ipl-logo

History Of The New York State Tenement House Act

1029 Words5 Pages

Annalee Allen

Intro to News Writing

Mr. Mike Stedham

6 March 2015

Jacob Riis

In the 1890’s, there was much corruption and chaos when it came to how the underprivileged people of New York, New York lived. The tenements were in some of the poorest conditions and it seemed as though no one was willing to do anything to help these poor, unfortunate people. The government thought that it was of no concern of theirs since the wealthier people were in charge of these tenements. They did not want to be involved, since there were no laws or rules in place mandating that the government improve the housing conditions. The wealthy tenement owners only saw improving the houses as a burden. They were already prospering off the poor and remodeling …show more content…

The House act states that there will be a “ban on the construction of dark, poorly ventilated tenement buildings in the state of New York.” Among other sanctions, the law required that new buildings must be built with outward-facing windows in every room, an open courtyard, proper ventilation systems, indoor toilets, and fire safeguards.

Many other “Tenement House Acts” had been enacted, but none were forced to be recognized and most did not cover the major problems that plagued the current tenements. The First Tenement House Act required fire escapes for each suite and a window for every room. The Second Tenement House Act closed a loophole, set by the first one, by requiring windows to face a source of fresh air and light, not just a hallway.

In 1901, after Riis’ book “How The Other Half Lives” was published, the government made it mandatory to follow the strict guidelines addressed in the New York State Tenement Housing Act. This meant improvement with the sewage systems, indoor plumbing and garbage collection.

After the great success of his book, Riis career of social reform was launched. He devoted the rest of his life to “raising awareness about the grim realities facing poor immigrants” inside of New York City’s slums. All the publicity brought him to the attention of one very important, influential man, Theodore

Show More
Related

  • Jacob Riis How The Other Half Lives Summary

    1244 Words  | 5 Pages

    Jacob Riis in “How the Other Half Lives” is about the squalor that characterizes New York City’s working class immigrant neighborhoods. He describes deplorable conditions of these immigrants by providing specific examples, relaying them through quotation and images alike. Riis comments on the injustices that the residents of the tenements faced on a regular basis. So, with his attention to detail, Riis provided the contemporary reader with unsettling images of the poor and marginalized along with a few examples of the benefits of reform and reorganization in the poorer communities, to the benefit of residents. Another observer, Richard T. Ely, in “Pullman: A Social Study” writes about the community of Pullman, Illinois located in the suburbs of Chicago.

    Read More

  • Encarta Photograph Dbq

    331 Words  | 2 Pages

    With the rapid urbanization of cities came the rapid development of new improvements with in the cities. In the Encarta photograph it shows how people have moved into tenements in large cities. The tenements in the photograph appear to have windows and fire escapes. (Document #6) Fire escapes weren’t invented until the 18th century; but where one of the many things that were put into place during the industrial revolution in order to improve the general wellbeing of the people within our society.

    Read More

  • Research Paper On Triangle Shirtwaist Company Fire

    1674 Words  | 7 Pages

    Triangle Shirtwaist Company Fire The Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire that occurred in New York City on March 25, 1911, remains as one of the most important events in the history of United States due to the aftermath as well as being considered “the beginning of a modern safety movement.” This fire took the lives of 146 people, most of them being immigrant women, very few men, and young girls around the age of sixteen. The fire led to improvements, and a movement against unsafe working conditions in factories located in New York and in other factories throughout the United States.

    Read More

  • How Did Americans Grow So Quickly Dbq

    834 Words  | 4 Pages

    From riots to invasions, many urban problems arose during the late 19th and 20th centuries. Technology was improving and it was making jobs easier and more productive but American’s were tired and weren’t working. Wage cuts were becoming more popular and economically, the U.S was falling apart slowly. Despite the problems, Americans discovered a way to replace the exhausted Americans who no longer took part in labor. Immigrants from Europe were pulled to New York in hope to find what the Americans had said they’d offer.

    Read More

  • 1937 Housing Act Essay

    1252 Words  | 6 Pages

    Public housing has affected Cleveland since the 1930s beginning with the 1937 Housing Act. This act stated that “for each new public housing unit created, a unit of substandard quality must be removed.” The quality of housing would be increased, but not the quantity (1937: Housing Act (Wagner-Steagall Act), n.d.). The establishment of public housing, made specifically for those with low income, has been involved in political issues ranging from the national level to the local level. Cleveland, the city in Ohio in which public housing legislation began, has faced a number of challenges from the beginning in financial, social, and home design aspects.

    Read More

  • The Glass Castle Homeless Quotes

    672 Words  | 3 Pages

    Homelessness in The Glass Castle In the 1960s, according to American Civil Liberties Union, 20% of the United States population were homeless, and shunned from the rest of society because of stereotypes. The Glass Castle is a memoir written by Jeannette Walls, to tell the story of her life growing up as a homeless child with an alcoholic father and an artistic mother. Her memoir is a story about relationships, and how the outside world influences them. In The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls, homeless people are marginalized as uneducated, reckless and mentally unstable.

    Read More

  • The Pruitt-Igoe Myth Analysis

    1172 Words  | 5 Pages

    The Pruitt-Igoe Myth is a documentary that explores public housing in Saint Louis, Missouri, in particular the history of the infamous Pruitt-Igoe public housing complex. Pruitt-Igoe was a public housing project billed as the perfect solution in the early 1950s, to solve the problems of slums in Saint Louis and to bring people back into a city that had seen a population decline from previous years. Saint Louis was an ageing city desperate to regain their postwar prominence as a bustling city, but faced many challenges pertaining to the racial makeup of the segregated city and the loss of many jobs to suburban areas. Many whites had begun to participate in what is now referred to as “white flight”, or the migration of middle class whites to

    Read More

  • Examples Of Struggles In The Jungle

    2149 Words  | 9 Pages

    A Time for Struggle and Change Upton Sinclair’s book, The Jungle, depicts the struggles of Lithuanian immigrants as they worked and lived in Chicago’s Packingtown at the beginning of the Twentieth Century. The United States experienced an enormous social and political transformation; furthermore, the economy, factories, and transportation industry grew faster than anyone had ever seen. Immigrants and migrants were attracted to city life for its promise of employment and their chance at the American Dream. The poor working class had little to no rights, and they grappled with unfair business practices, unsafe working conditions, racism, Social Darwinism, class segregation, xenophobia, political corruption, strikes, starvation, poor housing,

    Read More

  • The Role Of Homelessness In Jeannette Walls The Glass Castle

    1105 Words  | 5 Pages

    In her memoir, the Glass Castle, Jeanette Wall’s discusses and explores many different concepts that affected her family dynamic and her development. One of these matters is homelessness. Individuals are able to live in a stable environment, sleep in a warm bed, wear clean clothes, and enjoy proper meals; but not all of these basic needs are enjoyed by everyone and their families. This undesirable situation is portrayed in Jeannette Walls novel. Jeannette vividly depicts homelessness by exploring its causes, its impact on daily life, and its effect on her family.

    Read More

  • The Tenement Vs The Jungle Essay

    829 Words  | 4 Pages

    ( page 387 lines 140-144 ). Not only was the rent high, the living space of this colored family was not comfortable. These people had to live in very small places, because they didn’t have anywhere else to go. The difference between the tenements and the

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Evicted By Matthew Desmond

    927 Words  | 4 Pages

    Matthew Desmond’s Evicted takes a sociological approach to understanding the low-income housing system by following eight families as they struggle for residential stability. The novel also features two landlords of the families, giving the audience both sides and allowing them to make their own conclusions. Desmond goes to great lengths to make the story accessible to all classes and races, but it seems to especially resonate with people who can relate to the book’s subjects or who are liberals in sound socioeconomic standing. With this novel, Desmond hopes to highlight the fundamental structural and cultural problems in the evictions of poor families, while putting faces to the housing crisis. Through the lens of the social reproduction theory, Desmond argues in Evicted that evictions are not an effect of poverty, but rather, a cause of it.

    Read More

  • Invitation To Law And Society Analysis

    1434 Words  | 6 Pages

    The relationship between society and the law is direct, and housing in America is a conclusive example of that. As argued by both authors, once society has made up its mind about a certain group of people or place such as the ghettos, even the law can’t change those facts. It often happens that people of color and minorities get overlooked and stereotyped into something that they are not due to the hierarchical and discriminatory principles of the law. It has been engrained into society to think that minorities are poor, lazy, and overall less productive in the public

    Read More

  • Essay On Housing Discrimination

    1517 Words  | 7 Pages

    Public Policy on Housing Discrimination Executive Summary Housing discrimination and segregation have long been present in the American society (Lamb and Wilk). The ideals of public housing and home buying have always been intertwined with the social and political transformation of America, especially in terms of segregation and inequality of capital and race (Wyly, Ponder and Nettking). Nevertheless, the recent unrest in Ferguson, Missouri and in Baltimore due to alleged police misconduct resulting to deaths of black men brought light on the impoverished conditions in urban counties in America (Lemons). This brings questions to the effectiveness of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in devising more fair-housing facilities (Jost).

    Read More

  • Social Darwinism Research Paper

    582 Words  | 3 Pages

    Social Darwinism arose in America during the Industrial Revolution; it applied Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution: survival of the fittest. This ideology lead people to believe that only the tough will achieve glory in society. However, in the 1890’s a new philosophy arose-- progressivism. Progressives believed that societal problems (things like greed and racism) could be eliminated by providing better societal conditions-- good education, efficient workplaces, and a safe environment. Because of their differing foundations , these ideologies conflicted in many ways at the time.

    Read More

  • Chattel House In Ramdass V. Bahaw-Nanan

    1008 Words  | 5 Pages

    The main issue to be addressed is whether a chattel house is a fixture or not. Lord Walker in Ramdass v. Bahaw-Nanan describes a chattel house as a “wooden structure which was used for human habitation but which, because of its structure, modest size and lack of solid foundations, could be physically and legally removed to another site. So if it had been built by a tenant he could remove it at the end of his tenancy.” It was also a crucial aspect to consider the movability as the tenant possess the ability to move the chattel house from one site to another .Evident in the recognition of such chattel house derived the existence of two types that were available .It

    Read More

More about History Of The New York State Tenement House Act

Open Document