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The labor union movement of the late 1800s
Cite how the other half lives
The labor union movement of the late 1800s
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Towards the end of the 19th century, reformers used many different tactics to encourage the public to advocate for social reforms. Jacob Riis used photographs of New York City’s slum tenements and its inhabitants to shock people with the truth. His book, How the Other Half Lives, provides a clear picture of the dangers that tenement life poses to middle-class values. Because all life is a product of its environment, Riis used pictures to encourage members of the middle class to see the poor’s struggles before it became a problem that undermined society’s ability to function. His approach had on tenement reform and the struggles of life in the tenement houses were detrimental to changing the poor’s way of life Jacob Riis, used a first-person perspective to explore the living conditions of that era. Riis was an immigrant, a photojournalist, a police reporter, and more importantly a social reformer He paints a very clear un-shielded …show more content…
Most of the diseases spread fast within the tenement walls due to the close proximities. Usually the diseased tenants did not live long, and spread plague throughout other city blocks. This led to a citizen movement that resulted in the organization of the Board of Health. The Health Department educated the people more than giving them help. Eventually they ordered tenements to be ventilated with air shafts and ordered windows to be installed. Over time it led to the decline and extinction of the "dark room". The Health Department made more propositions that included getting rid of rear tenement-housing. A more successful idea was tenement housing with ten or more families was assigned a housekeeper. With the attention of the public lacking, a good start to making a difference was neighborhood guilds and philanthropists who invested their time in few tenement buildings to make it more
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 novel How the Other Half Lives by Jacob Riis shocked middle and upper class Americans when it was published in 1890. Riis created a sensation when he revealed to the world, combining detailed written descriptions with graphic photographs, the horrific conditions of New York City’s tenement housing. How the Other Half Lives raised many questions, such as how and why the poor are subjected to such terrible living conditions and how that environment affects them. Riis also reveals his fears and prejudices toward certain ethnic groups as he investigates each tenement in order to find some kind of solution.
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.
Mark Peterson’s 1994 photograph, Image of Homelessness, compares the everyday life of the working class to the forgotten life of the lowest class in society. In the image, the viewer can see a troubled homeless man wrapped in a cocoon of standard manipulated 12in by 12in cardboard boxes and yarn. The yarn is what is keeping the man and box tied to the red bench. This bench has chipped paint and is right in front of a black fence. Underneath the bench is dirt and debris from the dead fall leaves. The center focal point is the homeless man on the bench. He is the focal point because he is the greatest outsider known to man. Behind this man is vibrant life. There is pulsating people crossing the clean street, signs of life from all the advertising on store windows, families walking and blurred cars filled with
In the Pulitzer prize-winning novel Evicted, sociologist Matthew Desmond follows eight families as he exposes how the lack of affordable housing perpetuates a state of poverty. He even goes so far as to assert that it is eviction that is a cause of poverty, not the other way around (Desmond 229). While this latter argument is as engrossing and it is striking, analyzing it with justice is simply not possible within the scope of this paper. Nevertheless, it is these two factors—inescapable poverty and eviction—that engender an unrelenting condition of financial, emotional, and communal instability, effectively hindering any chance of upward mobility.
Jacob Riis documented the slums of New York. He photographed the tenement apartments and people. he thinks people who live in slums are living in the world of "the other half", which is under poor conditions with disease, immigrants and violence. He used his powerful photos and influential text brought public attention to the city's lower-class lives and living
During the industrial revolution household rubbish was frequently thrown into narrow streets and the air was filled with black smoke from the factory’s chimney. Dirty streets and cramped living were a perfect breeding space for diseases. More than 31,000 people died during an outbreak of cholera in 1832 and families were inflicted with typhus, smallpox, and dysentery. Most Families were living in houses in unsanitary terrible built homes. Meaning more ‘better’ homes had to be built. In the rush to build homes, many were constructed too quickly in terraced rows. Some of these houses had small yards at the rear were most toilets was placed. Others had ‘back to back’ communal toilets. The more people that were living in these states, it quickly
Jacob Riis, a Danish immigrant to New York City in the late 1800s, was a photographer that documented the harsh conditions of the working class in the late 19th century. He released a photo-journal book in 1890 entitled How the Other Half Lives: Studies among the Tenements of New York. He illuminated the dark, cramped quarters and incredibly dirty conditions of Manhattan’s Lower East Side. The publication invigorated social activism and pushed for improved housing legislation and standards.
The filth of the cities promoted the spread of disease faster than doctors could discover a cure. This encouraged large outbreaks of many deadly diseases. And it is said that throughout this period there were people who went about the cities and towns with wagons calling "Bring out your dead!" in a fashion similar to that of the Medieval era during the bubonic plague (Which, by the way, was not yet a dead disease).
Instead of helping, the public housing programs further concentrated the African-American community and “those who remained in the ghetto tended to become more distant” (Anderson), having access to an adequate education, resources required to obtain jobs, and also lacking protection under the law as violence grew daily amongst its inhabitants. Since “Socialization is the way in which people learn the norms and values found in their society, develop social skills, and participate in societal roles that will be continued throughout their lifetime” (Koepke)the “economic and social isolation emerged from the ghetto” (Hart)and in a sense cut its members off from the “real”
By the late 19th century, New York transformed into an urban metropolis aided by the growth of industrialization and immigration. The growth of the city subsequently brought with it increased poverty. Poor conditions in the slums and tenements grew an alarming degree. It was Jacob Riis that took it upon himself to bring attention to the plight of the poor through documenting “how the other half lives” in photography and journalism. Although Jacob Riis began as a writer, the plight of the poor influenced Riis to learn photography, realizing its potential as a tool in his eventual goal of enacting social change. In this paper I will analyze photographs from How the Other Half Lives, approaching Jacob Riis as an artist and photographer rather
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
It is difficult to decide what is worse, the work done in the mines or the housing to which the miners returned to at night. The especially cruel truth. is the fact that the rent of a family of six living in two barren rooms, two hundred yards from an outdoor privy, extorted most of the household wages. Orwell 's urgent prose does not let anyone turn a blind eye to the facts. Although Orwell wrote from the perspective of a “participant observer” it still resonates today 's concerns about the effects of poverty on people 's everyday lives and dreams.
In addition to individuals lacking adequate housing, the crisis also has indirect effects on the nation's health. It is critical that the problem is recognized and immediate action is taken to mitigate the housing crisis. The causes of the crisis stem back to the 1930's when government intervention in the housing market resulted in red-lining and emphasized wealthy white neighborhoods. In urban areas, many cheap residential hotels and apartment complexes were torn down in order to make room for city centers and improve the aesthetics of communities. In rural areas, the economic downturn following the Great Depression and later WWII has greatly impacted the prevailing poverty rates that contribute to unaffordable and insufficient housing. Currently, some federal departments and policies exist that work to provide housing for low-income groups. Unfortunately, none of these programs will be able to alleviate the problem without increases in their budgets. Some supply and demand side solutions have been theoretically proposed, but I argue that the cheapest and most effective way to mitigate the effects of the affordable housing crisis is to renovate and create residential hotels, which thrived in the early 1900's. This form of housing in preferable for those without steady incomes as they are able to rent for a day, week or monthly basis without the need for a