How The Other Half Lives Summary

1770 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Poverty and deprivation in the 19th century

Riis overcame many obstacles to produce his book How the Other Half Lives which contains the struggles of poor people living in New York. Through his book Riis wanted to bring to life the suffering of these people. He wanted the upper classmen or someone with power to do something about the poverty in this great city. Riis knew of the poverty and wanted everyone to be aware of it. He did so through articles, newspapers, and his book which contained pictures and stories about mothers who were forced to murder or abandon their babies. This essay will describe American life during the late nineteenth century; the harsh decisions mothers had to face, and how immigration affected New York.
In the mid nineteenth century poverty overcame the cities …show more content…

Unemployment and poverty increased, there were not enough jobs for everyone so many slumped into the slums and were forced to live among others facing the same conditions. Riis was successful in showing how immigration affected New York as well as life during the mid-nineteenth century. Riis provided his book How the Other Half Lives which showed “a view of poverty that revealed modern America’s vison of progress.” (pg. 8 How the Other Half Lives). Riis showed how poverty developed thorough time it was said that his book gave his readers a glimpse of America’s future. Riis was successful in selling more than two thousand copies of his book. In his book Riis successfully showed how those in poverty lived he was praised by many, and he opened the eyes of his readers. One of the readers Dr. A.T Schauffler commented “no book that has ever appeared in this land pours such light.” (pg. 6 How the Other Half Lives). Schauffler is commenting that Riis nailed the lives of those living in poverty. No other book till that day showed or described the suffrage of the underclass such How The Other Half Lives. Another one of Riis readers Elbridge Gerry the president of the New York Society commented that Riis book was “one of the most valuable contributions to the history of child saving work in this great city.” (pg.6 How the Other Half Lives). Thanks to Riis book many of its readers became aware of the poverty situation in New York. If it weren’t for the pictures and words within the books no one would have really noticed the poor and would have gone about their days. As more people read the book more opportunity came for the underclass and more homes were built to accommodate their

Show More
Related

  • Jewish Immigrants In Bread Givers By Anzia Yezierska

    1022 Words  | 3 Pages

    The novel Bread Givers by Anzia Yezierska examines the roles and experiences of Jewish immigrants in America roughly after the years of WWI in New York City. The novel follows the journey of Sara, a young Jewish immigrant, and her family who comes to the country from Poland with different beliefs than those in the Smolinsky household and by much of the Jewish community that lived within the housing neighborhoods in the early 1900s. Through Sara’s passion for education, desire for freedom and appreciation for her culture, she embodies a personal meaning of it means to be an “American”.

    Read More

  • Summary Of How The Other Half Lives

    1098 Words  | 3 Pages

    Jacob A Riis said “one half of the world does not know how the other half lives” (1) in the introduction of his great book How the Other Half Lives, which was published in 1890. It was simply because the one half did not care how the other half lived. Although unknowing how the other half lives had not been a matter, it brought into relief the gap between people over middle-class and the poor around 1900s in New York City where was the youngest city in the world.

    Read More

  • Examples Of Socialism In The Jungle

    1127 Words  | 3 Pages

    The story’s main character, Jurgis Rudkus, goes through a great deal of hardship in this story. His family moves from Lithuania in hopes of chasing “the American Dream”. Instead they find that the higher wages they earn are offset by the much higher cost of living. Everyone in the family has

    Read More

  • Bread Givers by Anzia Yezierskia

    1481 Words  | 3 Pages

    According to Coming to America: A History of Immigration and Ethnicity in American Life, between 1880 and about World War I, the vast majority of Eastern European Jews and Southern Italians came to the United States populating neighborhoods in New York and the Lower East Side is the best example. One thing, which was common to the immigrant experience is that, all immigrants come to the United States as the “land of opportunity”. They come to America with different types of expectations that are conditioned by their origins and families. But every immigrant comes to America wanting to make himself/herself into a person, to be an individual and to become somebody. In this case, the author showed in Bread Givers, Sarah’s desire to make herself into something and bring something unique to America, which only she can bring. It is an effort to understand the immigrants, particularly Jewish immigrants, from a woman’s point of view. The book shows that it was a challenge for Jewish immigrant children, particularly females, on the account of the intensity of their family’s connections and obligations that was so critical for the immigrant communities. This was true for the immigrants who came to settle in the neighborhoods like the one Sarah and her family settled in.

    Read More

  • Jacob Riis In How The Other Half Lives

    710 Words  | 2 Pages

    How truly grateful are we for our possessions and what we have earned from the work we have done? Are we thankful for what we possess, or are we still jealous of that one friend, colleague, coworker, or even extended family member that has nicer belongings than we do? Jacob Riis opened our eyes and gave us a true, vivid description and idea of how American families in New York during the late 1800’s lived and worked. This eye opening account shows us today that we should be grateful for what we have and never think that everyone is better than us. Throughout How the Other Half Lives, Riis uses a variety of writing techniques such as word choice, imagery, and .

    Read More

  • The Chinatown Trunk Mystery Analysis

    1282 Words  | 3 Pages

    Throughout the early 1900s an American immigrant experience was subject to society’s opinion and the nation’s policies. Various ethnicities endured the harsh reality that was American culture while familiarizing themselves with their families. Immigration thrived off the strength and pride demonstrated by their neighborhoods. Notions of race, cultural adaptations and neighborhood represented the ways by which human being were assessed. In a careful interpretation of Mary Lui’s “The Chinatown Trunk Mystery” and Michael Innis-Jimenez’s “Steel Barrio”, I will trace the importance of a neighborhood in the immigrant experience explaining the way in which neighborhoods were created, how these lines were crossed and notions of race factored into separating these neighborhoods.

    Read More

  • Jacob A. Riis' How the Other Half Lives

    519 Words  | 2 Pages

    This book talks about the immigrants in the early 1900’s. The book describes how they live their daily lives in New York City. It helped me a lot on Riis photographs and his writings on to better understand the book and the harsh reality this people lived. This comes to show us that life is not that easy and it will cost us work to succeed.

    Read More

  • Boston forced busing

    1334 Words  | 3 Pages

    The author skirts around the central issue of racism by calling it a “class struggle” within the white population of Boston during the 1960s and 1970s. Formisano discuses the phenomenon known as “white flight”, where great numbers of white families left the cities for the suburbs. This was not only for a better lifestyle, but a way to distance themselves from the African Americans, who settled in northern urban areas following the second Great Migration.

    Read More

  • Prejudice Explored in "Black Boy" by Richard Wright

    874 Words  | 2 Pages

    In a country full of inequities and discriminations, numerous books were written to depict our unjust societies. One of the many books is an autobiography by Richard Wright. In Black Boy, Wright shares these many life-changing experiences he faced, which include the discovery of racism at a young age, the fights he put up against discriminations and hunger, and finally his decision of moving Northward to a purported better society. Through these experiences which eventually led him to success, Wright tells his readers the cause and effect of racism, and hunger. In a way, the novel The Tortilla Curtain by T.C Boyle illustrates similar experiences. In this book, the lives of two wealthy American citizens and two illegal immigrants collided. Delaney and Kyra were whites living in a pleasurable home, with the constant worry that Mexicans would disturb their peaceful, gated community. Candido and America, on the other hand, came to America to seek job opportunities and a home but ended up camping at a canyon, struggling even for cheapest form of life. They were prevented from any kind of opportunities because they were Mexicans. The differences between the skin colors of these two couples created the hugest gap between the two races. Despite the difficulties American and Candido went through, they never reached success like Wright did. However, something which links these two illegal immigrants and this African American together is their determination to strive for food and a better future. For discouraged minorities struggling in a society plagued with racism, their will to escape poverty often becomes their only motivation to survive, but can also acts as the push they need toward success.

    Read More

  • ROSIE THE RIVETER AND HER CONTRIBUTION TO WWII

    1836 Words  | 4 Pages

    As many women took on a domestic role during this era, by the turn of the century women were certainly not strangers to the work force. As the developing American nation altered the lives of its citizens, both men and women found themselves struggling economically and migrated into cities to find work in the emerging industrialized labor movement . Ho...

    Read More

  • Immigrants in Upton Sinclair 's The Jungle

    779 Words  | 2 Pages

    A well-discussed debate in today’s economy is the issues concerning immigrants and their yearning desire to become American citizens. As displayed in The Jungle, a rather perturbing novel about the trials and ruthless temptations early America presents to a Lithuanian family, adjusting to a new surroundings and a new way of life is quite difficult. To make matters worse, language barriers and lack of domestic knowledge only seem to entice starvation and poverty among newly acquired citizens, who simply wish to change their social and economic lives to better themselves and their families. Such is the case of Jurgis Rudkus and his extended family, consisting of cousins, in-laws, and their multitude of children. Natives to the country of Lithuania, Jurgis and his family decide that, after Jurgis and his love, Ona, marry, they will move to Chicago to find work in order to support their family.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of George Orwell's Down And Out In Paris And London

    1735 Words  | 4 Pages

    People in United states tend to ignore the complex problems the country is facing but focuses on the dominance of the country. People only looks at the surface of the United States and neglects problem about poverty. The bigger cities, like Los Angeles and New York, are mostly impacted by the poverty. It is important to recognize the impact of the poverty in order to understand the complex problem of the United States. In George Orwell’s “Down and Out in Paris and London”, the author provides a vivid image of the poverty and the impact on the people’s daily lives. In 1933 London and Paris, the condition of the poverty was much critical due to lack of support from the government. When we compare the 21st century poverty

    Read More

  • The Warmth of Other Suns, by Isabel Wilkerson

    1207 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...n the trying time of the Great Migration. Students in particular can study this story and employ its principles to their other courses. Traditional character analysis would prove ineffective with this non-fiction because the people in this book are real; they are our ancestors. Isabel Wilkerson utilized varied scopes and extensive amounts of research to communicate a sense of reality that lifted the characters off the page. While she concentrated on three specifically, each of them served as an example of someone who left the south during different decades and with different inspirations. This unintentional mass migration has drastically changed and significantly improved society, our mindset, and our economics. This profound and influential book reveals history in addition to propelling the reader into a world that was once very different than the one we know today.

    Read More

  • Jacob Riis How The Other Half Lives

    1478 Words  | 3 Pages

    In 1890 Jacob Riis, a Danish migrant and New York Times reported introduced the immigrant problem to Americans using photojournalism in his book How the Other Half Lives: Studies among the Tenements of New York. This book provided insight into the harsh lives of the immigrants living in the slums of New York by giving photographic evidence that spoke to the hearts of many Americans. At the time many were unaware of the difficult challenges many immigrants faced and Riis brought up this social issue. Riis himself however has some bias and delineates these people into groups of the “deserving poor” and “undeserving poor”. Despite his muckraking skills and attempts to reveal the hostile conditions of immigrants Riis has some racial prejudices

    Read More

  • Suffering in Harriet Wilson's Our Nig

    1178 Words  | 3 Pages

    Harriet Wilson’s Our Nig is a novel that presents the harshness of racial prejudice during the 19th century combined with the traumas of abandonment. The story of Frado, a once free-spirited mulatto girl abandoned by her white mother, unfolds as she develops into a woman. She is faced with all the abuse and torment that Mrs. Belmont, the antagonist, could subject her to. Still she survives to obtain her freedom. Through the events and the accounts of Frado’s life the reader is left with a painful reality of the lives of indentured servants.

    Read More

More about How The Other Half Lives Summary

Open Document