J's Pages

This one's an interesting look at how the city of Seattle reacted to the people experiencing poverty and homelessness throughout its history. Professor Ensign starts this journey through Seattle's history by looking at how the question of "Who is responsible for paupers, for insane people, for homeless people?" was answered in England. The answer changed, like so many other things, during the Industrial Revolution and then further evolved as the English legal system was transplanted to North America. In each era she uses the story of one individual to show how the surrounding community both contributed to and tried to deal with that person's poverty. The common thread running throughout is that people's charity is intertwined with their greed, self-righteousness, and prejudices. Professor Ensign was even brave enough to pull in a personal anecdote of how her own response to a homeless individual fell short of the compassion we usually reserve for our own friends and family. 

All in all it was, like I said, interesting. It was fairly easy to read. One short-coming I felt was that it lacked the narrative flow that I've experienced in other history books. But in Professor Ensign's defense, I have to say that there's a lot more research material available for, say, a famous politician than the folks living in shacks on the other side of the tracks. Don't let that stop you from checking it out. 

(Oh, and I also feel compelled to add that it is my wife's opinion that Professor Ensign has completely misinterpreted J. P. Patches. But, again, don't let that keep you from reading the book.) 

LibraryThing link

Labels: CheckItOut

// posted by John @ 11:22 AM 0 Comments