Review Of Jacob Riis How The Other Half Lives

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.

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’s books change the life of the poor. Riis brought into light, the worst of the worst. These horrible conditions were never talked about or mentioned by anyone in the mass public until Riis’s book was published. Not only were his descriptions horribly real and detailed, but his photographs

The muckrakers were investigative writer during the progressive Era, who wrote about different economic and social issues, such as: monopole of standard oil, children labor, work exploitation, and politic corruption. They criticized the corruption and inequality in the system. Trying to rise the public awareness and to mobilize the interest of the public to fight for change, the muckrakers published books, cartoons and articles in newspapers. Among them was, Jacob Riis who write “How The Other Half Lives” and Upton Sinclair, the author of “The

In the book “How the Other Half Lives” by Jacob A. Riis, the author’s main purpose for writing this book was to provide a voice for the hard-working people who had to live in these poor living conditions. The author believed that any hard-working man’s story should be told and that’s exactly what he wanted to do with this book. I believe he was successful at doing this because not only did the author provide a voice for these people, but he also was able to inform the public and government about the horrific living conditions in which they were living in. Jacob August Riis was born on May 3rd, 1849 in Denmark, and he migrated to the United States in 1870. Jacob had different jobs here in the U.S. one of them was as a police reporter for the New York Tribune (Jacob, “Contemporary”).

In both Addams and Riis’s reading they each discuss poor immigrant neighborhood, were many lived in unsanitary and overcrowded homes or had exploitive and unfair working conditions. Adams and Riis both try to better this condition for those poor immigrant arrivals to the country in urban cities. Riis’s theory describes the impact of health and the development of character because of poor housing condition that affected people health and way of acting. Riis’s theory supports McCoy article on “Freddie Gray’s Life: A Study in the Sad Effect of Lead Point on Poor Blacks” because Riis discusses that poor housing condition specially if it causes an effect on the person it can either be mentally or physically it can influence the person actions.

Three rooms, steam heat, parquet floors, respectable tenants. Reasonable.” While the environment she had been introduced to was trying to encourage her into leaving, her determination of finding a place to stay was her

Homelessness in The Glass Castle In the 1960s, according to American Civil Liberties Union, 20% of the United States population were homeless, and shunned from the rest of society because of stereotypes. The Glass Castle is a memoir written by Jeannette Walls, to tell the story of her life growing up as a homeless child with an alcoholic father and an artistic mother. Her memoir is a story about relationships, and how the outside world influences them. In The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls, homeless people are marginalized as uneducated, reckless and mentally unstable.

Handlin uses vivid language when speaking of the housing arrangements of immigrants and the emotional appeal from imagery of life in the settlement is critical. Oscar uses historical evidence to enhance the book’s credibility and having a logical aspect of history is a necessity. The style of writing in the Uprooted was blissful and was full of confidence. Handlin wrote with confidence and this gains the trust of the reader and engages the reader in the historical significance of alienation being correlated with

Homelessness is a product of social inequalities. Karl Marx stated that the capitalist society produces two prominent classes which are in conflict with each other, bourgeoisie and proletariats. The bourgeoisie are the oppressors who own the means of production and the proletariats are the oppressed workers who labor for the bourgeoisie. Capitalism is distinguished not by privilege but instead by individuality of property ownership and that those who create the conditions of the oppressed group express this power in the form of laws that function to serve the bourgeoisie’s interests (Marx, 2004, p.129).

In her memoir, the Glass Castle, Jeanette Wall’s discusses and explores many different concepts that affected her family dynamic and her development. One of these matters is homelessness. Individuals are able to live in a stable environment, sleep in a warm bed, wear clean clothes, and enjoy proper meals; but not all of these basic needs are enjoyed by everyone and their families. This undesirable situation is portrayed in Jeannette Walls novel. Jeannette vividly depicts homelessness by exploring its causes, its impact on daily life, and its effect on her family.

( 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.

The most influential novel that I read this year is The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls. Walls’s memoir had moving themes of strength, perseverance and forgiveness. It also caused me to have passionate reactions. Finally, The Glass Castle impacted me the most because it forced me to reconsider my opinion of homeless people. This novel was a beneficial reading experience.

As a dystopian society, the government controls the lives of individuals compared to a utopian society where everything is considered perfect. In the dystopian story, Billennium by J.G. Ballard, overpopulation is the main concern in this society. There are too many people with a small capacity of space to live. In order for everyone to live here, there “homes” are small cubicles. They consist of only a few square meters of living space.