Analysis Of How The Other Half Lives By Riis

The Progressive Era was a time in United Sates History (roughly between 1890 and 1920) that bolstered unparalleled reform across America. Consisting of multiple social welfare reforms, three constitutional amendments, and numerous international policy changes, the Progressive Era resulted in very distinct changes throughout the country. One area of reform heavily emphasized by the movement was social welfare. Movements regarding social welfare aimed to confront and reform the growing gap in American society. As a result of the industrialization preceding and continuing into the Progressive Era, there was a disparity of wealth never before seen in American history. Many urban families were living under the poverty line while millionaire middle

The reactions to his book initiated a calling for social reforms across the country. However, this book was also one of the first to display ethnographic and psychological details that included: examining different behaviors of different groups of people and talking about individuality and self-esteem.6 When reflecting on the writing of the book, Riis said: “My aim was to arouse the conscience and excite sympathy. In a crowd of a hundred the one who limps excites attention and sympathy––those who go on sound legs go unnoticed. Therefore I ‘limped’ purposely, I was presenting wrongs to be redressed,”.7 With his work, Riis captured the attention and sympathy of people across the nation and henceforth helped initiate the Progressive Movement. He managed to bring about large-scale awareness of an issue he believe could no longer wait: the necessity for social reforms. Publishing How the Other Half Lives was only the first of his reform actions that resulted in the overarching influence he had on the social welfare

One of those organizations that Riis endorsed was the East Side Relief Work Committee that hired one thousand men to clean up the slums and women to make cloth.8 Relief organizations such as the aforementioned one had little success due to the scale of unemployment they attempted to combat. The responses put in place by the government on the other hand, proved to be completely ineffective but highlighted problems that needed to be fixed. Riis shifted viewpoints as a result of the depression and began to heavily promote improvement of family life and the environments in which kids were raised. His ideas eventually led to and heavily influenced movements that improved the community by adding schools or parks. Movements such as the City Beautiful Movement were shaped by Riis’s stress upon the importance of family life (which he argued could not be properly sustained living in vile tenements) and environment which children are raised in. He believed that humans were inherently benevolent but needed a supportive environment to flourish. The slums were simply not that. Riis argued that they tarnished and constricted the moral, ethical, physical, and intellectual development of people. His voiced concerns eventually saw reform movements that attempted to beautify cities, establish