Book Review Of How The Other Half Lives By Jacob Riis

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 a few examples of the benefits of reform and reorganization in the poorer communities, to the benefit of residents. Another observer, Richard T. Ely, in “Pullman: A Social Study” writes about the community of Pullman, Illinois located in the suburbs of Chicago.

Half A life: a thought provoking journey How do humans deal with death? Why does tragic loss seem to take control of one’s life? The memoir: Half A Life by Darin Strauss attempts to answer questions such as these, as well as take the reader through a deeply spiritual journey. Strauss was thrown into this confusing and emotional time after he hit Celine Zilke, a girl from his high school, with his car when he was just eighteen.

In 1870, Riis emigrated to the United States and spent the next years wandering the northeastern part of the country. He didn 't have a stable job so when he obtained a job as a police reporter for the New York Tribune his life turned around. He took a position with the Evening Sun, then through his newspaper work he became closely familiar with New York 's poorest and most dangerous neighborhoods. In the 19th century, he started exposing the life of the lower class in New York city. In How the other half lives by Jacob Riis, he discusses how the half that was on top really didn 't care much about other than themselves and how the poor suffer.

Jacob Riis emigrated to the United States in 1870. With his 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.

If residents complain about the unfit conditions of the houses, demand repairs, or cause any kind of trouble, they can expect to be ousted quickly, with little warning. Trouble can come in many forms, from loud or rambunctious children to domestic violence, which can lead to the arrival of the police, a major hindrance for landlords. As a result, tenants are forced to live in uninhabitable conditions without complaint, while potentially enduring violence. Desmond concludes in his book that poverty is a lucrative business that is exploited by the ruling class. Individuals in poverty are in the direst of situations in America and are more often than not left with only one or two options, neither of which are actually helpful to them This is exploited by landlords, rent-to-own stores, payday loans, and many

Riis’s goal in composing his data was to inform the middle class and upper class on the living conditions of ones living in the terrible tenements. Jacob Riis collected his thoughts well in the writing of How the Other Half Lives. The book was very well put together and an engaging read. Although, Riis used numerous offensive words about several of the immigrants, however, years ago it was normal language describing many of the

Article 2 Jacob Riis and how he changed the world. Jacob Riis was influential and life changing to the americans rich and poor of the late 19th century. Jacob Riis’s photos of the slums and tenement shocked thousands. His photography completely changed the minds of the rich and strongly motivated the progressive movement. Round Riis never directly created or change any laws but he laid the groundwork and the mindset need to create these changes.

In How the Other Half Lives Riis describes the system of tenement housing that had failed, as he claims, due to greed and neglect from wealthier people. He claims a correlation between the high crime rate, drunkenness and reckless behaviour of the poor and their lack of a proper home. Chapter by chapter he uses his words and photographs to expose the conditions inhabited by the poor in a manner that “spoke directly to people's

Nikodem Dupre 5/20/18 After the Fact by James West Davidson is a text on the various methods a historian has at his disposal to help interpret the events of the past. The authors are both historians and History professors specializing in American history, and they draw from the historical backdrop of the Assembled States to give delineations of the ideas they look to depict. One example is how Jacob Riis in Chapter 9 helped shaped the low income working class. Riis had started capturing the insides and outsides of New York ghettos with a glimmer light.

Matthew Desmond, in his book Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, writes about the destitution that the American society is facing with astounding specificity yet without any judgement or voyeurism. Several themes health issues can be inferred either directly or indirectly from the book. These are listed below 1. Despair According to Desmond, being evicted forces families to seek shelter on the streets, or even being forced to move into dilapidated and uninhibited houses.

Riis did research on people that lived in overcrowded homes and in bad condition, he investigate by seeing the role of the government in these neighborhoods he went through police and hospital record and found out that people were getting sick, especially children were mostly affected. Riis focused and saw that the living condition were unhealthy and unsanitary, that the apartment lacked pluming and proper ventilation. He found records that showed death rate in specific neighborhood in the city in 1888 he saw that death rate that year was 26.27 percent (Riis, p. 33). Not only was their high rate of diseases high, but also a high rate of criminality was high. In the city, there were many types of single guys the adventurous, the lonely and criminals who were socializing people in a negative way that

Wealth is one of the factors why residential segregation is an increasing problem. Golash- Boza explains, “Residential segregation happened when different groups of people are sorted into discount neighborhoods” (271). It is because of housing segregation

( page 387 lines 140-144 ). Not only was the rent high, the living space of this colored family was not comfortable. These people had to live in very small places, because they didn’t have anywhere else to go. The difference between the tenements and the

Matthew Desmond’s Evicted takes a sociological approach to understanding the low-income housing system by following eight families as they struggle for residential stability. The novel also features two landlords of the families, giving the audience both sides and allowing them to make their own conclusions. Desmond goes to great lengths to make the story accessible to all classes and races, but it seems to especially resonate with people who can relate to the book’s subjects or who are liberals in sound socioeconomic standing. With this novel, Desmond hopes to highlight the fundamental structural and cultural problems in the evictions of poor families, while putting faces to the housing crisis. Through the lens of the social reproduction theory, Desmond argues in Evicted that evictions are not an effect of poverty, but rather, a cause of it.

Public Policy on Housing Discrimination Executive Summary Housing discrimination and segregation have long been present in the American society (Lamb and Wilk). The ideals of public housing and home buying have always been intertwined with the social and political transformation of America, especially in terms of segregation and inequality of capital and race (Wyly, Ponder and Nettking). Nevertheless, the recent unrest in Ferguson, Missouri and in Baltimore due to alleged police misconduct resulting to deaths of black men brought light on the impoverished conditions in urban counties in America (Lemons). This brings questions to the effectiveness of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in devising more fair-housing facilities (Jost).