Review Of Jacob Riis How The Other Half Lives
The writings and pictures in Jacob Riis's How the Other Half Lives offer a vivid portrayal of the poor living conditions of New York's tenement houses and illustrated the necessity for progressive reform in the late 1800s. A vicious cycle held many of the tenants in its grasps through a combination of the landlords' rent prices and a lack of sustainable incomes. To Riis, the landowners looked like “tyrants that sweeten the cup of bitterness with their treacherous poison” (166). In the destitute areas, crime grew rampant, and the poor packed themselves into the tenements. Disease and illness worked adverse to any improvement of living conditions. Monetary concerns pushed the poor of New York to make rash decisions in order to provide for …show more content…
The quote shows that the cycle kept those in charge over the fray while the tenants constantly fell into more debt and disarray. Riis wrote this book and photographed different scenes in New York to show the squalid conditions the tenants lived in. Around the city, the landlords abused their tenants through overpricing and ignorance of poor conditions. On page 132, Riis claims “There is nothing in the prospect of a sharp, unceasing battle for the bare necessities of life to encourage looking ahead, everything to discourage the effort.” The tenants looked forward, out of the darkness of impoverishment, but they saw no viable path to achieve their vision. The vicious cycle came from the tyrannical landlords who “poisoned” the tenants with high …show more content…
Living with people of the same nationality comforted and brought a sense of reassurance to the new life of the immigrants. The police often found themselves dealing in conflicts between different ethnic groups. “These 'dangerous classes' of New York compelled recognition” because of their vast size and possible wealth (209). The recognition turned to power, but the tenants lacked money. The tenants often looked to other, sometimes illegal, ways to earn money and provide for their families, creating ethnic gangs. In discussing these areas of gang feuds, Riis quoted from a man in Chinatown, “trust not him who trusts no one” (78). Trust diminished completely between the different gangs over the years that Riis wrote this book. The lack of trust increased violence around the
Summary Of How The Other Half Lives By Jacob Riis
280 Words | 2 PagesIn 1870, Riis emigrated to the United States and spent the next years wandering the northeastern part of the country. He didn 't have a stable job so when he obtained a job as a police reporter for the New York Tribune his life turned around. He took a position with the Evening Sun, then through his newspaper work he became closely familiar with New York 's poorest and most dangerous neighborhoods. In the 19th century, he started exposing the life of the lower class in New York city. In How the other half lives by Jacob Riis, he discusses how the half that was on top really didn 't care much about other than themselves and how the poor suffer.
Summary Of How The Other Half Lives By Jacob Riss
617 Words | 3 PagesThe main points Jacob Riss picture in his book, were "The Bend," Italian immigrants, and gangs of New York. "The Bend" as Riss described is, "The foul core of New York's slums," located where, "Mulberry Street crooks like an elbow," which in a nutshell means, one of the worst areas in New York, full of violence, were the murder is commit everyday. Every house is turned into a shop, and every street is a market. Apartment meant for five families are fill with tens. Children live on the street, and from the year of five are
Book Review Of How The Other Half Lives By Jacob Riis
645 Words | 3 PagesIn the book How the Other Half Lives by Jacob Riis, Jacob describes in his book on the systems of tenants of housing had failed due to greed and neglecting wealthier people. Also he shows that a correlation between the high crime rate, drunkenness and reckless behavior from the poor and it also shows that they lack of owning a proper home. It mostly focuses on slum conditions of the lower East side of Manhattan, where many immigrants like Jews, Italians, Chinese, Germans, and Irish were packed in tenements. Many of them had no windows, no ventilation, and tried to prevent overcrowding, crime, diseases, filth and most of all poverty. He also exposes the kind of conditions poor people live in.
Review Of Jacob Riis How The Other Half Lives
525 Words | 3 PagesRiis’s goal in composing his data was to inform the middle class and upper class on the living conditions of ones living in the terrible tenements. Jacob Riis collected his thoughts well in the writing of How the Other Half Lives. The book was very well put together and an engaging read. Although, Riis used numerous offensive words about several of the immigrants, however, years ago it was normal language describing many of the
How The Other Half Lives Chapter Summaries
555 Words | 3 PagesHow the Other Half Lives: Studies among the Tenements of New York was an early publication of photojournalism by Jacob Riis, documenting squalid living conditions in New York City slums in the 1880s. It served as a basis for future "muckraking" journalism by exposing the slums to New York City’s upper and middle classes. History and contents In the 1890s many people in upper- and middle-class society were unaware of the dangerous conditions in the slums among poor immigrants.
Synopsis Of After The Fact By James West Davidson
680 Words | 3 PagesWithout telling individuals how the other portion of the other half lives he's forgetting a significant piece of how individuals live in New York. By staying away from, that theme he's giving the deception that all individuals in New York live in such confined lodging as apartments. At the point when in all actuality New York was and is by and by not made out of entirely apartment lodging. There was a 'rich' some portion of town where the prospect of not having any cash was never at any point considered. Moreover, where the mechanical insurgency just touched higher social orders on positive results, for example, financial matters the modern upset just made it harder for the outsiders to excel.
How Did Jacob Riis Change During The Gilded Age
666 Words | 3 PagesDuring the “Gilded Age”, numerous people immigrated to New York due to an enormous economic growth in the United States. They strove after a better life for themselves and their families but instead, they encountered poverty and discrimination. Jacob Riis, an activist and journalist, captured the living conditions of those who contributed to this economic growth on photographs and tried to bring greater awareness to this issue in his 1890 publication How the other half lives. In the course of this essay, I want to discuss how – and if so, in how far – Giis’ photographs are in accurate representation of living conditions in this era. I will put the main focus on the influence Riis’ work had considering the perception of the working-class.
Ta-Nehisi Coates The Case For Reparations Summary
960 Words | 4 PagesWhen the government and private banks failed, racial violence began when mobs destroyed black family homes and beat them up on streets. Eventually, black people fled their neighborhood, and made Chicago become the “Second Ghetto”. In the article, Coates talks about the story of Clyde Ross, a black man who fled worsening conditions in Mississippi to find jobs in Chicago. As many Americans dreamed of owning a home, Ross worked hard in order to earn money and support his family. However, the only way for black people to own a house in Chicago in the mid-twentieth century was to buy a house from predatory contract sellers, who charged huge rates with few legal protections for buyers.
Review Of Jacob Riss's 'How The Other Half Lives'
1164 Words | 5 PagesTenement living conditions were dirty and not safe for people to live in. They also had very high rates in crime and had a large amount of a variety of diseases. With many diseases there was more than 5,000 deaths due to cholera. Then he goes in depth in each chapter describing each race and the characteristics that they have and also how those immigrants are portrayed by others. Riss defines the harsh environment that the people live in and describes how the harsh yet shocking of the society.
Spike Lee's Rant Against Gentrification
713 Words | 3 PagesMost people can pinpoint the changes that occurred in their urban areas; they noticed more non-native individuals move into their urban neighborhoods, following them came the increase of rent and the change of scenery. There was always a name for this issue, but it never surfaced until the late 1990’s. The term Gentrification comes from British sociologist Ruth Glass. “Once this process of gentrification starts in a district it goes on rapidly until all or most of the original working class occupiers are displaced and the social character of the district is changed”. (Kissam 2)
America's Quintessential Immigrant City
224 Words | 1 PagesNew York is America’s “quintessential immigrant city, with a long history of ethnic succession and immigrant inclusion” (Foner 2007 pg. 1001). Since 1900, 10%, or more, of America’s foreign-born population has lived in New York City. In the late 19th and early 20th century, the city served as the major entry place for Southern and Eastern European immigrants. Moreover, New York has been dramatically changed, and dramatically benefited, by massive immigration inflows in the past few decades. Immigration was a crucial factor in New York’s recovery from the devastating financial crisis of 1975.
African American Racial Inequality Essay
778 Words | 4 PagesDecades of racial discrimination, insufficient urban planning, and unsuccessful labor policy left African-Americans disportionately unemployed and situated in ghettos across the United States. (Hahn 25) The lack of opportunity led a number of individuals within those communities to join gangs to secure income, social status, and protection. (Hahn 25) Instead of integrating these individuals into the “prosperous mainstream,” the police has separated and trapped minorities within these communities.(Hahn 25)Working with the desperate, angry,and wronged communities daily paired with racist social beliefs led to racial generalizations by cops. (Hahn 25)
Landlords: The First New York Tenements
1366 Words | 6 PagesMore than sixty-five percent of New York’s population lived in those tenements. Tenements were a large source of suffering for new immigrants and their families. This is mainly due to their unsanitary and overcrowded conditions. The tenement conditions were horrendous and appalling.
Summary Of Chapter Six By Victor Rios
577 Words | 3 PagesDuring his time studying these boys, he found that most cases of conflict were resolved without the use of weapon(s), but rather with “harsh conversation”. This observation highly contradicts the typical view of gang members who are commonly stereotyped by their local community and justice system in Oakland. Rios describes how the boys “Conversations often involved references to guns as analogies for resolving conflict and demonstrating manhood”. The fact that most conflicts are dealt with in non-violent ways, highlights the negative role
Analysis Of Evicted By Matthew Desmond
927 Words | 4 PagesMatthew 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.
More about Review Of Jacob Riis How The Other Half Lives
Summary Of How The Other Half Lives By Jacob Riis
280 Words | 2 PagesSummary Of How The Other Half Lives By Jacob Riss
617 Words | 3 PagesBook Review Of How The Other Half Lives By Jacob Riis
645 Words | 3 PagesReview Of Jacob Riis How The Other Half Lives
525 Words | 3 PagesHow The Other Half Lives Chapter Summaries
555 Words | 3 PagesSynopsis Of After The Fact By James West Davidson
680 Words | 3 PagesHow Did Jacob Riis Change During The Gilded Age
666 Words | 3 PagesTa-Nehisi Coates The Case For Reparations Summary
960 Words | 4 PagesReview Of Jacob Riss's 'How The Other Half Lives'
1164 Words | 5 PagesSpike Lee's Rant Against Gentrification
713 Words | 3 PagesAmerica's Quintessential Immigrant City
224 Words | 1 PagesAfrican American Racial Inequality Essay
778 Words | 4 PagesLandlords: The First New York Tenements
1366 Words | 6 PagesSummary Of Chapter Six By Victor Rios
577 Words | 3 PagesAnalysis Of Evicted By Matthew Desmond
927 Words | 4 Pages