The Myth of the 'Overcrowded' Frontier
In 1889, local papers pushed back against sensationalist claims that Seattle was a destitute wasteland, framing the 'idle' men on street corners not as victims of an economic crisis, but as voluntary loafers.
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.
The Mandan Pioneer has the following to say regarding Washington Territory: 'A large number of wholly disinterested people say that the outlook in Washington Territory is anything but good for the settlers that are pouring in... C.K. Daniels... writes that there is a great influx of people into that section that a large number are unable to get work, and that many are begging on the streets of Tacoma for bread.'
This is a sad commentary on the enormous immigration that is going to the far West. The above would certainly be a sad commentary, if it were true. Apparently, the only reason for publishing such stuff is that Dakotans... cannot reconcile themselves to the truth that there are fairer lands farther on. As a rule, men have been able to find work in Seattle as easily as in any other city. The fact that men are hanging about street corners is no indication that the labor market is overstocked. It is not many months since railroad contractors were calling for men at good wages, and at that very time it was easy to find attractive curb-stones where from two to twenty individuals were always to be found dreaming of future prosperity but preferring to bask in the congenial rays of the afternoon sun rather than earn a living by a little honest toil.
“The fact that men are hanging about street corners is no indication, it has been proved, that the labor market is overstocked.”
This 1889 editorial captures a recurring Seattle tension: the clash between rapid, destabilizing growth and the moralizing of poverty. Just as the paper dismisses reports of homelessness as 'false' or the result of 'worthless characters' loitering, modern debates over housing and labor continue to struggle with the friction between the reality of systemic displacement and the desire to protect the image of a booming, prosperous city.
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