Studies Among the Tenements of New York - How the Other Half Lives

Some parts of this edition of the book are unreadable. No one's done any editing, it seems. I would recommend going to the library to borrow the book instead of purchasing the Kindle edition of the book. Or buy the physical copy. This is a really bad example of what e-books can be like. It's like the same standard of quality you'd expect from a physical print version did not apply at all.

The effect that "How the Other Half Lives" had on the amelioration of urban poverty cannot be over-emphasized. Riis brought conditions to light of which the general public had been unaware of until that point. Unless one was a policeman, doctor, or social worker in those areas, the masses of immigrants toiling in crowded and unhealthy conditions were well- hidden, even from the middle class and affluent living only a few miles away from them in the same city. Riis' solution was government regulation - standards for space, light, and ventilation along with limits on the amounts that landlords could charge their tenants. Although Riis was not the only reformer discussing these issues, his use of the new technology of flash photography allowed audiences to see the conditions in which people lived, rather than just hearing them described, encouraging a correspondingly greater response.

It was also a time before political correctness, and Riis does not hide his opinions of the various groups discussed. Jews are presented as money-grubbing and rapacious, Italians and Irish as violent, "Bohemians" as stupid, African-Americans as docile and easily taken advantage of, and the Chinese as irredeemable due to their refusal to convert to Christianity. Riis also recognizes that any negatives he describes are attributable as much to unhealthy and overcrowded living conditions as to any imagined genetic or cultural predisposition. Improvement is not only possible, but necessary.

He concludes his description with a veiled warning that the situation cannot continue - he implies that the misery in the tenements will not remain there forever, but runs the danger of spilling over into the rest of society. Riis' audience was certainly aware of the anarchists of the day and their goals; he clearly intended to appeal not only to people's Christian sentiments, but their sense of self-preservation as well. If society will not abate these conditions just because it is the right thing to do, maybe it will act out of pure self interest.

Riis embodied the contradiction of current attitudes toward poverty - the conservative one that government cannot help the poor because their plight is of their own making, and the liberal one that government involvement alone is the answer. Both views are correct to some extent, and one hundred years after "How the Other Half Lives" was published, New York City today is one of the safest large cities in the world, despite the fact that the gap between rich and poor is probably as wide or wider than it ever has been.

“When another generation shall have doubled the census of our city (NYC), and to that vast army of workers, held captive by poverty, the very name of home shall be as a bitter mockery, what will the harvest be?”

So concludes Jacob Riis Chapter 2 (“The Awakening”) of his treatise. The question – or so it seems to me at least – remains as legitimate today (2015) as it did when it first appeared in these pages (in 1890). The image of Francisco de Goya’s “Saturn Devouring One of His Sons” springs immediately to mind as I read HOW THE OTHER HALF LIVES, but also as I consider the present-day predicament of so many young college graduates, only recently arrived in New York, and now setting out to seek their fortunes while saddled with the twin challenge of horrendous educational debts and almost extraterrestrial monthly rents. What do we think the harvest of that will eventually be?

In the very next chapter, we find: “New York’s wage-earners have no other place to live, more is the pity. They are truly poor for having no better homes; waxing poorer in purse as the exorbitant rents to which they are tied, as ever was serf to soil, keep rising” (p. 23). Written over 120 years ago, this could just as easily be a back-page story in yesterday’s newspaper. Only the dollar figures would have changed.

(Side-note of no particular relevance: I believe this is the earliest instance (other than in Exodus 2:22 of the King James version of the Bible] of the expression “stranger(s) in a strange land” – later used by Robert Heinlein as the title of his famously successful SciFi novel – I’ve ever read [on p. 23].)

A most interesting note occurs on p. 124 (and in the extensive footnote on p. 227) with regard to Tompkins Square Park. For those of us who remember it not so long ago as another of Manhattan’s needle parks – and presently as a stroller park for young Hipster/Yuppie mothers from the East Village – Riis’s ‘cautionary tale’ may strike up the band: “(t)he changing of Tompkins Square from a sand lot into a beautiful park put an end for good and all to the ‘Bread or Blood’ riots of which it used to be the scene, and transformed a nest of dangerous agitators into a harmless, beer-craving band of Anarchists. They have scarcely been heard of since. Opponents of the small parks system as a means of relieving the congested population of tenement districts, please take note.”

Yes. And city planners/developers who replaced those tenement districts with the so-called ‘projects’ – the ugly, life-stifling and starkly rectangular evidence of which still exists in that neighborhood and at points further east, not to mention here in Brooklyn, in Queens and in the Bronx – please also take note. Affordable housing for those who keep your service industry humming is a good thing; downtrodden and neglected buildings and neighborhoods are not.

And what does Jacob Riis have to tell us about the plight of the fairer sex in this most heartless of cities? On p. 180, we find “(t)o the everlasting credit of New York’s working girl let it be said that, rough though her road be, all but hopeless her battle with life, only in the rarest instances does she go astray. As a class she is brave, virtuous, and true.” Best, however, to read the entire chapter (“The Working Girls of New York”) on pp. 176 – 182 to understand the bigger picture of how most women suffered and slaved in the New York of Riis’s time – and then to read some of O. Henry’s short stories to get a fictionalized account of the same.

Please allow me to finish up this review with three additional citations – two from the penultimate chapter (“What Has Been Done”) and one from the final chapter (“How the Case Stands”) – in an effort to tempt you, a potential reader, to undertake your own investigation of this most excellent treatise. “The day is at hand when the greatest of all evils that now curse life in the tenements – the dearth of water in the hot summer days – will also have been remedied, and a long step taken toward the moral and physical redemption of their tenants” (p. 199).

“This drift of the population in the great cities has to be taken into account as a steady factor. It will probably increase rather than decrease for many years to come” (p. 204).

“Once already our city, to which have come the duties and responsibilities of metropolitan greatness before it was able to fairly measure its task, has felt the swell of its resistless flood. If it rise once more, no human power may avail to check it. The gap between the classes in which it surges, unseen, unsuspected by the thoughtless, is widening day by day….Against all other dangers our system of government may offer defence (sic!) and shelter; against this not” (p. 218).

If any or all of this sounds bitingly familiar to you now, in the year 2015, you have only to remember that HOW THE OTHER HALF LIVES was published in 1890 to be able to appreciate this evidentiary piece of prescience, not to say prophecy.

RRB
08/22/15
Brooklyn, NY

How the Other Half Lives, Jacob A. Riis

This book is a "classic", most people have heard about it but few have read it. [The word "tenement" is a legal term for property holdings, usually housing that is not owner-occupied.] Riis was a newspaper reporter, this book was first published in 1890 to document housing in New York city. Riis came from Denmark at age 21. Arriving in NY he first worked as a carpenter, later he became a police reporter for newspapers. He walked down Mulberry Street in the early mornings. Slum housing was the result of "public neglect and private greed". [The big landowners of New York controlled politics since the 18th century.] Riis believed that education was most important for new immigrants. This book lacks the photographs that illustrated the original book. Riis' `Introduction' says slum housing causes criminals. They are also a source of epidemics. Was this distress caused by drunkenness? The slums generated a 40% yearly return on the investment!

The rapid expansion of NY after the War of 1812 saw the rise of rear houses, tenant-houses built to house the maximum number of people in the smallest area (Chapter 1). The threat of cholera led to a "Tenement-House Act" in 1867 (Chapter 2). Rooms had to have windows for light and air. Most tenement dwellers were immigrants (Chapter 3). Chapter 4 describes "The Down-Town Back Alleys" where large houses were subdivided into tiny rooms. Riis describes the living conditions. Chapter 5 tells about the Italians in New York. Chapter 6 tells about "The Bend" of Mulberry Street near the Five Points, the heart of the slum district. These vile properties are owned by "an honored family". Chapter 7 tells of a police raid on stale-beer dives (unpasteurized beer). Chapter 8 describes the cheap lodging-houses "nurseries of crime". Riis describes Chinatown in Chapter 9. Some houses are opium dens with "white slaves". The Chinaman is "as clean as a cat".

Chapter 10 describes the Hebrew quarter, the most densely populated neighborhood. Most of the ready-made clothes sold in the big stores are sewn here. Chapter 11 tells of the "sweaters", the middleman or subcontractor, who hires people in the tenements for unregulated labor. They work hard and save to send for their families. Chapter 12 describes the Bohemian cigar-makers who live in tenements owned by their employers. Chapter 13 discusses the "Color Line", the segregated areas where Negroes are allowed to live at higher prices. Tenement houses do not have a locked front door (Chapter 14). A respectable tenement neighborhood has few saloons. Flowers improve tenements, so too small parks. The heat of July and August create hardship and death for children. Newer buildings with proper sanitation had lower mortality rates. Death from starvation was common. Poverty created madness. Chapter 15 describes "The Problem of the Children" and what needs to be done to save them.

The abandoned children put in the Foundling Asylum do not last long (Chapter 16). The Sisters of Charity have a good record. Worst of all are the "baby farms". Chapter 17 tells of the "Street Arabs", homeless boys who live on the street due to poverty at home. The Children's Aid Society provide good housing and character. Trade schools educate the older boys. There are about ten saloons to every church (Chapter 18). Gangs are endemic to New York (Chapter 19). They can terrorize a neighborhood. People walking the street could be robbed, such as a stranger asking for directions. Their "social clubs" often use blackmail. Chapter 20 tells of the oppression experienced by working girls in NY from low wages. Chapter 21 is about "Pauperism", families and individuals who applied for relief. Riis suggested setting up a labor bureau to match workers to jobs. Chapter 22 tells about the "Wrecks" in the workhouse, the almshouse (some are old people abandoned by their children), and the lunatic asylum. The worst tenements do not look bad; they are not old enough (Chapter 23). Chapter 24 tells what has been done to solve tenement-house problems. Chapter 25 lists what can be done with modern tenement-houses. Riis suggested tax rebates or licensing to regulate tenements.

Jacob August Riis (1849-1914) was a Danish-American social reformer, journalist and documentary photographer. He wrote in the Introduction to this book (which was first published in 1890), "Long ago it was said that 'one half of the world does not know how the other half lives.' That was true then. It did not know because it did not care. The half that was on top cared little for the struggles, and less for the fate of those who were underneath, so long as it was able to hold them there and keep its own seat... (but eventually) the upper half fell to inquiring what was the matter. Information on the subject has been accumulating rapidly since."

Riis notes that "If tramps have nothing else to call their own they have votes, and votes that are for sale cheap for cash. About election time this gives them a 'pull,' at least by proxy." (Pg. 55)

He notes that in the Bohemian quarter there is a vehicle for enforcing "a slavery as real as any that ever disgraced the South." (Pg. 101) He questions whether the migration of Southern blacks to northern cities has been of any advantage to them (Pg. 111). But he concludes that "In the art of putting the best foot forward, of disguising his poverty by making a little go a long way, (the African-American) has no equal." (Pg. 115)

He makes the poignant point, "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. Improvidence and wastefulness are natural results." (Pg. 130) For the young person, home "means nothing to him but a pigeon-hole in a coop along with so many other human animals." (Pg. 136) And he observes that street gangs are the "ripe fruit of tenement-house growth." (Pg. 164)

Riis's book is far from perfect, however; he airs some rather disturbing and offensive opinions about Chinese and Jewish persons. Still, this is a historically-important book for progressives and social scientists to study.

Even though the book was published in 1890, this book is a powerful, gripping expose of life in the tenements in the Lower East Side section of New York City. Today, the Lower East Side has a tenement museum in the area to depict life as it was. This book still is a groundbreaking read about life in the city's overcrowded tenements.

The reporter, Jacob A. Riis, who immigrated from Denmark and did his homework on the streets. His writing breathes the life of those times for the reader. You can almost smell the stench and see the depravity of life in the black and white photographs. Even with light, there is darkness in those photographs. The residents are trying to have a better life in their new country but they soon realized how merciless and unforgiving life can be in a foreign land.

While Riis's writings have some obvious prejudice and stereotypes, it is consistent to the times of the 1890s. Despite his own prejudices, he is obviously aware of the grim situation in the tenements. The overcrowding, the poverty, crime, lack of basic human necessities, poor working conditions, and the corruption is studied here thoroughly.

This book is a must read for those readers interested in the time period as well as the impact of this book's reaction and action to make amends.

For all intents and purposes, Jacob Riis' HOW THE OTHER HALF LIVES is the birth of photojournalism. And this new genre, like the first movies and radio programs, fascinated its audience. Riis' sharp essays are matched only by his sharp eye for photography. I don't know which made more of an impact on me: the text or the pictures of unspeakable misery. But I think it's a safe bet to say that Riis' contemporaries were fixated more on the photographs. (After all, Riis turned to photography AFTER his published essays seemed to have little effect.) In any event, the result, then as now, is a provocative, compassionate, and angry work that exposed to the middle and upper classes of his time the effects of their indifference, at best, or the effects of their roles as slumlords and sweatshop owners, at worst.
The only jarring aspect of the book is Riis' use of ethnic stereotyping. He makes several not-nice remarks about Jews, Chinamen, Italians, etc. However, we must not impose our early 21st Century values on a late 19th Century man. These types of remarks were commonplace back in the pre-politically correct times. In any event, Riis' overall intention was to help these people get out of their horrid conditions and not to slur their heritages.
One last note, Luc Sante's introduction is brilliant and serves the book very well.
Rocco Dormarunno, author of The Five Points Concluded, a Novel

In How the Other Half Lives (originally published in 1890), Jacob Riis gives an astounding account of 19th century life in the tenements of New York City, where poverty, filth, disease, alcoholism, theft, and darkness prevail. Through his writing, statistics, and photography, Riis draws attention to unthinkable living conditions ignored too long by those better off than the tenants occupying New York's slums.

In Luc Sante's introduction to the book, he summarizes Riis' view as, "the poor were victims rather than makers of their fate" (Riis, 1997). How this rings true as one reads through the pages. Riis gives the reader a better understanding of why generations of tenement occupants are trapped in a rut of constant strife and struggle, without education or means to rise above. The dense immigrant population of New York's tenements led to a very limited and low-paying job market, typically that of sweatshop labor. With the problems of the tenements came saloons, gangs, thieves, orphaned babies and other societal issues. The conditions of the tenements expanded the divide between New York's classes of citizens.

Many of New York City's poor worked from dusk till midnight daily, only to earn starving wages which barely allowed them to feed and clothe their families or pay overpriced rent to wealthy landlords. Their circumstances did not afford them time for learning, particularly the English language. Without learning, financial savings, or often a job, these impoverished families could not escape the tenement properties and their resulting miserable way of life. Riis describes it best as "the poor are what the tenements have made them" (Riis, 1997).

Riis provides several proven recommendations for improving New York's poverty situation caused by the tenements such as remodeling or building new tenements and instituting "fair play between landlord and tenant" (1997). He cites a few examples of landlords who reformed their properties and worked collaboratively with their tenants to successfully improve their lives.

Riis' answer to the problems of the tenements is "all a matter of education," education of landlords, of tenant families, of the public and elite, and of politicians (1997). In a more uplifting chapter, Riis describes a successful rescue program through the Children's Aid Society which instilled self-help and effectively educated young, troubled boys, the "Street Arabs." Many of these young boys (and girls in other Children's Aid Society programs) learned trades and skills that would help them overcome the entrapping cycle of poverty.

By writing this book, Riis played a major role in his plight for education about and of the tenements. According to Sante's introduction, Riis was successful in changing the status and structure of the tenements through publication of How the Other Half Lives. Riis concludes, "I know of but one bridge that will carry us over safe, a bridge founded upon justice and built of human hearts (1997)."

Although this book was written during the industrialization period in the late 1890's to address issues faced by victims of New York's tenements, much of it is still applicable to the cycle of poverty still prevalent in America today, in the 21st century. As Riis believed, education plays an important part of breaking this cycle and closing the gap between the rich and poor. Benjamin Franklin, writing a century before Riis' time that education should not be a privilege only for the elite, would have agreed with his value of education as a resolution for tenement poverty (Isaacson, 2003).

This book opened my eyes to just how cyclical poverty is. It can be a downward spiral for many generations. Any one interested in having a better understanding of poverty, especially of immigrants or the uneducated, should read How the Other Half Lives. I have a greater appreciation for the opportunities and fortune many of us have. Riis has inspired me to further my contributions toward education. In support of Franklin and Riis' values of education, I think the opportunity of education should be available for all to help break this cycle. I think Riis is right...until the bridge of justice built of human hearts he speaks of is fully constructed, situations of poverty will continue.

References

Isaacson, W. (2003). Benjamin Franklin: An American life. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Riis, J. (1997). How the other half lives: Studies among the tenements of New York. New York: Penguin Books.

Stubblefield, H. W., & Keane, P. (1994). Adult education in the American experience: From the colonial period to the present. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Although this book, How the Other Half Lives, was originally published in 1890 the images created still haunt the reader today because we sense that much has not changed in the last one hundred years.

The author, Jacob Riis was born in 1849 in Denmark, the third of fifteen children. His family was poor, but respectable. (Riis, xiv) For economic reasons, Riis decided to emigrate to the United States. Quickly running out of money, he was forced to take odd jobs, sleep in doorways and accept handouts for food. Eventually finding employment as a journalist, Riis developed his own style of writing. He violated traditional newspaper style by "inserting editorial commentary into his stories." (Riis, xvi) This style became known as muckraking.

In his writings, Riis focused on issues of housing reform. He found that merely describing the conditions with words was not convincing enough, so he began to use photography. In the Introduction to the book, Luc Sante reports that Riis' "flash awoke sleepers and momentarily blinded drinkers and workers and nursing mothers, pinning them in their surroundings and shocking them into submission to the lens." (Riis, xvii)

As an immigrant, Riis knew first hand what it was like to live in poverty. When he was younger, out of money and unable to find steady employment, he often spent the night in police station lodging houses to escape from the cold. This book explores the living conditions of the American immigrant in the tenements of New York City. Riis' writing is full of the sights and sounds of the forgotten or ignored people living in the Lower East Side.

This writing is unique in that it takes you directly into the tenements. The reader's skin crawls from the thought of the filth, the nose wrinkles from the imagined smells and the feeling of darkness hangs like a cloud from the first page until the last. Rather than providing us with a list of impersonal statistics, Riis gives us a glimpse into the lives of human beings. The reader experiences the sights and sounds of even the most austere little room shared by what seems like multitudes of people. The pictures verify the human condition that Riis describes.

Riis writes as if he were talking to the reader as they were walking down the streets and alleys of the tenements. "Take a look into this Roosevelt Street alley; just about one step wide, with a five-story house on one side that gets its air and light - God help us for pitiful mockery! - from this slit between the walls," he writes. (Riis, 35)

Throughout the book Riis mentions the lack of sunlight, lack of clean air and filth that are part of the everyday lives of those living in the tenements. But, "when the sun shines the entire population seeks the street, carrying on its household work, its bargaining, its lovemaking on street or sidewalk, or idling there when it has nothing better to do." (Riis, 47) Unfortunately these rays of sunshine are not often found in Riis' description of life in the tenements.

Riis blames the tenement problem on both the rich and the poor. He writes "...the vilest and worst tenement property to be found anywhere, stood associated...with the name of an honored family, one of the `oldest and best', rich in possessions and in influence." (Riis, 53) The rich oppressed the immigrants through high rents, preventing them from climbing the social ladder.

But Riis also blames the poor for their plight. He was troubled by the fact that many did not make an effort to learn English and other skills necessary in America. Riis attempts to hold these immigrants to the standards he held for himself. He believed that it was important for immigrants to engage in business and to assimilate into their new surroundings. Riis did not appreciate immigrants who insisted on holding onto their traditional language and culture.

Riis walks the reader through the different sections of the tenement, describing the various ethnic groups with his unique editorial commentary: the Italians, Chinese, Jews, Bohemians, Blacks and Arabs. The descriptions are not what the reader would consider politically correct in this day and age. According to Riis he is being candid and reporting what he observes, but these comments are no longer acceptable, regardless of the intent.

Riis also describes the plight of children. According to him, many of the children have been put out on the streets by their families who are no longer able to support them. Riis takes the readers into the ten-cent lodging houses where the children often sleep and are introduced to a life of crime, prostitution and drugs as they fall victim to those ready to take advantage of their lack of funds and family support.

This book was written and published to garner public support. It accomplished the goal. According to Luc Sante, in his introduction, Riis' book had an immediate impact and reform was undertaken to improve the conditions of the poor in New York City. How the Other Half Lives was instrumental in shining the light on the tenements so that the upper and middle class could no longer ignore the plight of the poor and pretend they did not exist. The book also brought to light the effects the tenement and sweatshop owners were having on these oppressed people.

As Riis takes the reader on this journey, which covers a period of time, he tells the readers of the changes that are being made. He mentions the parks that have been built, buildings that have been torn down and replaced by new buildings that have better designs, and the enactment of child-labor laws. Specifically, during the time of Riis' writing the airshaft was introduced into the design of the tenement. This allowed for air to circulate in the buildings, lowering the spread of disease. Through this book the reader actually senses the evolution of the tenement.

One can't help but wonder that if Riis were walking the streets of New York City or another major city in America today, if he wouldn't be just as discouraged with what he would still find to write about and photograph. Unfortunately even the sweatshop is still a deplorable condition for immigrants one hundred years later. Fortunately, we still have journalists who are concerned enough to shed light on these conditions and continue to bring the plight of the poor and homeless to the attention of the middle and upper class, lest they be forgotten again.

How the Other Half Lives, by Jacob Riis, with Introduction by Luc Sante, is a book that paints a picture of tenement neighborhoods in New York City in 1890. Riis, himself an immigrant, made his living as a journalist. It is his gift of words that brings the slums to life, and transports the reader to the very spot that he describes. Riis was the first to include photographs to vividly capture what his words portray. His writing and photographs were forerunners to investigative reporting and documentaries. Sante referred to Riis' agenda as being restricted to the mundane because he wanted immediate achievable results that would better the lives of the other half. Although his plans were simple; proper housing, sanitary conditions, parks, and schools; they were considered revolutionary. When he left the newspaper business in 1901 he became a lecturer speaking on this topic of reform that was so dear to his heart. He made headway and convinced influential people such as Theodore Roosevelt to join his cause.

I think Riis was extremely successful in his mission to make people aware of the conditions in the tenements. Since this book was reprinted in 1997 and the introduction was added at that time, I think it would have increased the value of the book to include a section that briefly described the current condition of the tenements in today's light, and review, with a timeline, the reforms achieved since 1890. It would be interesting because Sante says "It [the book] haunts us because so much of it remains true" (p.xiii). This book created reforms, but if after 116 years, much of it is still true, we must be missing something. Then again, perhaps not, since Riis says the poor will always be with us, and we can never get rid of either the pauper or the tenement (p.xi).

Riis was a firm believer that education alone could make "the other half's" lives better, but he also knew their need to work long hours to have a roof over their head and food to eat made the chance of education a far flung dream (pp.95, 105, 111, 136). Without the ability to speak English they are unable to change careers. Another solution he had was to focus on the children as a way to reduce city poverty (p.139). Riis preached that besides charitable donations there needed to be people willing to step into action (pp.145, 213).

I think the book was well written and is very descriptive. At times I thought his words tended to be racial, blunt, and opinionated, but that was his true style, even in his journalistic works (p.xvi). Even though I didn't like to read the racist words, I believe he accurately presented the views of the slums. Just as Walter Isaacson fills his readers with awe at the accomplishments of Ben Franklin in his book Ben Franklin, An American Life, Riis fills us with an ache for the immigrants coming to America to make a better life for themselves and finding it hard to do. I think anyone interested in history or the life of an immigrant would find this an informative book. It isn't one I would find on an educational reading list in terms of contributions to education, but it does give insight into living conditions in the late nineteenth century and gives a plug for a connection between education (or lack of) and living conditions within the largest city in America.

Thomas Barnes

Riis Book Review

ADED 5510

University of Wyoming

September , 2006

Riis, Jacob A. (1997). How the Other Half Lives. New York: Penguin

In the distance, the Statue of Liberty echoes the refrain--Give me your poor, your tired, your huddled masses. This invitation was extended to millions of immigrants in the 19th and 20th centuries. Men, women, and children of varying nationalities and ethnicities made the journey to America. Consequently, they sought freedom from oppression and new opportunity in the land of plenty. However, the promises of a better life often proved unrealistic. In the late 19th century, a news writer, Jacob Riis investigated and exposed the slums of New York City. In his book, How the Other Half Lives, author Jacob Riis explores New York City's underclass. Furthermore, the graphic portrayal of the worst that life offers begins and ends with a shocking tour of the slums of New York City.

Consequently, before starting on a journey through the slums of the Lower East Side of New York City, Riis reminds the reader of the cold, hard truth; the poor will always be with us (Intro-xi). However, the express intention of the author is to reveal the horrendous living conditions of the poor to public attention. The journey begins with visits to tenements. Multi-story, poorly constructed buildings crowd lots. Ethnic groups, with their idiosyncratic characteristics, specifically the Jews, Italians, Irish, Bohemians, Blacks, and Chinese, exist in the squalid, intensely overcrowded, disease ridden, poorly ventilated firetraps. Examples of the living conditions include statistics citing the world's greatest concentration of humans per square mile, an alarming death rate among young children, and the frequent deaths of men and specifically women and children in fires, where there is little chance for escape.

Additionally, further trepidations are evident in the lives of the masses of humanity. In the street and alleys of the Bend, the tramps; the skulks of the slums, unclean beasts of dishonest idleness, certify their presence as the dregs of society (46). Moral depravity becomes evident as opium is constantly abused, the evils of rum disenfranchise the slum dweller, and stale beer dives appeal to the prurient interests of the frugally immoral.

In addition, the color line in New York City is highlighted by the prejudice of landlords as they bilk the black man out of his hard earned wages. Furthermore, the criminality perpetrated by the gangs infects the slum with fear and lawlessness. Other crimes tear at the heart, specifically, the heinous starving to death of babies. Also, women are disadvantaged at a young age for their propensity to work for the family. They walk a fine line between the rigors of work and the temptations of selling their very body for gain. In all, the journey through the desolation of the slums is not for the faint of heart.

At the close of the book, Riis offers his assessment of steps performed to alleviate the problems in the slums. These include tentative solutions involving the wealthy classes, the landlords, and the tenants. Living conditions must be improved, despite the apathy of the wealthy classes, the exorbitant greed of the landlords or the lack of resolve and interest by the tenants. Some improvements have been made, however significant strides need accomplished. The words of Riis literally plead for a call to action and progress, the reform of a city beset with human degradation and suffering.

Moreover, How the Other Half Lives, fulfills the purposes of the author. It brings to the light of the public eye, an awareness of life in the slums. By means of his vigilant journey through lives of the poor and forgotten, the stories of thousands are revealed. Additionally, the book achieved a supplementary purpose. It's achievements of muckraking, caused the book to be a forerunner of investigative journalism. Furthermore, the intent of the book is not only to expose the degradation of the slums, but to provide an impetus to appropriate action. The author excelled in touching both the heart and soul of the reader.

Furthermore, Jacob Riis, in How the Other Half Lives, transmits a message of Social Reformation. This message seeks relief for the disparaging poor of the slums. Additionally, the book illustrates the disparity of value systems and a defeated spirit of self consciousness. In an 1897 paper, John Dewey, states "education is a regulation of a process of coming to share in the social consciousness: and that the adjustment of individual activity on the basis of this social consciousness is the only sure method of reconstruction" (Dewey, 1897). The people of the slums: men, women, and children needed the advantages of educational opportunities. Jacob Riis documents the misery of the slums of New York City. Coincidentally, the poor, along with drug dealers, crack whores, the homeless, and gangs still live in the crowded slums of New York City. How do we raise the social consciousness and provide educational initiatives for the slum dwellers of today?

Subsequently, the book is a must read for all manners of people. The eye opening, jaw dropping revelations of the New York City slums provoke both anguish and compassion. Yes, as we students sit sipping our second cup of cappuccino, relaxing upon a plush couch, watching our big screen television, we may enjoy reading How the Other Half Lives.

References

Dewey, J. (1897). My Pedagogic Creed. School Journal, 54,77-80.

Riis, J.A. (1997). How the Other Half Lives. New York: Penguin.

"Pitiful as these are, sights and sounds infinitely more saddening await us beyond the gate that shuts this world of woe off from one whence the light of hope and reason have gone out together" (p 193).
Like a ghost out of Dickens' A Christmas Carol, Jacob Riis tours the reader through the nightmare existence in the New York City slums of the 1800's. Although, as Luc Sante states in his introduction, Riis' sole purpose for writing this book is to "call attention to the horrendous living conditions of the poor in New York City and insist on reform" (p ix), Riis also presents another underlying theme by unequivocally proving that the more people isolate themselves from the rest of the world, the better chance there is for gross victimization of those less fortunate: simplistically speaking, the rich get richer; the poor get poorer; the wider the gap grows in between (dispersion of our so-called middle class.)
Riis' talent lies in his use of poetically descriptive language, saturated with metaphor and alliteration, alongside contrasting factual accounts of harsh reality. The reader is mesmerized by the rhythmic sound of lines such as "Down near the Battery the West Side emerald would be soiled by a dirty stain, spreading rapidly like a splash of ink on a sheet of blotting paper" (p 25), but then shocked by the stark conditions of tenement life as given in the form of personal stories, photographs, legislation, statistics, and blueprints. Riis writes about the windowless, airless rooms and the unbelievably filthy crowded living conditions. He recounts stories of bitter violence toward children and between the races, as well as degradation and oppression among women, the old, and the infirm. The reader is sickened with wretched stories of infanticide and mortality rates among the children.
Riis unapologetically interjects his novel with stereotypical remarks and his own bigoted opinions of the people inhabiting the various ethnically divided "wards." Some of his include those such as "between the dull gray of the Jew, his favorite color, and the Italian red, would be seen squeezed in on the map a sharp streak of yellow, marking the narrow boundaries of Chinatown" (p 24), and "poverty, abuse, and injustice alike the negro accepts with imperturbable cheerfulness...He loves fine clothes and good living a good deal more than he does a bank account" (p 117).
Through the obviously prejudicial film that covers Riis' novel from beginning to end, the reader is able to perceive a sense of his true passion of wanting to make a positive difference in society. His previous stereotypical remarks about African Americans are somewhat softened when he later comments on the injustice towards them:
"...when the account is made up between the races, it shall be claimed that he falls short of the result to be expected from twenty-five years of freedom, it may be well to turn to the other side of the ledger and see how much of the blame is borne by the prejudice and greed that have kept him from rising under a burden of responsibility to which he could hardly be equal" (p 119).
Riis is an example of a pioneer whose work, sacrifice, and commitment have shaped our country and our world. By educating the public through his journalistic indictments, he provided the catalyst for the ensuing slow process of reform. What places Riis on a higher level than others who have written exposés is the fact that he not only provided what he thought to be the main causes for the deplorable situation of tenement life, but also provided an outline of a well thought out plan for improvement that included detailed legislation, floor plans for remodeling, and sound economical postulations. Luc Sante states that Riis does not "inquire very deeply into the causes of the conditions he describes" (p xi), but one can logically infer very plainly many individual causes and effects that ultimately affect the whole, such as greed, gross lack of education of a whole segment of society, a government and society who chose not to care (or may have felt it did not have the time or resource to care,) growth of nation that was infinitely more vast than expected, depression, oppression, and inertia (on both ends of the class spectrum.)
Riis' book is not only a ghost from the past, but also a ghost from the present that haunts our country and our world today. One can still see economically imbalanced conditions that contribute to the growing lower class. Insightful remarks made over one hundred years ago make one disgusted to realize that seemingly little has been learned:
"Nothing is now better understood than that the rescue of the children is the key to the problem of city poverty, as presented for our solution to-day; that a character may be formed where to reform it would be a hopeless task" (p 139).
This book should be read for the beauty of the prose, the horror of the content, and the insight to be gained from both. Riis succeeds in showing the reader that our world is a unit existing of one: indeed one world. Riis presents an inarguably complete and comprehensive exposition of "how the other half lives."

I used this book along with another Riis book for a U.S. History project at school. Both this book and Low Life were an incredible help. The pictures are incredible. Riis was the first to show this side of life in NYC during the first part of the century. His books are by far the best pictoral records of the time. I highly recomend this book for anyone interested in the early part of the century or anyone who needs information for school projects.

Jacob Riis was indeed a great reformist. This book serves as a Historical context of the conditions of early American immigrants. Riis is a perfect candidate to write this novel because he knows what it is like to be an immigrant, and live in poverty. Riis was the third of Fifteen children and emigrated to the U.S. in 1870. According to his biography on [...]

Riis "was often forced to spend the night in police station lodging houses." due to lack of money. It was not until three years later that Riis found work inside a news bureau.

Prehaps because Riis was able to escape proverty, he was easy to critic those that give up with out putting up a fight. Riis clearly blames the slum tenement problem on both the rich and the poor through his harsh racial comments. The rich oppresses the immigrants through high rents to prevent them from moving up in the social ladder while most of the poor do no make an effort to learn English and other skills to survive in America.

This is a good book to have but it's not a very relaxing book to read. Most of the pictures are not very high quality, considering the time period it was taken, but it really does not do justice to that era. I also find Riis's writing style very dull and lengthy. (I guess some call that poetic).

Jacob Riis can be considered one of the greatest social reformers of modern times. He used his writing and photography to publicize the lifestyles of the lower classes in New York City in the late nineteenth through early twentieth centuries. In How the Other Half Lives, Riis described the inherent injustices and terrible living conditions of New York City tenements. He exposed the public to the evils of tenement life, portraying New York City living conditions of the lower classes for what they truly were. He successfully accomplished his goal of attracting attention to a dire situation.
Riis wrote How the Other Half Lives to evoke sympathy to awaken the masses to the poverty in their backyards. Through his writings and photographs Riis knew people would become aware and respond to the living conditions in New York slums. Tenements were large buildings that overflowed with families living under miserable conditions. People representing many different nationalities lived in New York City tenements, and the population of immigrants grew incredibly during this time of emigration. It quickly became the most heterogeneous city in the country, and the different Europeans lived together under terrible conditions. Some immigrant groups of the same nationality lived in small separate communities together. Most settled on the East Side of New York, where the New York aristocracy had lived. The contrast between the days when the aristocracy lived on the East Side and when the immigrants moved there is quite apparent.
Jacob Riis stated, "Homes had ceased to be sufficiently separate, decent, and desirable to afford what are regarded as ordinary wholesome influences of home and family." Tenements were overcrowded, dark, and unsanitary. Riis felt nobody should live in these conditions, and he called people to recognize the horrors of immigrant life. The homes of these immigrants were described in this way, "Large rooms were partitioned into several smaller ones, without regard to light or ventilation, the rate of rent being lower in proportion to space or height from the street; and they soon became filled from cellar to garret with a class of tenantry living from hand to mouth, loose in morals, improvident in habits, degraded, and squalid as beggary itself." One of Riis's photographs, "In Poverty Gap, West Twenty-Fourth Street An English Coal Heaver's Home" depicts a typical poor immigrant family who obviously had very little materially and lived in a dilapidated tenement. The family seems very hardened in emotion, as if they are not even real. The combination of poignant quotes and photographs such as these led people to challenge the status quo.
One of Riis's major tasks was to distinguish the difference between the "haves" and "have-nots" of New York City by comparing the immigrants with the few rich. There was very little social mobility for tenement immigrants, who made up the majority of the population. He appealed to the consciousness of the rich by saying, "As business increased, and the city grew with rapid strides, the necessities of the poor became the opportunity of their wealthier neighbors." This points out the exploitation of immigrants by the wealthy class that Riis felt existed. No matter how hard they worked, there seemed to be no way out for the immigrants. "Knee Pants at Forty-Five Cents a Dozen - a Ludlow Street Sweater's Shop" is a photograph that shows an entire family working diligently in their confined tenement. This illustrates that there was no hope for immigrant families; they kept working but reaped no benefits. Riis blamed the tenement living conditions for the crimes and unethical behavior he saw among the immigrants. He blamed their poor standard of living for the abundance of crime and other abuses in immigrant neighborhoods. "A Downtown Morgue" presents us with drinking, one of the vices of the immigrants, but implies that they had nothing to encourage them to stay away from it. The photograph also reinforces the poverty and hopelessness, suggesting the immigrants had nothing to live for so they wasted their lives away on alcohol. Riis took a special interest in children because he saw them as innocent people who had become so jaded by their surroundings that they became criminals. "Prayer Time in the Nursery, Five Points House of Industry" portrays young children praying, probably indicating Riis's dream that all children would be set on the right path and stay there throughout their lives.
A major criticism to Riis's work is that he was prejudiced and writing from a biased point of view. Riis reflected the view of the upper classes toward the immigrants and poorer classes, and readers can pick up on this through the biases in his work. He could not fully understand the plight of the people he studied because he was not one of them. Riis used terms that were crude and unflattering to the nationalities of those whom he was describing. He describes the "Chinaman" in the following way, "Ages of senseless idolatry, a mere grub-worship, have left him without the essential qualities for appreciating the gentle teachings of a faith whose motive and unselfish spirit are alike beyond his grasp." He also referred to the Chinese as a "terrible menace to society" because of their marijuana smoking. Riis wrote that "lower class" Italians were foreign, different, and therefore separate from others. Other examples of vivid language Riis used were, "the tramps, peddlers, hags, rude swains, and the really pretty girls." Since he was an outsider due to his class, he could not possibly relate to the people he was describing.

This book hooked me and tranported me to another time. I was at turns horrfied and amazed at how life was lived then. I love history, especially social history and this book delves into the "other half" that is usually sorely neglected. Makes you feels as if you are standing in one of the those tenement "yards"....feeling the clasturphobia and despair.

I really think this book was interested. we had to read it in our english class and everyone seemed to like it alot.I think that what they did to the peolpe was wrong and people should not be treated in such bad manners like that. I woyld not last long in there life time i would end up dead in a few days. I wish there was something someone could of did for those helpless people. I know that I had the chance I would help them live in an enviorment best for them.
thank you
amanda brayton

This book, How the Other Half Lives by Jacob Riis, had several very distinct themes. First, the life of immigrants to New York City in the late 1800s was deplorable while housing for others was splendid. "To-day three fourths of its people live in the tenements, and the nineteenth century drift of the population to the cities is sending ever-increasing multitudes to crowd them" (Riis, p. 6) Sections of tenement houses were divided by streets and alleys which divided the nationalities. "As emigration from east to west follows the latitude, so does the foreign influx in New York distribute itself along certain well-defined lines that waver and break only under the stronger pressure of a more gregarious race or the encroachments of inexorable business." (Riis, p. 21) Each nationality had some very distinct characteristics but they also had some very great differences as well.

The next theme to emerge was that of work. In some sections of the city, it was acceptable for everyone to work while in other sections, only the men did physical work while the women "kept house" or there was even mention of the men just standing in doorways, streets and alleys. "The men sit or stand in the streets, on trucks, or in the open doors of the saloons smoking black clay pipes, talking and gesticulating as if forever on the point of coming to blows." (Riis, p. 49) Money was earned, at very small rates throughout the tenements, by someone in the family, if not multiple people. "Often there are two, sometimes three, sets of sweaters on the job. They work with the rest when they are not drumming up trade, driving their `hands' as they drive their machine, for all they are worth, and making a profit on their work, of course, though in most cases not nearly as extravagant a percentage, probably, as is often supposed. If it resolves itself unto a margin of five or six cents, or even less, on a dozen pairs of boys' trousers, for instance, it is nevertheless enough to make the contractor with his thrifty instinct independent. The workman growls, not at the hard labor or poor pay, but over the pennies another is coining out of his sweat, and on the first opportunity turns sweater himself, and takes his revenge by driving an even closer bargain than his rival tyrant, t his reducing his profits." (Riis, p 94)

Finally, the third theme centered on bringing about change via real people, real stories and images of real life in the tenements. "Riis made maximum use of photographs, however, not only to illustrate six of his books, but also as lantern slides to illustrate lectures he began giving in 1888 and continued until his death." (Riis, p. xvii) People are drawn to real life situations to which they can relate. The accounts, photographs and images of Riis bring real life accounts to the reader, sparking more interest, creating a deeper relationship between the characters in the story and the reader. And by doing so, Riis encourages others to take action to remedy the sad situation.

As the previous themes are analyzed, connections can be made between them and education and society of today. It is important to first note that in today's society, there are still sections in certain towns and cities that are divided predominantly by ethnic diversity. Not only is housing situations but also in educational systems the divisions are found, although it is encouraged that the lines be broken down. "The many philanthropic efforts that have been made in the last few years to render less intolerable the lot of the tenants in the homes where many of them must continue to live, have undoubtedly had their effect in creating a disposition to accept better things, that will make plainer sailing for the future builders of model tenements., In many ways, as in the `College Settlement' of courageous girls, the Neighborhood Guilds, through the efforts of The King's Daughters, and numerous other schemes of practical mission work, the poor and the well-to-do have been brought closer together, in an every-day companionship that cannot but be productive of the best results, to the one who gives no less than tto the one who receives." (Riis, p. 207) Obviously different locales call for difference measures of tolerance and defend certain levels of intolerance but the lines exist nonetheless. "The experience of this landlord points directly to the remedy which the law failed to supply to the early reformers. It has since been fully demonstrated that a competent agent on the premises, a man of the best and the highest stamp, who knows how to instruct and guide with a firm hand, is a prerequisite to the success of any reform tenement scheme." (Riis, p. 205)

Secondly, work was important in this book. Riis did an excellent job of documenting the working conditions and who was responsible for certain jobs in the tenements in each section. Just as Benjamin Franklin valued an honest day's work, so did the people of the tenements. The biggest difference between those two accounts of work was who was actually responsible for the work. Depending upon the culture of the area sometimes it was the men, women or children, or all three, that completed work to earn money or keep house. "Men, women and children work together seven days in the week in these cheerless tenements to make a living for the family, from the break of day till far into the nights. Often the wide is the original cigarmaker from the old home, the husband having adopted her trade here as a matter of necessity, because, knowing no word of English, he could get no other work." (Riis, p. 105) But how did people in this situation become educated to work? "The old question, what to do with the boy, assumes a new and serious phase in the tenements. Under the best conditions found there, it is not easily answered. In nine cases out of ten he would make an excellent mechanic, if trained early to work at a trade, for he is neither full nor slow, but the short-sighted despotism of the trades unions has practically closed that avenue to him. Trade-schools, however excellent, cannot supply the opportunity thus denied him. Home, the greatest factor of all in the training of the young, means nothing to him but a pigeon-hole in a coop along with so many other human animals. Its influence is scarcely of the elevating kind, if it have any....With no steady hand to guide him, the boy takes naturally to idle ways." (Riis, p. 136)

Finally, it is important to note the third theme of bringing reality into the lives of the reader. In education today, it is important to show real life application of concepts and ideas for learning to take place. Riis was a pioneer in bringing photographs, real images and valid data to people to create a felt need for change and response. Most photographs in the book are very dark and only add realism to the stories told. For example, the photographs on pages 93, 104 appear very dark and the subjects unhappy. The fact that Riis was probably standing, himself, in the darkest part of the room and photographing the lightest part of the room, near the windows, only tells the reader that even in the lightest part of the room, the darkness and dreariness ruled over the tenements. "Riis's use of photography to point his words and flesh out his anecdotes is no less important, endowing an entire legacy of its own." (Riis, p. xiii)

I believe the intent of the author was to simply bring a big picture view to narrow minded people. He very much accomplished his purpose. By using stories of families, shocking details and everyday photographs of real people, he was able to bring people to understand the reality of life in their own city and encourage them to help make changes. It is often said that a picture is worth a thousand words, and Riis is a prime example of this. Not only are his accounts vivid and horrific, but also his images leave nothing to the imagination. The reader can not be left to imagining a rosier picture than was intended. The illustrations both verbal and nonverbal are graphic and moving.

The appropriate audience for this book would have to be very broadly, mature, adult citizens of our world. The language used in this book can be, at times, a bit complicated to comprehend; this is why I believe it appropriate for mature adults. I also believe very firmly that adults are sometimes the most difficult to convince to take action to help those less fortunate or those in need. When we read real life accounts and see pictures of people just like us in deplorable conditions, it is difficult for us to sit back and take no action. I also believe it is important for citizens of our world to understand the underlying message of helping those less fortunate or those in need who may be right in our own back yard. This book is a stunning example of one man giving factual accounts of events to produce concerned citizens ready to take action to improve conditions for fellow human beings.

How the Other Half Lives was written over a century ago as an expose' of the appalling living conditions in the tenements of New York City. The author speaks with a crusader's zeal and with so much detail that the reader can visualize these tenements, these streets, and these people as if they were living today. This is a grim and moving portrayal of the lives of the men, the women and the children that inhabit these loathsome neighborhoods of New York City in the late 1800s. He so graphically describes the filth, the sunless and airless rooms, the crowding, and the starvation that these places palpably exist for the reader and bring a chill to any heart. Riis has a genuine concern for the tenement situation and understands these people's plight. His pictures are touching and meant to vividly show their misery. He, for the most part, blames the money-hungry landlords for these crowded conditions: "How shall the love of God be understood by those who have been nurtured in sight only of the greed of man." (p. 266). He laments that the tenement is three quarters responsible for the misery of the poor. Then, after his extensive discourse, he offers three concrete cures for these dreadful conditions, something that many authors forget when they are enlightening readers.

Riis states his purpose for writing this book himself on page 297 when he says, "If this book shall have borne ever so feeble a hand in garnering a harvest of justice, it has served its purpose." The author apparently succeeded with his purpose, because in the flyleaf of this book the publisher tells us: "This book helped bring about new revisions in the housing codes of the major U. S. cities."

How does this book relate to adult education? By moving chronologically from the founding of America to the slums of NYC in the 1800s, are we to understand that education took a back seat to the accumulation of money during those hundred years? Certainly Riis posits that education is one of the solutions to this problem while at the same time implying that wealth accumulation and the lack of education has been the cause of this problem. "Thus the whole matter resolves itself once more into a question of education, all the more urgent because these people are poor, miserably poor almost to a man." (p. 147). He does not forget that this "education" is not only for the poor people, but also for the wealthy landlords. "Clearly, it is a matter of education on the part of the landlord no less than the tenant." (p. 270). Riis' almost missionary language exhorts us to never allow greed to override a compassion for humanity. "It is a fight in which eternal vigilance is truly the price of liberty and the preservation of society." (p. 233). The relation of this book to the other units of study in this course could be explained as an example of how low mankind can descend if education is not considered one of the major cornerstones of a society.

Although this book was exhaustive in its detail, it was easy to read while at the same time enlightening. I found myself enjoying the ranting tone and the fascinating lists of neighborhoods and the labels that Riis used for the different races. In a sense it reads like a Ginsberg poem; constantly hitting the reader with melodious lists of places and people from another era. Read these geographic names out loud and feel their rhythm:

Jewtown, Bandit's Roost, Double Alley, The Bowery, The Bloody Sixth Ward, The Fourth, Fifth and Tenth Wards, Blindman's Alley, The Bend, The Battery, Little Italy, The French Quarter, Hell's Kitchen, The West Side, Bottle Alley, Frog Hollow, Poverty Gap, Murderer's Alley, Gotham Court, The Old Brewery, Old Africa, Potter's Field, Blackwell's Island Asylum, Rogues' Gallery, Penitentiary Row, Chinatown. The list goes on. To someone reared in rural America, this chant sounds like a song about another country.

Riis also has something to say about all the races of people that live in the tenements of New York City:

Chinaman (he can't be taught), (Chinese (coolie--laundry business), Polish Jew (coops himself up in his den with his thermometer at boiling), Russian Jew, Jew (money is their God), Bohemian (poor, but thrifty), Blacks (like to gamble, but they are clean), Greek, Hebrews (tailors, all of them), Dutchman, Irish (like to drink and have expensive funerals), German (order loving), Swiss, Pasquales, Russian, Italian (a born gambler; lighthearted and gay), Swamp Angel (thieves), Street Arabs (army of homeless boys), Tramps and Toughs (the world owes them a living),and the Celtics. I was enthralled by the street lingo and the colloquialisms and Riis' comments about every race.

I noticed one interesting similarity between the late 1800s and the present day. Riis says that the gap between the social classes is widening everyday. I hear people talking about the growing differences between the rich and the poor often these days. Does every generation think that is happening in their time?

Not only should this book be used by people researching New York City`s tenements, but it should also be read by everyone seeking a blueprint for social change. It is a reminder to show us how hopeless the human circumstances can become when man's greed overrides his concern for human dignity.

How the other Half Lives does an excellent job of bringing to light the plight and destitution of early immigrants to this nation. As Riis systematically moves from one ethnic group to another, one realizes how much discrimination was shown to newcomers. Riis' own descriptions of the immigrants provide evidence to the prevalent feelings of that era. Overall, Riis' work is eye-opening and instructive.

Source book for Luc Sante's research into his book- Low Life:The Lures and Snares of Old New York. Current Affairs journalism in it's infancy. Tenement laws and building codes in New York were first manifested as a result of this book's original publication. Riis ruled.

Riis was before all else a photojournalist, and this his major body of work. As such, the fact that there even exist editions which do not contain quality reproductions of the photos astounds me. This edition only contains a few, and they are small, pixelated, two-tone reproductions. The Dover edition is the one to get.

This edition of How the Other Half Lives is astoundingly bad. It contains innumerable typos (the edition was clearly the result of scanning an old edition with sub-par OCR software). Moreover the illustrations and tables are 72dpi maximum making them a nearly illegible blur on the printed page. The blurb on the back claims the book was "first published in 1901" (in fact it was 1890). The same amount of care went into this edition as went into a New York Tenement.

How the Other Half Lives

Riis, Jacob. How the Other Half Lives. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1890.

In his book, How the Other Half Lives, Jacob A. Riis gives the reader a front row view of life in the tenements of New York City at the end of the 19th century. Please consider the time period in which Riis wrote his book to put the ethnic, racial, class, and gender biases inherent in his work into the proper historical context. Personally, I found this offensive, but I aimed to not condemn the messenger without hearing the message first.

Riis tells the story of millions of lives marked by never-ending hard labor, lack of adequate nourishment and housing, violence, abuse, addiction, and disease. Many of these people living in the tenements were first-generation immigrants from Ireland, Russia, Eastern Europe, and Italy. The push/pull of migration to the United States ends in the New York tenements in a million shattered dreams. Rather than finding the land of opportunity, immigrants were exploited for their cheap labor.
Despite Riis' biases as a journalist and observer, he was motivated by charity and goodwill to investigate the living conditions of the poor and expose the harsh reality to the world. By doing so, Riis intended to bring about social change. The reality of his expose is heart wrenching more than a century after its writing. Riis main thesis is an argument for changing the living conditions of the poor. He calls for improved housing and renovated neighborhoods as a means to improve the lives of the tenement dwellers. However, Riis does not directly make a call for educating the poor, but his writing brings the salient absence of education to bear and he does make note of attempts by church groups to educate the poor.

Down in the Tenth Ward on Ludlow Street, Riis meets Polish and Russian Jews who manufacture clothing is sweltering, cramped tenements that serve both as home and factory to its inhabitants. In the chapter, entitled The Sweaters of Jewtown, an entire family works eighteen hours a day, in unhealthy, dangerous conditions to produce 1,440 pairs of knickerbockers for a mere $8.40 a week. Sweaters are to clothing manufacturing what slumlords are to housing. These migrants are exploited in many ways. The sweater gets a shocking low price for production because the workers, who rarely speak English, must underbid unions and other immigrant workers just to have work. The landlord, sometimes also the sweater, takes the exploitation one step further down toward hell and charges the highest rent he can, and requires the workers to purchase raw materials and tools. This is textbook exploitation of the disadvantaged. After all that, workers barely earn enough money to keep starvation at bay. The working and living conditions for families who are supported by the work of women fair far worse than families who have a male head of household due to the grotesque inequity in pay between males and females.

Riis' story of the family living on Mott Street was far too common and representative of Riis' overall description of life in the tenements. The Mott Street family was worse off than the Jewish family he met on Ludlow Street mostly because they could not work. Without social welfare programs and medical care, they had no alternative but to suffer through their cruel fate. The doctor had been called because the baby was gravely ill. The diagnosis was "improper nourishment" (Riis, p. 126). In other words, the baby was dying from starvation. The father could no longer work because his hands were deformed from lead poisoning and because the family did not have medical care, an infectious eye condition had nearly blinded the children and the mother.

If one is not moved by an ethical responsibility to alleviate the suffering of the poor and work to eradicate poverty, the Mott Street family demonstrates that poverty kills and is contagious; therefore, poverty is a public health issue. In a Jewish community, Riis notes that: "Typhus fever and small-pox are bread here, and help solve the question what to do with him." (Riis, p. 85) This statement could be viewed as a rather anti-Semitic notion, but what Riis is really saying is that poverty is a matter of public health and infectious diseases pose a serious health threat. These two examples show how Riis wanted to shock the nation with the truth.

While middle class boys were off to school, children in the tenements lived a hard life. Riis also tells us how poor children were exploited and abused. The story of "Edward Mulhearn, fourteen years old, had run away from his home in Jersey City" (Riis, p. 68) was not an isolated case. Edward was "employed" by a hustler who forced him to beg for money. To insure that Edward would solicit the most sympathy, thus bring in more money, he was burned with a hot iron and then acid was poured into the open wound.

An entire essay could be written on the conditions of women and girls living in the tenements, but there is not time for that here. Let it suffice to say that females were at the very bottom of the social hierarchy and made the perfect victims. So were African Americans. Despite Riis' obvious racism and gender biases, he seems to have a special affinity and genuine fondness for women and African Americans. Riis recognized that the working skills that African Americans had used in the South became obsolete once they migrated to Northern urban areas and that employable skills were needed to promote the advancement of Blacks in society. He blamed bigotry and lack of education for their place in society. Riis recognizes that African Americans needed new job skills in order to gain employment. Today, call that workforce development and community education. At a time when African Americas were the receivers of a lot of racial animosity in the urbanized North, Riis points the finger at those who put the Black man and woman out of work by taking over his and her jobs and preventing entry into other jobs. "Even the colored barber is rapidly getting to be a thing of the past." (Riis, p. 114)

In the chapter entitled "The Street Arab," Riis demonstrates the non-formal education that homeless boys received from the Children's Aid Society. The boys were allowed to help themselves and as long as they followed the rules, they could stay at the Society lodging house. This "God helps those who help themselves" attitude is evident in the largess bestowed on the street boys. A boy could be outfitted with a black boot kit to work the city streets shining shoes, but the boy has to purchase his trade tools on an installment plan. There were not any formal trades open to these poor kids or to their parents. The tenements of New York needed one of Franklin's free libraries and Junto organizations, but they first would need to be fed and taught to read and write.
What ever formal or non-formal education the Society was able to offer these boys was contingent on first convincing the boys that their charity was not a "Sunday-school racket," which is a reference to the missionary attempts to teach people to read to better serve God. This long-standing Protestant tradition was the hallmark of early American educational movements and the theoretical basis for literacy. The debate between the religious and secular virtues of education was an inheritance from Colonial times. Riis, like Benjamin Franklin over a century earlier, thought education was important to civil society, rather than a means to glorify God. Walter Isaacson notes in his masterful autobiography Benjamin Franklin: An American Life that the...
"Great Awakeners sought to recommit America to the anguished spirituality Puritanism, whereas Franklin sought to bring it into an Enlightenment era that exalted tolerance, individual merit, civic virtue, good deeds, and rationality. (Isaacson, p. 109)
Riis recognizes the futility in trying to convert people who are starving, homeless, and suffering when he writes: "How shall the love of god be understood by those who have been nurtured in sight only of the greed of man?" (Riis, p.198) Riis calls for civil reformation that involves fair play in everything from controlled housing prices, opening trades and unions to the marginalized, ethical business practices, and laws that promote equal opportunities.

Riis shows us that poverty and lack of education go hand in hand: it's a reciprocal process and one influences the other. This book was a hard read for me on several levels, but it is a lesson in compassion and a salient reminder of how lucky most of us truly are. Riis book show us that education was at a crisis stage in the urban U.S. in the late 19th century, and something had to give, or the nation would not survive in a changing world. I am grateful to of had the opportunity to read this book, and I would recommend it for reading to anyone interested in issues of race, class, and gender. Riis' book is a dark window into what life in an American city can be like when education is not an option. This book is of utmost importance to the social historian, child advocate, and social worker.

As others have noted, this book was the beginning of photojournalism, and remains an accurate but depressing look into the lives of poor New Yorkers in the early part of the 20th century.

This book never fails to amaze me. I read it in college, then ordered it for someone else recently.

If you have never read it - or, if you have not read it recently, give it a look.

In these times when the rich are increasingly wealthier than they've been since the 19th Century - the middle class is shrinking - and the poor are becoming poorer, it is wise to look and remember how socially aware and socially responsible we must be.