Write An Essay On How The Other Half Lives By Crevecoeur

Manuela Sławińska

In 19th century, America was facing the problem of congestion. When Crevecoeur wrote in his letters, that it is such great land, and there would be enough space for every tired man, who did not succeded in his home-land, he probably did not realise how his works, and works of other writers, who claimed the same, would influence the people. When during the times of Crevecoeur (18th century) there was actually enough space to welcome the immigrants, we cannot say this about the 19th century. We can learn about horrifying conditions of peoples' lifes in USA from the work of journalist-Jacob Riis titled „How the other half lives”. Jacob Riis was a Danish-American social reformer, journalist and photographer born in 1849. He experienced poverty while living in New York, and then tried to present the problem of bad living conditions in tenements, by exposing them to the middle and upper classes. He is also considered as one of the fathers of photography due to his adoption of flesh. First, he tried sketching, but his skills were not sufficient enough. In 1889, the eighteen-page article „How the other half lives” appeared in the Christmas edition of Scribner's Magazine. Then he was invited to expand the material into book. Reading

Howewher, if we think about these people, who ended up dead, suffering from diseases, killed by members of the gang, or simply lived life as member of one, we are plagued with thoughts again, was it worth it? Of course, we cannot skip the fact that, thanks to Jacob Riis and his publications, the tenements case began to improve, as people from middle and upper classes got to know what was going on, but before the situation began to improve, thousands of people not only died in suffer, but also lived in