{"id":477956,"date":"2025-08-09T16:23:38","date_gmt":"2025-08-09T20:23:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.net\/en\/uncategorized\/what-were-the-ugly-laws-and-how-did-the-us-criminalize-poverty-and-disability-in-the-19th-century\/"},"modified":"2025-08-09T16:24:27","modified_gmt":"2025-08-09T20:24:27","slug":"what-were-the-ugly-laws-and-how-did-the-us-criminalize-poverty-and-disability-in-the-19th-century","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.net\/en\/international\/what-were-the-ugly-laws-and-how-did-the-us-criminalize-poverty-and-disability-in-the-19th-century\/","title":{"rendered":"What were the “ugly laws” and how did the US criminalize poverty and disability in the 19th century?"},"content":{"rendered":"During the second half of the 19th century, in several cities and at least one state in the United States, regulations were passed that are difficult to believe today: the so-called “Ugly laws”, ordinances that penalized the presence in public spaces of people considered “unpleasant” to the eye due to their physical characteristics, illnesses, or disabilities.\n\nThese laws, whose first version was enacted in San Francisco in 1867, punished with fines and even imprisonment “any person sick, mutilated or deformed in any way to the point of becoming a repugnant or unpleasant object” who was seen on streets, squares, parks or other public places. Over time, cities like Reno, Portland, Lincoln, Columbus, Chicago, New Orleans and even the state of Pennsylvania adopted similar measures.\n\n\n

Read more: US Embassy in Haiti Closes<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\nIn Chicago, which approved its version in 1916, authorities claimed they sought to “eliminate all ugliness from the streets.” However, experts like Susan Schweik, from the University of Berkeley, point out that, in reality, the “obstructions” they wanted to eradicate were living people: the disabled, the sick, beggars, and street vendors with visible injuries.\n\n\n

Justifications and prejudices<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\nIn their time, some defended these laws with health arguments and superstitions now discarded. For example, the theory of “maternal influence” held that a pregnant woman, upon seeing someone sick or mutilated, could be “impressed” and cause her child to be born with a malformation.\n\nIn 1906, the religious Charles Henderson described epileptics as “objects of terror,” supporting their exclusion from public life to “protect” others.\n\n\n

Poverty and survival in the crosshairs<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\nAlthough they seemed focused on aesthetics, in reality, the ugly laws mainly targeted poor homeless people, forced to beg or subsist on street trade. In addition to prohibiting them from moving through certain spaces, they prevented them from engaging in activities such as street vending or street arts.\n\nIn Cleveland, in 1910, a man with injuries to his hands and feet was prohibited from selling newspapers. In Portland, a woman known as \u201cMother Hastings\u201d was forced by the police to leave the city for being considered \u201ctoo terrible for children to see.\u201d","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

During the second half of the 19th century, in several cities and at least one state in the United States, regulations were passed that are difficult to believe today: the so-called “Ugly laws”, ordinances that penalized the presence in public spaces of people considered “unpleasant” to the eye due to their physical characteristics, illnesses, or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":477957,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[95],"tags":[41874,20635],"class_list":{"0":"post-477956","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-international","8":"tag-criminalization","9":"tag-usa"},"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.net\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/08\/IMG_9530.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/phj1q1-20kY","dum_api":{"author_name":"Redacci\u00f3n De \u00daltimo Minuto","author_image":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/cropped-logo-de-ultimo-minuto-96x96.png","categories_name":["International"],"featured_media_url":"https:\/\/cdn.deultimominuto.net\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/08\/IMG_9530.jpeg"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=477956"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477956\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/477957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=477956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=477956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=477956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}