Jacob A. Riis - How the Other Half Lives Essay

Words: 1084
Pages: 5
Open Document
Jacob Riis' book How the Other Half Lives is a detailed description on the poor and the destitute in the inner realms of New York City. Riis tries to portray the living conditions through the ‘eyes' of his camera. He sneaks up on the people flashes a picture and then tells the rest of the city how the ‘other half' is living. As shocking as the truth was without seeing such poverty and horrible conditions with their own eyes or taking in the experience with all their senses it still seemed like a million miles away or even just a fairy tale. The reality of this book hit the people of New York right between the eyes. Riis was once ascribed the label of lower class society, but worked his way up the ladder of success and entered into …show more content…
He focused purely on the housing and the conditions of it. One of the examples of the conditions in the book refers to how dusty and full of dirt the buildings are. On page 81, one of the tenement buildings caught fire but was smothered out before it could spread throughout the complex, with all the dirt inside the fire had no oxygen to keep the blaze going. "'Why, don't you know,' he said, ‘that house is the Dirty Spoon? It caught fire six times last winter, but it wouldn't burn. The dirt was so thick on the walls, it smother the fire!'" The showing of these conditions that the lodgers lived in was a way of telling the people that the stereotypes of them are because of their living conditions. They are that way because the conditions make them that way. If they could be in decent homes they could be good, clean and maybe even have middle class status. All the city and landlords needed to do was to reform the housing and it would have solved all the cities problems. The first step would be in trying to get the landlords from exploiting the renters and start respecting them enough to care how they live. Once that was done you could take the care they discovered for those people and use it to better their homes. And the city would well be on it's way to improvement.
Riis writes his book effectively and manages to grasp the attention of the nation with his exposé of real life
Show More

Related Documents: Jacob A. Riis - How the Other Half Lives Essay

Riis: How the Other Half Lives and Jacob a .Riis Essay

Riis’s View on the Other Side As a Danish immigrant like Jacob A. Riis who arrived in New York City from Denmark in 1870 at a young age, it must be known that he traveled only with $40 to the states, and loved the new land. His main interests upon arrival was to settle down, find a job, and live the American dream. Riis quickly picked up a pen and initiated his career in journalism as well as gave rise to many questions about the struggles of humanity in slum regions of New York. Riis gives a very brave…

Words 1228 - Pages 5

Summary Of How The Other Half Lives By Jacob Riis

The Keen-eyed and Keen-nosed Danish immigrant, Jacob A. Riis, a reporter for the New York Sun, shocked middle-class Americans in 1890 with How the Other Half Lives, in which he presented what would become familiar themes and images, most notably that of the dirty, and dangerous tenement house; documented the living and working conditions of the poor. Jacob Riis’ work were so meaningful and powerful, most middle and upper class Americans just didn't understand the kind of culture shock that many immigrants…

Words 327 - Pages 2

Jacob Riis How The Other Half Lives Summary

Jacob Riis, an immigrant from Denmark, became the epitome of the American dream by rising to prominence through his work in journalism and social reform. His work helped to influence great strides in improving the issues resulting from industrialization and urbanization throughout the late 19th and early 20th century. This time period eventually became known as the Progressive Era due to the social reforms brought about by muckrakers like and inspired by Riis. At 21 years old, Jacob Riis stepped…

Words 935 - Pages 4

Summary Of How The Other Half Lives By Jacob Riis

Writing Assignment #1 Jacob Riis’ Book How the Other Half Lives 1. It is almost impossible to pick a place to start when asked what surprised me the most about the living situation of the tenement residents. There were so many gruesome aspects of these poor folks’ living arrangements that it made me seriously reevaluate how well we have it nowadays. From the rooms just big enough to “allow the man to pull off his clothes,” to the 7-cent beds made of “canvas strip”, the adjective “grim” doesn’t…

Words 747 - Pages 3

Jacob Riis How The Other Half Lives Summary

Jacob Riis’s work How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York documents the filthy living conditions of NYC in the 1880s. He bought a detective camera and went around taking pictures of real life NYC tenements. He describes how he believes the tenement system failed because of neglect and greed from the wealthy. Throughout his book he shares photos of different ethnic groups in the slums and uses slurs and stereotypes but keeps his theory that the reason for poverty is the conditions…

Words 396 - Pages 2

Essay about Huiting Zhou 2

Huiting Zhou An Annotated Bibliography on the Photography of Jacob Riis Szasz, Ferenc M., and Ralph H. Bogardus. "The Camera and the American Social Conscience: The Documentary Photography of Jacob A. Riis." New York History 55.4 (1974). Print. In this article, Szasz shows that the impact of Jacob Riis in his field can be understood not only by his encouragement to establish better community among the poor but also by his photography. Riis’s contemporaries tend to idealize slum life as “quaint” or…

Words 823 - Pages 4

Jacob Riis Progressive Era

The Goals of the Progressive and How Jacob Riis Contributed The Progressive Era took place from the early 1890s and lasted until the late 1920s in the United States of America. This was a time period where reformers and muckrakers helped to solve social problems in major cities across the country that were caused by immigration, poverty and the Industrial Revolution. Muckrakers were people that tried to aggravate corrupt politicians. Reformers were people that made changes to fix things. Together…

Words 335 - Pages 2

Jacob Riis On Poverty

Jacob Riis was a police reporter in New York City in the late nineteenth century. He arrived in New York when he was a young man and he quickly ran out money, leading to a personal experience of living in poverty in the New York City’s slums. When he got his position as a police reporter he did not leave the slums; he used his position create awareness of the conditions of the poor in New York City. He stated, “the sites ripped my heart until I felt I must tell of them or burst” (Jacob Riis video)…

Words 335 - Pages 2

Muckrakers In The Progressive Era

muckrakers Jacob Riis and Upton Sinclair had a major impact on society. Jacob Riis exposed tenement houses in New York in 1890. Upton Sinclair exposed the meatpacking factories in Chicago. Ida Tarbell a female muckraker exposed John D. Rockefeller and The Standard Oil Company. Jane Addams also played a huge part in the progressive era, she created the first settlement house in Chicago. Thomas Nast a well-known cartoonist doing the progressive era had a huge impact also. In the progressive…

Words 608 - Pages 3

Essay about Jacob Riis

Jacob Riis: The renowned Muckraker Jacob Riis was a journalist and social documentary photographer. He is known for using his photographic and journalistic talents to help the impoverished in New York City; those impoverished New Yorkers were the subject of most of his prolific writings and photography. As one of the most famous proponents of the newly practicable casual photography, he is considered one of the fathers of photography due to his very early adoption of flash in photography. While…

Words 517 - Pages 3