Ugly law

From 1867 to 1974, various cities of the United States had unsightly beggar ordinances, retroactively named ugly laws.[1] These laws targeted poor people and disabled people. For instance, in San Francisco a law of 1867 deemed it illegal for "any person, who is diseased, maimed, mutilated or deformed in any way, so as to be an unsightly or disgusting object, to expose himself or herself to public view."[2][1] Exceptions to public exposure were acceptable only if the people were subjects of demonstration, to illustrate the separation of disabled from nondisabled and their need for reformation.[3]: 47 

The Charity Organization Society suggested that the best charity relief would be to investigate and counsel the people needing assistance instead of providing them with material relief.[4] This created conflict in people between their desire to be good Christians and good citizens when seeing people in need of assistance. It was suggested that the beggars imposed guilt upon people in this way.[3]: 37  "Pauperism is a disease upon the community, a sore upon the body politic, and being a disease, it must be, as far as possible, removed, and the curative purpose must be behind all our thought and effort for the pauper class."[4] Similar to what Slocum said, other authors suggested that giving charity to beggars without knowing what was to be done with the funds, was as "culpable as one who fires a gun into a crowd".[5]

The term "ugly laws" was coined in the mid-1970s by detractors Marcia Pearce Burgdorf and Robert Burgdorf, Jr.[3]: 9 

  1. ^ a b Albrecht, general ed. Gary L. (2006). Encyclopedia of disability. Thousand Oaks [u.a.]: SAGE Publ. pp. 1575–1576. ISBN 9780761925651.
  2. ^ Schweik, Susan M. (2009). The Ugly Laws: Disability in Public. NYU Press. p. 291. ISBN 9780814740880. Retrieved 23 October 2020.
  3. ^ a b c Cite error: The named reference TheUglyLaws was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ a b Slocum, Jr., William Frederick (1886). The Relation of Public and Private to Organized Charity. Baltimore: Charity Organization Society.
  5. ^ Henderson, Charles (1910). Introduction to the Study of the Dependent, Defective and Delinquent Classes and of their Social Treatment. Chicago: Speech Recorded in the City Club Bulletin.

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