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.
Charlie faces many challenges in the novel ‘Runner’ and generally overcomes them by making the right choices.
By using statistics such as “Fifty- Three percent of women who require assistance for homelessness are fleeing domestic violence” and “The only alternative for many elderly people where the average rent for a one bedroom unit is $300 a week- that takes 63 per cent of the aged pension.” This use of statistics puts the audience into perspective of the current dreadful situation that the homeless are residing in and their dreadful backstory. By focusing on “Hardworking Elderly women,” Elliot shows the widespread effected victims and invites her audience to contemplate the abysmal state of the
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. Pullman is seen as a success in that it is a solid example of the benefits of progressive city planning and sanitation in an industrialized urban America where shoddy tenement housing and lack of
Jacob Riis was influential and life changing to the americans rich and poor of the late 19th century. Jacob Riis’s photos of the slums and tenement shocked thousands. His photography completely changed the minds of the rich and strongly motivated the progressive movement. Round Riis never directly created or change any laws but he laid the groundwork and the mindset need to create these changes.
Antoine Robidoux was a mountain man, trader, son, husband, brother, and friend. He died on August 29th, 1860 in St. Joseph, Missouri.
I believe the difficult journey for immigrants and all they had to do to start over in a new country was worth the hardships they faced. This is because after all their hard work, things slowly but surely, started to get better.
Jacob Riis, the third of fifteen children, came into this world in Ribe, Denmark on May 3, 1849. He worked as a carpenter in Copenhagen before he immigrated to the United Sates in 1870. The conditions in the lodging houses were awful, that Riis vowed to get them closed. He did get them closed
American Urbanization started like a wildfire and it spread so rapidly that facilities and institutions in society could not keep up. From 1850 to 1900 America completely changed from its agricultural state into a new industry based society. The four paramount changes that occured during America’s urbanization period were new immigration, the build up of cities (skyscrapers and mass transit), living conditions, and boss rule and the rise of mass consumption. Even though the changes during urbanization did not come easily due to immense diversity, they still paved the way to modern day America.
In the second half of his book Evicted, Matthew Desmond continues to explore the underprivileged housing world and the social and economic strains it places on the poorest inhabitants of Milwaukee, WI.
The American dream is a dream of a land in which one can prosper with ambition and hard work. This idea has created many illusions for some because in reality the American dream is proven to be something that is rarely achieved. No individual is guaranteed success or destined for failure, but it is apparent that women, people of color, and those born into poverty will face greater obstacles than others, despite being a greater part of the American population. An author that tackles the issue of class in the United States is Gregory Mantsios. In his essay, “Class in America-2009”, Mantsios aims to prove that class affects people’s lives in drastic ways. Mantsios serves as a primary text for, “Serving in Florida” by Barbara Ehrenreich.
The author, Willy Staley, seems to have derived inspiration from an article he read about the gentrification of a food called chopped cheese. In his article Staley mentions many phenomenons that have been present in popular culture recently. These are tiny houses, “raw water,” “van life,” and the idea of being a good gentrifier. In his description of different fads Staley brings up the role that the internet has played in these trends. He mentions listicles published by websites like Thought Catalogue and AlterNet that help feed into the online culture of gentrification.
Robert Smalls is one of those African Americans who tried everything they can just to get freedom during the Civil War. He, however, is still unknown to this day. Smalls was born in 1839 in Beaufort, South Carolina. His mother, Lydia, was a slave while his father, John McKee, was a slave owner. Because of this advantage, Smalls was different from other slaves. He could travel around town and play with other kids, both African Americans and Caucasians. As a result, his mother became worried that her child, Smalls, would not be able to understand the terror of slavery. She started to let Smalls to spend time with her family. When Smalls saw how horrible his mother was treated, he became so disobedient that he stopped playing with other children,
On November 16, 1885, 41 year old Louis David Riel was executed. Riel was born on October 22nd , 1844 in Saint-Boniface, Red river settlement. Louis Riel was the oldest child out of the eleven children his parents, Louis Riel Sr and Julie Lagimodière had. Growing up Louis Riel was a smart student. For his education, he went to Collège de Montréal from 1858-1865. Louis Riel returned back to his hometown, after hearing the news that his father passed away. Although Riel left his education at a young age, he became a teacher, a Canadian politician and a lawyer which is considered one of his accomplishments.
Thomas Tallis was said to be born sometime around 1505 in Kent, United Kingdom. There is not a lot known about when Tallis was born or what his early life was like. He was born towards the end of King Henry VII’s reign. It is believed that when he was young, he was a choir boy of the Chapel Royal St.James palace. In 1532 he started as an organist at the Benedictine Priory in Dover. He then moved to London where he was an organist at St Mary-le-Hill in Billingsgate, London and then also at Waltham Abbey. The Abbey was shut down in 1540 and Tallis had no work. In 1541 he found work as a lay clerk at the Canterbury Cathedral. In 1543 he was appointed the Gentlemen of the Royal Chapel.