History 261
Professor Ruddy
6 February 2014
Word Count: 1,132
A Reflection on "How the Other Half Lives"
The author of "How the Other Half Lives", Jacob Riis, inscribes on the deplorable living conditions of the Progressive Era from a first-person perspective. Riis is an immigrant, police reporter, photojournalist and most importantly: a innovator and social reformer, who tells a very captivating yet atrocious experience of the lower class life in New York City beginning in the 19th century. Migration and the standardization of establishments are the attributing factors to overpopulation distribution and overcrowding of living arrangements in the city.
As more and more people decide to embark on the journey to America to begin with a new and better life; however, many immigrants had to start from the bottom, and unfortunately many stayed there and were unable to move up the social ranks. Ethnic groups tended to gather together and began to "claimed" their own territory forming ghettos; many worked low-wage jobs such as factory jobs and were poverty-stricken. Often time’s even small children had to work in the factories doing small tasks such as sweeping or using their tiny hands to reach places adults could not. The only affordable housing that was in close proximity to work and their community were overcrowded housing tenements. These tenements also were not well kept unlike the buildings we have today; therefore making them overcrowded, falling apart, and dirty. From 1869 to 1890 tenement housing almost tripled to over 37,000 tenements in use (p. 204 Riis). Houses and blocks were turned into barracks, giving a whole new meaning to overcrowding, and the expense to live in these places were not comparable to living conditions the tenants had to endure. Tenements were designed to make a profit instead of house families; in early developments there were no safety standards, they were built the quickest way to make the most amount of money, with lack of sunlight and air ventilation.
The building administrations the height of poor management regarding the lack of attempt of create better living conditions by landlords were shown through the poor conditions that remained in the buildings. The landlord’s only concern was for making a profit, which Riis tries to emphasize through his descriptions of the buildings and how their administration operated. The owners put the majority of their money into creating a facade of buildings rather than continual care within the walls of confinements. Mortality rates in the city rose to one-in-twenty-seven persons in 1855 due to the severe lacking living conditions and negligence of owners, landlords and agents (p. 11, Riis). Any case of disease that arose within the walls of a tenement was a formula for disaster. Typically the disease-stricken tenants were not given adequate medical treatment because they were unable to pay for the treatment or were not able to obtain the treatment. Since the sick were not getting help diseases, they often spread quickly and throughout the entire area. The mortality rate showed the significant increase, but the landlords did not see that because of the ill-paced illnesses, which led to a citizen movement that resulted in the organization of the Board of Health. The Health Department began to educate the public more than help the public; however, in years to come they ordered tenements to be ventilated by way of air shafts and ordered the installation of windows, which slowly led to the declination, and soon thereafter extinction of the "dark room" and therefore increasing the living conditions of the tenements.
There were more propositions made by the Health Department, including the banishment of rear tenement-housing, and a less attempted, but more successful idea was a housekeeper assigned to tenement housing with ten or more families in the living quarters. The police also had a little hand in ousting tenements by the expulsion of tenants
