The Forgotten Family on the Garret Floor
An impoverished immigrant family, suffering from diphtheria in a cramped Seattle attic, highlights the desperate housing conditions facing newcomers in 1889.
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.
In the garret of a dwelling on the corner of Main and Second streets, there is a most miserable place. The only means of exit or entrance is by a ladder, and there is not room to stand erect in the dwelling. The family, which arrived here from Norway two days since, is entirely out of funds. One of the children is ill with diphtheria. Mr. C. O. Rogen heard of the condition of Mr. Olsen and family, and had them moved to a house where there is more room, and supplied them with the necessaries of life. The attention of the charitable is directed to this unfortunate family. The county commissioners have agreed to bury the dead child.
“The only means of exit or entrance is by a ladder, and there is not room to stand erect in the dwelling.”
The housing struggles of this Norwegian immigrant family in 1889 resonate deeply with modern Seattle, where 'attic' living spaces and illegal sub-divisions continue to be a primary site of housing precarity. While the specific intersection of Main and Second is now the heart of the Pioneer Square historic district, the struggle to house arriving populations remains a recurring, unresolved friction in the city's growth.
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