments more useful and accessible to all?

2happy. “Stack of Books.” Stockvault, 25 Jun. 2011, www.stockvault.net/photo/125239/stack-of-books. Accessed 15 Nov. 2021.

Arkham1888. “Michael Caine in ‘Jekyll & Hyde.’” YouTube, 21 Jun. 2014, www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7N7OT95XPA. Accessed 15 Dec. 2021.

Coco, Adrienne Phelps. “DISEASED, MAIMED, MUTILATED: CATEGORIZATIONS OF DISABILITY AND AN UGLY LAW IN LATE NINETEENTH-CENTURY CHICAGO.” Journal of Social History, vol. 44, no. 1, 2010, pp. 23-37. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40802107. Accessed 15 Dec. 2021.

Edelman, Peter. “How it became a crime to be poor in America.” The Guardian, 6 Nov. 2017, www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/nov/06/how-poverty-became-crime-america. Accessed 15 Dec. 2021.

Franzino, Jean. “The Ugly Laws: Disability in Public.” The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society, vol. 108, no. 4, 2010, pp. 428-430. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/23387415.

Heli, Leppala. “The ugly laws: disability in public.” Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research, vol. 13, no. 2, Jun. 2011, pp. 169-172. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/15017419.2010.507377. Accessed 15 Dec. 2021.

Long, Karen R. “Susan M. Schweik’s ‘The Ugly Law’ exposes obscure law of discrimination.” Cleveland.com, 26 Jul. 2009, www.cleveland.com/books/2009/07/susan_m_schweiks_the_ugly_law.html. Accessed 15 Dec. 2021.

Mayhew, Henry. “Asylum for the Houseless Poor, Cripplegate.” Wikimedia Commons, 14 Dec. 2021, www.commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Asylum_for_the_Houseless_Poor,_Cripplegate.jpg. Accessed 15 Dec. 2021.

“Mendicancy.” Merriam-Webster, www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mendicancy. Accessed 15 Dec. 2021.

“Pauper.” Merriam-Webster, www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pauperism. Accessed 15 Dec. 2021.

Ruetas, Faith. “15 Examples of Hostile Architecture around the World.” Rethinking The Future, www.re-thinkingthefuture.com/designing-for-typologies/a2564-15-examples-of-hostile-architecture-around-the-world/. Accessed 15 Dec. 2021.

Schweik, Susan M., and Robert A. Wilson. “Ugly Laws.” Eugenics Archive, www.eugenicsarchive.ca/discover/encyclopedia/54d39e27f8a0ea4706000009. Accessed 15 Dec. 2021.

Stevenson, Robert Louis. The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde. Project Gutenberg, 31 Oct. 1992, www.gutenberg.org/files/43/43-h/43-h.htm. Accessed 15 Dec. 2021.

“W. W. Kimball Building.” Wikimedia Commons, 7 Aug. 2020, www.commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WWKimballBuilding1886.jpg. Accessed 15 Dec. 2021.