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Jacob riis papers
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In the passage “How the Other Half Lives” Jacob Riis makes a very accurate account of what life is like in tenements of New York City. He describes the challenges facing the mostly immigrant population that inhabited the slums and how the societal view was largely inaccurate. His observations however, are slightly marred by his own preconceived notions and prejudice. Riis gives what he believes to be the cause of the squalor and subsequent effect which was the then current state of affairs. He then ends his book with three primary options for a solution that are in theory very sound ideas. In “How the Other Half Lives” Jacob Riis begins with a pseudo-history lesson and then progresses into the statistics of the time. Riis explains how overcrowded these environments are and how despite this their populations continue to swell. [1] He explains that the desires of the tenants is to have their living quarters renovated and repaired [2], then goes on the explain the mentality of some of the landlords was primarily to simply collect rent from these people. [3]
Riis explains that the quality of living in these situations has exacerbated things like disease, referring to previous epidemics which in these slums hit much worse than sanitary neighborhoods. [4] Riis then creates a dreadful image for his audience in which this death comes
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[16] Riis also has the unprecedented hostility toward the Chinese, his view of them is acknowledged by himself as rather harsh and their habit of sticking to their own tradition ran antithetical to his belief of converting them to “proper” Americans. [17] Riis then moves on to the Jews and while not as harsh as he is with the Asians he still believes that this habit of living in an enclave with those of similar ethnicities interferes with your transition to American as well as continuing to propagate stereotypes.
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.
Gilbert Osofsky’s Harlem: The Making of a Ghetto paints a grim picture of inevitability for the once-exclusive neighborhood of Harlem, New York. Ososfky’s timeframe is set in 1890-1930 and his study is split up into three parts. His analysis is convincing in explaining the social and economic reasons why Harlem became the slum that it is widely infamous for today, but he fails to highlight many of the positive aspects of the enduring neighborhood, and the lack of political analysis in the book is troubling.
The tenement is a building, which due to the immigration boom was modified by its landlord to create as many rooms as possible, therefore sacrificing the human necessities of air and light. Even if one did live past the age of five, it was highly probable he’d become a criminal, since virtually all of them originate from the tenements. They are forced to steal and murder, they’ll do anything to survive, Riis appropriately calls it the “survival of the unfittest”. (Pg. 40)
...ll. The inner city has many complications the fact that most are African American is a mere coincidence. If we as a nation are capable of fixing all institutions and structural issues we could bring the slums out of poverty. The cycle of unemployment and poverty is a terrible cycle that cannot only be judged by race and cultural values. When reading this book keep in mind the difficulties, any family or person could go through these tribulations. There are many arguments and sides to each problem; this is another one of those. The battle for inner city poverty, and the factors that go along with it, has not been finished. Wilson brings out a different aspect which could help people expand horizons and come up with better solutions.
Inner-city life is filled with glimmers of hope. The children had hopes of leaving the dreadful streets of the ghetto and moving into an innovative and improved place. There are times when Lafayette states, ...
Jacob Riis’ book How the Other Half Lives is a detailed description on the poor and the destitute in the inner realms of New York City. Riis tries to portray the living conditions through the ‘eyes’ of his camera. He sneaks up on the people flashes a picture and then tells the rest of the city how the ‘other half’ is living. As shocking as the truth was without seeing such poverty and horrible conditions with their own eyes or taking in the experience with all their senses it still seemed like a million miles away or even just a fairy tale.
Typhoid fever, smallpox and diphtheria were some of the diseases that ravaged the slums. Many children suffer from juvenile diseases such as whooping cough, measles and scarlet fever. Infant morality rate was very high. Along with immigrants, blacks suffered greatly as well. Immigrants couldn’t afford better housing, but blacks were trapped in segregated areas.
During the Gilded Age, the streets where the poor lived were inhumane. There were many people that lived on the streets or in tenements in poor condition. Jacob Riis, a photographer, exposed “the
In Evicted by Matthew Desmond, Desmond examines the complex nature of poverty and elucidates on the housing dilemma that prevents the poor from breaking from the vicious cycle of poverty. Desmond examines the lives of eight American families from different backgrounds and races and records their life stories. By documenting the struggles and difficulties that they face, Desmond demonstrates that even though the United States is one of the wealthiest countries in the world, it still has much ground to cover to try to untangle the complex nature of poverty in order to find productive solutions.
As a result of unfortunate situations six million Jews were killed, families were taken out of their own homes and put in ghettos, which were large prison type establishments that housed dozens of people in one small apartment. They were then separated from their famil...
The possibility of being homeless is scary and frustrating, and thus, the main theme of this project is to highlight the housing challenges these families face while comparing their habitations with those of majority of Americans in the 21st-century. As the film continues, audiences begin to question themselves: what stands for ‘majority of us’ and how should we address this situation? The problem is complex because it involves historical leftover, long-term racial tension, wealth inequality, and social injustice, among other
Jacob Riis is clearly a trained historian since he was given an education to become a change in the world-- he was a well educated American newspaper reporter, social reformer, and photographer who, with his book How the Other Half Lives, shocked the conscience of his readers with factual descriptions of slum conditions in New York City. In 1870, Jacob Riis immigrated to the United States without any economic resources and unable to find a source of income to help him. This leads to his perceptions about the topic because he also states in the book that the various jobs he occupied were low paying and he experienced poverty in the city of New York as well, yet for a short period of time. Riis mentions the injustice of unsanitary and dangerous
The South Bronx, New York City: another northern portrait of racial divide that naturally occurred in the span of less than a century, or a gradual, but systematic reformation based on the mistaken ideology of white supremacy? A quick glance through contemporary articles on The Bronx borough convey a continuation of less-than-ideal conditions, though recently politicians and city planners have begun to take a renewed interest in revitalizing the Bronx. (HU, NYT) Some common conceptions of the Bronx remain less than satisfactory—indeed, some will still express fear or disgust, while some others have expressed the fundamentally incorrect racial ideas studied here—but others recall the Bronx with fondness, calling it a once “boring” and “secure” neighborhood.(BRONX HIST JOURNAL, p. 1) What are we to do with such radically different accounts between The Bronx of yesterday, and the impoverished borough of today? If we speak in known, contemporary cultural stereotypes, then segregation is strictly a Southern design, but natural otherwise—but to record this as a natural occurrence, no different than a seasonal change or day turning to night, would be to ignore the underlying problem. The changing role of white Americans from majority to population minority in the Bronx, coupled with the borough’s title of “poorest urban county in America” (as of 2012), is the result of careful orchestration and a repeating story of economic and political gain superseding civil rights. (GONZALES, BRONX) (BRONX HIST JOURN, HARD KNOCKS IN BRONX @ poorest note ) It is not coincidence.
Working as a photojournalist for New York Tribune, he documented the filth, exploitation, disease and overcrowding of more than one million blue collar immigrant workers (New York University Journalism Portfolio). His book How the Other Half Lives got him recognized by the President of the United States at the time, Theodore Roosevelt (National Park Service). His book made a huge impact on how the Lower East Side was seen and helped change the design of New York City apartments and improving living and working conditions for people in poverty. His book encouraged a new type of plan for tenement apartments that were too small, dumbbell tenements (Library of Congress). Jacob Riis described living in the small tenements and the additional struggles while living with a very large family in Lower East Side in Manhattan, “I have found in three rooms father, mother, twelve children, and six boarders. They sleep on the half-made clothing for beds. I found that several people slept in a subcellar four feet by six, on a pile of clothing that was being made” (Library of
These tenements lacked in many ways, including space and sanitation. Due to the packed conditions, diseases spread rapidly. Overall, the housing of the working class was unpleasant and many fell ill to diseases because the risk of developing a disease in a cramped environment was higher. In Document 2, it is evident that the tenements were not an ideal living space. Document 6 portrays that factories were ideally designed for the machines and not for the workers, and as a result the working conditions were also harsh.