In 1881, Chicago created a city ordinance banning anyone “diseased, maimed, mutilated, or any way deformed, so as to be an unsightly or disgusting object’ from appearing in public. Chicago was following in the footsteps of several other cities which had instituted similar laws, beginning with San Francisco in 1867. Other cities with ‘ugly laws’ included New Orleans (1879), Portland (1881), Denver (1886), Lincoln (1889), Columbus (1894), Omaha (1890), Reno (1905), and even the entire state of Pennsylvania (1891).
Supporters of ‘ugly laws,’ including Chicago Alderman James Peevey, often claimed they were to deter beggars. Some people believed that these people were thieves. The general superintendent of the Relief and Aid Society said in 1880 that “nine out of ten of these street beggars are either imposters or thieves, who come to spy out the houses and give ‘pointers’ to burglars.” The Chicago Tribune ran an article in 1902 claiming people were dumping acid on themselves to get more pity and, thus, more money.
There was also still a belief that disability was caused by the individual or their parents’ sins. Others argued the disfigured scared women. In 1916, a woman known as Mother Hastings was given money by the Portland authorities to get out of town because she was “too terrible a sight for the children to see.”
Beggars were fined between $1 and $50 (equal to $26-1,338 in 2021 dollars) or sent to the Cook County Poorhouse. They were sometimes sterilized.
Public opinion about people with disabilities began to change slowly after World War I when many men returned home with debilitating war injuries. Yet, despite this, Chicago police continued to fine and arrest disabled people into the 1950s. The law wasn’t officially repealed until 1974.
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