The City Council Votes to Erase 'Whitechapel'
Facing mounting pressure to sanitize the city's image, Seattle officials move to ban the term 'Whitechapel'—a derogatory nickname for the city's poorest district—from official records and public discourse.
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 most amusing and interesting feature of the meeting of the house of delegates last evening was the discussion upon a resolution abolishing the use of the term Whitechapel, as applied to that portion of Seattle inhabited by our submerged one-tenth. The resolution presumed upon the truth of the reports of the police department that Whitechapel had been raided and is being brought into subjection. It was introduced by Mr. Morford, and stated: 'Realizing that such a name as has been applied to this locality is in itself a disgrace to the whole city, detrimental to its commercial and moral interests, bringing a blush of shame to all when commented on by strangers; therefore, be it resolved, that all police officers and employees of the city are prohibited from using this appellation... and all citizens are urged to abstain from using any such appellation, and especially the press of the city will discontinue its use.' President Jones acknowledged the paternity of the resolution. He said he had heard that Whitechapel had been wiped out, and thought it a good time to get rid of the offensive name, which he considered a stain upon the city; that his property was worth less than it would be if the term were out of use. The resolution passed the house and received the concurrence of the board of aldermen.
“Realizing that such a name as has been applied to this locality is in itself a disgrace to the whole city... bringing a blush of shame to all when commented on by strangers.”
The effort to rename or 'sanitize' a neighborhood to increase property values and improve civic optics is a recurring theme in Seattle’s history. Just as 19th-century officials sought to scrub the 'Whitechapel' label to protect investments, modern debates over neighborhood branding and the displacement of low-income residents continue to reflect the tension between civic pride and the lived reality of the city's most vulnerable.
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