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. The miserable surroundings Riis discusses throughout the length of his entire document focus on the tenement. 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. Riis says, "Large rooms were partitioned into several smaller ones, without regard to light or ventilation."(Pg. 69) These rooms were too small to house one family and too dark and stagnant too live in, yet it was common to have as many as three or four families in one "apartment"! Tenements are the pit of filth, hot, dank and disease ridden. It was very common for a whole building to be wiped out by a disease such as cholera. The tenants were so cramped that many babies died of "foul air", the cause of which was no ventilation. Deaths due to the poor condition of the tenement houses were so great the first year tenements were instituted that the death rate in the city nearly doubled. Yet the tenement population kept growing and growing, until one third of New York City's population lived in the tenements. Population was so concentrated and overcrowded in the tenements that New York's East side (where the tenements were located) had the highest population density in the world! Jacob Riis recognized that the ever-increasing lower class was a major problem and would only get worse if the tenement situation was not remedied.
Riis creates many divisions in his writing. ... " Riis is imparting the idea of descending to the lower class. ... Riis does this by describing the racial hierarchy and how they differed. ... Here, Riis makes a point to discuss the Irish and Italian groups of people. ... It is peculiar that he makes this distinction even though Riis is an immigrant himself. ...
The photojournalism presented by Riis had a major impact on the message he was trying to get across to the public. Jacob Riis worked as a reporter and was shocked by the conditions these people lived in. ... I felt this book was very difficult to read and the message Riis was giving his readers was unimaginable. ... Riis traveled from tenement house to tenement house seeing the same conditions, if not worse. ... Riis also reported that he walked into one house and the floor was covered with hardened mud. ...
Jacob Riis" book, How the Other Half Lives, is an account on the unfortunate and the impoverished in New York City. Riis tried to write this book with objectivity but given his background and personal connection to the apartment tenants it was hard to keep that objectivity throughout his book. ... Riis refers to all the immigration groups in a negative way. ... Riis writes his book effectively and manages to grasp the attention of the nation with his depiction of real life stories and his snap photography of the tenements of New York City. ...
(Riis, 133-134). ... (Riis, 92) Chinese were looked down upon very unfavorably by Riis. ... (Riis, 121). ... (Riis, 127) The Chinese had the reputation as being the quietest people in the "notoriously turbulent Sixth Ward" (Riis, 127). ... (Riis, 37). ...
His name was Jacob Riis. ... Jacob Riis was the 3rd of 13 children in his family. ... Eventually Jacob Riis was the photographer and on the NY board about commissions. ... In older adult years Riis began to use his photo's to backup his arguments. ... Jacob Riis had a great impact on the United States of America. ...
Riis believed that landlords were to blame for most of these poor conditions. ... Riis believed that if this trend continued that there would be revolt in the city. ... Riis even exhibited much of this discrimination in his writing. ... I would like to know how successful Riis was in changing the face in Tenement living. ... What strategies did they use, were any of them Riis's ideas? ...
Jacob Riis evocative black and white photographs, taken more than a century ago, propel us both backward and forward through history. Jacob August Riis, a New York City police reporter, found his world transformed with the advent offlashlight powder.? ... Jacob Riis, the author of the bestseller How the Other Half Lives, hated poverty because it reminded him of his own tumultuous past. Riis left Denmark for New York at the age of 21. ... As Riis writes,only the poor abandon their children? ...
The first progressive is Jacob Riis. Jacob Riis believed that the industrial movement brought forth terrible, poor tenement living. ... Unlike Sumner in which he said that change is part of our imagination and not be attempted, Riis thought otherwise and thought that change was part of our responsibility as a society to improve. Riis thought that this tenement problem was under our control and therefore solve the problems it had and we could live in a better society. ... Progressives were what Croly and Riis were called because progress meant to change. ...
The first progressive is Jacob Riis. Jacob Riis believed that the industrial movement brought forth terrible, poor tenement living. ... Unlike Sumner in which he said that change is part of our imagination and not be attempted, Riis thought otherwise and thought that change was part of our responsibility as a society to improve. Riis thought that this tenement problem was under our control and therefore solve the problems it had and we could live in a better society. ... Progressives were what Croly and Riis were called because progress meant to change. ...
