How the Other Half Lives Essays

  • How The Other Half Lives Chapter Summaries

    555 Words  | 3 Pages

    How 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. Jacob Riis, a Danish

  • 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

  • Jacob Riis How The Other Half Lives Sparknotes

    1377 Words  | 6 Pages

    In the book “How the Other Half Lives” by Jacob A. Riis, the author’s main purpose for writing this book was to provide a voice for the hard-working people who had to live in these poor living conditions. The author believed that any hard-working man’s story should be told and that’s exactly what he wanted to do with this book. I believe he was successful at doing this because not only did the author provide a voice for these people, but he also was able to inform the public and government about

  • Summary Of How The Other Half Lives By Jacob Riss

    617 Words  | 3 Pages

    primal photographic skills, he worked as a reporter in "New York Sun." Due to harsh living conditions, and tenement life, of New York citizens, Jacob Riss used his camera as a tool to bring changes. In 1890, Riss released his famous book "How the Other Half Lives," which contained photos of New York poverty life. The book had a huge impact on American people, and authorities. The main points Jacob Riss picture in his book, were "The Bend," Italian immigrants, and gangs of New York. "The Bend"

  • Summary Of How The Other Half Lives By Jacob Riis

    1048 Words  | 5 Pages

    Middle and upper class Americans were shocked by the novel How the Other Half Lives by Jacob Riis. Riis depicted the true grit of immigrant life when he depicted, mixing in depth written imagery and raw photography, the horrendous conditions of New York City\'s tenement housing. Many questions were raised in America by How the Other Half Lives, including: how and why the poor are condemned to these bad living conditions and how this atmosphere affects them. Ben Franklin Ben Franklin: Early Life In

  • Jacob Riis How The Other Half Lives Summary

    781 Words  | 4 Pages

    Another known muckraker Jacob Riis published his book,“ How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York.” This book consolidated content with photographs to deliver a genuinely aggravating photo of the living states of the poor in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. His book prompted to apartments being torn down and upgrades being made to the range including the working of sewers and the usage of garbage collection. Jacob Riis attacked the miseries of the poor who suffered the degradation

  • Jacob Riis How The Other Half Lives Summary

    1200 Words  | 5 Pages

    In Jacob Riis’ revolutionary book How the Other Half Lives, Riis details the atrocious conditions of the tenements in New York City at the turn of the century. Riis particularly focusses his initial chapters on the formation of the tenements and their subsequent demise into filthy ruins. In many ways, these tenements paralleled the federal housing projects of the 1950’s. Both populations predominately included impoverished, working class immigrants and minorities. However, the tenements and the projects

  • Review Of Jacob Riis How The Other Half Lives

    798 Words  | 4 Pages

    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

  • Summary Of How The Other Half Lives By Jacob Riis

    930 Words  | 4 Pages

    How the Other Half Lives is a book written by Jacob Riis that tells readers about the living conditions and vocational options to distinct ethnic groups in the late 1800s. The Jewish, African-Americans, and Chinese all lived in New York City but all faced different problems and seemed as if they lived in different parts of the world. Chasing the “American Dream” was a different experience for all of these ethnic groups. Life in the 1800s was without a doubt very complicated, but in my opinion,

  • Review Of Jacob Riis How The Other Half Lives

    525 Words  | 3 Pages

    How the Other Half Lives Jacob Riis, photojournalist and author of How the Other Half Lives depicts the unbearable living conditions of the New York City tenement taken place during the era of the Progression. How the Other Half Lives was written in first person, therefore, Riis’s research and writings came from events he experienced himself living in the tenements. Jacob Riis made photojournalism popular. He was a Danish immigrant along with being a social reformer and pioneer. Migration was

  • Summary Of How The Other Half Lives By Jacob Riis

    992 Words  | 4 Pages

    Introduction “How The Other Half Lives,” was written by Jacob A. Riis and published in 1890 by Charles Scribner’s Sons. Jacob Riis had one reason for writing this book, and that was to expose to the upper class people of America the deplorable conditions of the tenements, and the gross abuses committed by the landlords who owned them; and to this he proposed a series of ways to correct the then current situation. This book became revolutionary during it’s it time when immigration was at an all time

  • Book Review Of How The Other Half Lives By Jacob Riis

    645 Words  | 3 Pages

    In 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

  • How Did Jacob Riis Change During The Gilded Age

    666 Words  | 3 Pages

    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. To do

  • Revolt Against Ugliness Analysis

    891 Words  | 4 Pages

    Eugene Lyons wrote about the realities of the idealistic notions of rags-to-riches. His life was riddled with hardship as he was growing up as an immigrant on the East Side of New York. In his essay, “Revolt against Ugliness,” Lyons spoke of how deep emotion feelings were invoked in people when they heard the stories of folks pulling themselves up by the bootstraps. He pointed out that the stories of success are not written by those who never get a leg up, but rather the “true or near true stories”

  • How The Other Half Lives Summary

    860 Words  | 4 Pages

    the factory workers would rather teach someone the job, pay them much less rather than pay someone more, and hire people that don’t speak Englsih. So, they tried to shut out the immigrants, until an immigrant himself Jacob Riis, published “How The Other Half Lives”. This book soon became the talk of the city because it showed what was really going on in the alleys and closed doors of the New York, the things that the upper class native’s didn’t realize. When they invented flash photography, Riis

  • Analysis Of How The Other Half Lives By Riis

    1891 Words  | 8 Pages

    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

  • Write An Essay On How The Other Half Lives By Crevecoeur

    966 Words  | 4 Pages

    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

  • Jacob Riis How The Other Half Lives Sparknotes

    1470 Words  | 6 Pages

    In the book How the Other Half Lives by Jacob Riis, the book is a photojournalism about the slums in New York during the 1880s. The book also served a purpose by exposing the slums to New York City's upper and middle class. Although most of the book takes place in Mulberry Street, throughout the book it would mentioned other streets, like Fourth Ward, Houston Street, Chatham Square, Six Ward, Cherry Street, and more. In chapter three, The Mixed Crowds, in the book it explains how the map of the city

  • Review Of How The Other Half Lives By Jacob Riis

    1127 Words  | 5 Pages

    immigrant who lived in tenement. He was one of the pioneer of photojournalism. Eventually he had published a heart touching stories of poor tenants using strong photographs (Digital History). That book was titled “How the Other Half Lives.” “Other Half” is a metaphorical term for the poor who live in rented “rooms.” Jacob Riis wrote this book about the poverty in the New

  • Summary Of How The Other Half Lives By Jacob Riis

    280 Words  | 2 Pages

    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. He gave specify details on the harmful environments in which New Yorkers lived and worked. The