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Unemployed Workers Displaced from Portland to Seattle

Sixty-four longshoremen arrive on the City of Topeka seeking work after being pushed out of Portland to reduce their local unemployed rolls.

The story, cleaned up

A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.

Mayor White called at the board of public works yesterday to see what could be done toward giving employment on city work to the sixty-four longshoremen who were brought to this city from Portland on the city of Topeka last Sunday. The men are destitute and without employment, and have been fed by the longshoremen's union since their arrival here. They say that they were sent out of Portland to reduce the army of the unemployed of that city. The matter was not presented to the board at its session in the afternoon, and no action was taken in the matter.

“They say that they were sent out of Portland to reduce the army of the unemployed of that city.”

— Printed in The Seattle Post-Intelligencer (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891
Then · 1891135 years apartNow · 2026

This reflects the long-standing volatility of the Pacific Northwest labor market, where cities often viewed the 'unemployed army' as a problem to be exported rather than a population to be supported.

The original page

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-02-04. Library of Congress, Chronicling America.

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About this story

From
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, FEB 4, 1891, Page 3
Rights
Public domain
Place
47.60323, -122.33028 · placed automatically
The paper in the Library of Congress catalog ↗