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22 People with disablements have always been overrepresented in the ranks of beggars.1 In many people’s minds, begging goes hand in hand with disability. In some communities, so-called ugly laws prohibited disabled panhandlers from seeking alms. In other localities, they were more or less given free reign (Schweik 2009).2 Many 1. This overrepresentation is linked to a number of factors, including lack of other occupational opportunities, employer discrimination, and choice. 2. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, several cities adopted “unsightly beggar ordinances,” also referred to as “ugly laws,” to keep people with incapacities famous photographers have produced well-known portraits of people with handicapping conditions in the act of panhandling. Some of these photographs are icons of art photography,3 but I do not from asking for handouts in public. Some of these laws remained on the books until the second half of the twentieth century (Garland-Thomson 2009, 72; Schweik 2009). 3. They include Jacob Riis’s “Blind Beggar” (1888); P. Strand’s “Blind Woman” (1916); A. Kertesz “Legless Man Selling Flowers” (1928); B. Shahn “Accordion Player” (undated); and Garry Winogrand’s “American Legion Convention , Dallas, 1964” (1964) (see Marien 2006, 203, 346; Winogrand’s photo is also discussed in chapter 9). 3 Begging Cards Solicitation with Photographs 3.1. John Rose, beggar in goat cart, ca. 1910. Photo postcard. Begging Cards  23 look at art museum photographs in this chapter, saving them for chapter 9. Here, I examine a genre of beggar photography that mendicants themselves used to raise money. The photo of John Rose in illustration 3.1 is an example. Americans have always been distressed by people asking for a handout—in terms of both the abstract concept of seeking alms and the face-toface encounter it involves. Beggars are an assault on capitalism in that they reveal that many people are unable to find gainful employment under that economic system. Especially in America, beggars are a contradiction of the belief that everyone should and can provide for themselves by working. These abstract considerations may contribute to visceral reactions to beggars and our resistance to contributing. Even though the beggar’s physical act of soliciting can involve laborious effort and long hours in dangerous settings, most Americans do not think of panhandling as work or a legitimate vocation. Many citizens view all beggars as offensive , unworthy hustlers to one degree or another. They are often cast as “scroungers,” “sponges,” “freeloaders”, “bums,” and “moochers.” Begging on the street is more nerve racking to the person who is asked to give than to the solicitors . People are not used to being approached for a handout by a stranger, especially one with a demonstrable physical or mental anomaly (Goffman 1963). Out of fear, disdain, indifference, or the desire just to move on, many of those approached by beggars develop strategies designed to manage the encounter without forking over cash. Others are more sympathetic and deal differently with those looking for a handout. They establish rules for themselves about the interaction—criteria for whom to give to, under what conditions, and how much to give. Beggars have their own ways of thinking about these encounters. Most beggars are experienced in confronting people. They have conventions to manage such meetings. Although some merely passively sit at their stations, others are more active. They size up potential benefactors, deciding whom to approach and what tactics to use. They realize the discomfort they may cause. They are also aware of the strategies their patrons use to avoid them and so develop their own methods of manipulation to increase their chances to score.4 Talking about beggars in the way I have, as manipulators, might offend some readers. I do not mean to single out beggars as operators. All people present themselves in strategic ways, especially in occupational roles (Goffman 1959). Not to acknowledge that people with disabilities manipulate the alms situation is paternalistic and denies them agency as well as their real connection to other human beings. Beggars’ deceptions rely on some citizens’ assumption that people with disabilities are too helpless, too nice, too disabled to be devious. My wary approach does not mean that I do not believe many people who beg are needy and use what they receive for real needs. The cat-and-mouse game between beggars and their potential benefactors is an interaction that has a deeply rooted history in our culture. Beggars ’ performances and scripts evolved in concert with Americans’ values...

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