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In 1990, Congress passed and President George H. W. Bush signed into law the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which extended federal civil rights protections to people with mental or physical impairments: More than a quarter-century on, and despite further work to be done, the ADA has so positively affected how people with disabilities are treated and perceived in America that the notion that laws once existed to keep physically and cognitively challenged people indoors and out of sight seems scarcely believable. But it was the case — and not so long ago. Beginning in the late 1800s, statutes known as unsightly beggar ordinances, aka ugly laws, were enacted in some American cities to rid public spaces of what Chicago Alderman James Peevey euphemistically referred to as street obstructions: Following the example of San Francisco, which had pioneered the legislation in 1867, Peevey helped pass a law in 1881 imposing fines (or stints in the poorhouse) on all who were diseased, maimed, mutilated, or in any way deformed, so as to be an unsightly or disgusting object, yet dared beg, panhandle, or otherwise make nuisances of themselves in public. Among other cities, Omaha, Columbus, Cleveland, and Portland, Oregon followed suit, all passing ugly laws using virtually identical language. In a discussion of Susan M. Schweik's The Ugly Laws: Disability in Public (2009), reviewer Shannon Sommer encapsulates the social and economic developments leading up to these measures: Schweik notes that though the passage of new ugly laws ceased by the beginning of World War I and enforcement of existing statutes dwindled thereafter, they remained on the books until well into the latter half of the 20th century: That same year, 1974, saw the demise of ugly laws in America. The last city to repeal was Chicago. One of the alderman responsible for killing the law, Paul T. Wigoda, denounced it as cruel and insensitive, and a throwback to the Middle Ages. It had been in effect for 93 years.
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