It's Curious City, where we take your questions about Chicago and the region,

and investigate, report, explore, from WBEZ.

Hi, I'm Maggie Sivet.

When Chicago resident Karen Straca heard the city once had an ugly law, she was curious to know more about it.

Now, an ugly law is a funny name for a very unfunny ordinance, one that made it illegal

for poor people with physical disabilities to be in public spaces.

There was a time when these laws existed around the country, but Chicago's was unique,

both because it lasted for so long, staying on the books for nearly a century, and because it was so

extreme. The ugly law was first passed in 1881. What it says is it bars any person who is diseased, maimed, mutilated, or in any way deformed

so as to be an unsightly or disgusting object or improper person to be allowed in or on the streets.

That's Adrian Phelps Coco, a historian who's researched Chicago's ugly law.

She said one of the things that's somewhat surprising is that when this law was passed, there were actually a lot of people

with physical disabilities who were respected members of society. They included military veterans

and factory workers. Minor disabilities such as crushed your missing fingers can actually help signify

to employers that you are an experienced worker because industrial accident rates are so high

that having a minor disability that you can still do industrial work showed that you had experience.

So the ugly law specifically targeted poor people with disabilities, especially those who

begged for money.

And why it became a law then has a lot to do with what was happening in the late 1800s.

You actually have to back up just a little bit to what was known as the panic of 1873,

which was the worst economic downturn the U.S. had seen up until that point.

It's seen as a moral failure of individual people for not working.

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