Jacob Riis Research Paper

From past to present, New York has always been known as the icon of the United States. However, in the early 1890’s all the focus and attention was on the middle and upper class, leaving the slums out of the picture. Many people were not aware of the harsh conditions that the unfortunate were making a living out of. Jacob Riis was one of few folks who thought that the poor had more value to them that what most people thought. He decided he would write a magazine article that would eventually get denied publicity because of the disturbing words and photos within, but that didn’t stop him.
When Jacob Riis was young he had a large family, but as he grew older he ended up leaving to New York on his own with very little money. He arrives to New

York looking for work and a home and realizes it’s harder than he thought. At one point he had nothing. Riis only survived scavenging for food and slept wherever he could, even in disgusting police lodges. Eventually, Riis was offered a job as a police reporter. Riis worked the most crime-ridden and impoverished slums of the city. After witnessing the conditions of reporting in poor areas and living in poorhouses himself, Riis decided to let it be known to all what the unfortunate go through by taking photos. He expanded his work with photos and writing into a book called “How the Other Half Lives: Studies among the Tenements of New York”.
In the 1800’s camera lenses were slow and so were the photographic plates. This was a problem if Riis wanted to take photos in dark interior areas, which were what most of his pictures would have been composed of. However, Riis came across a way to take photos by flashlight, which could capture dark settings. A mixture of magnesium and potassium chlorate and some antimony sulfide for stability is what the flash powder was made out of. This powder was used in a pistol-like device that would set off cartridges. This was the introduction of flash photography.
In the late 1800’s two-thirds of New Yorkers lived in tenement houses. In these tenement houses, up to seven people shared one toilet and it was not the prettiest place you’ve seen. Poor workers would only come home with some cents a day with most of their income having to be spent on food. In his book Riis describes the tenement housing system a failing process due to the greediness and neglect from wealthier people. He believes that there is a connection between the effects of poverty-controlled communities and the wealthy. Riis claims that because these people do not have a “proper home” it is almost inevitable to not have a higher crime. Also, lack of a proper home can cause people to be less civilized and act more careless and recklessly.
I believe Jacob Riis was self-motivated to write “How the Other Half Lives” because he knows what it was like to live in the slums. He personally felt the exclusion he received from anyone who had more money or lived in a better area than he did. Riis witnessed first hand what children were going through and how it was going unnoticed by the world.