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How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York
First published in 1890, Jacob Riis's remarkable study of the horrendous living conditions of the poor in New York City had an immediate and extraordinary impact on society, inspiring reforms that affected the lives of millions of people.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1890
About the author
Jacob A. Riis
165 books35 followersReports, including
How the Other Half Lives
(1890), of Danish-born American journalist and reformer Jacob August Riis on living conditions in city slums led to improvements in housing and education.
This Christian helped the impoverished in city of New York; much of his writing focused on those needy. In his youth in Denmark, he read Charles Dickens and James Fennimore Cooper; his works exhibit the story-telling skills, acquired under the tutelage of many English-speaking writers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Riis
This Christian helped the impoverished in city of New York; much of his writing focused on those needy. In his youth in Denmark, he read Charles Dickens and James Fennimore Cooper; his works exhibit the story-telling skills, acquired under the tutelage of many English-speaking writers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Riis
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September 5, 2017
Millions of immigrants came to the United States during Jacob Riis’s lifetime, and a great many of them landed on an island: Manhattan. Sadly, thousands of these hopeful souls ended up on another island: Hart Island, New York City’s potter’s field, where the indigent dead are buried.
This island is still in use, by the way. Twice a week, a ferry comes bearing corpses in simple pine coffins, which are buried in mass graves dug out by bulldozers, with prisoners paid fifty cents an hour acting as pall-bearers. It was only in 2015, almost 150 years after the island began being used as a cemetery, that relatives were given permission to visit the island. Before that, the bodies disappeared completely—off limits to the public, isolated by the sea, out of the sight and out of mind.
I mention Hart Island, not only because it was already in use back in Jacob Riis’s day (he took a seminal photo of a burial there), but because it is a perfect example of how the city’s poor can be made invisible. In writing this book, Jacob Riis explicitly tried to combat this invisibility. He wanted to bring home to middle-class readers just how bad life in the tenements could be.
Riis was a precursor to the muckraking journalism made famous by Upton Sinclair and his ilk, who came a generation later. In Riis’s case, the term “muckraker” is almost literally accurate, since it was grime he was trying to document. Immigrants from all over the world were pouring into New York City, many of them desperately poor, and housing simply did not keep up with the need. And because there were few building regulations on the books, this resulted in squalid and unsanitary tenements—shabby and dark (many rooms had no windows), and totally packed as families took on lodgers to afford the rent. The overcrowding not only made the buildings fire hazards, but also centers of disease.
Jacob Riis first experienced the plight of the poor when he arrived in New York City fresh from Denmark, aged twenty-one, trying to find work as a carpenter. He struggled for years to get by, occasionally sleeping in police lodging houses alongside beggars and street urchins. When he eventually found his vocation as a journalist, he wound up accompanying the police in nightly patrols of the poorest neighborhoods in the city. He wrote articles about what he saw; and one of them was so successful that he eventually expanded it into How the Other Half Lives.
I must say that this book is not a very compelling read. The prose is fine, but Riis is not a natural story-teller. The writing drifts on in an aimless, impressionistic way, never quite cohering into a cogent overview of the situation. The book itself is somewhat jumbled, with each chapter focusing on one aspect of the poor neighborhoods—stale-beer dives, lodging houses, “street Arabs,” paupers, and so on. You quickly learn that, however indignant Riis may be on behalf of the poor, he is not above racial bigotry. He has an unkind word for nearly every group—Italians, Irish, Jews, Chinese. To his credit, however, he is relatively progressive on the subject of the color line between blacks and whites.
I don’t know if this is true, but I quickly got the impression that Riis never actually spoke with the poor people he took upon himself to document. He mentions a few casual conversations, but no distinct individual emerges. To Riis, the poor seem to be nameless masses, with an ethnicity but not an identity. You occasionally wonder whether Riis is outraged by the injustice of the situation or is simply disgusted by the filth. This complete lack of individual stories contributes to the book’s underwhelming impact. Probably I am judging this book a little harshly, though, since I read this book concurrently with Sinclair’s The Jungle, and the comparison is not flattering for Riis.
There was one area, however, in which Riis excelled: photography. This edition has over one hundred of his photographs, and they are stunning. Riis was able to capture things nobody had before, since he was one of the first field journalists to use flash photography. The early generation of flash cameras used a pistol-like device that was extremely loud and fairly hazardous; twice, Riis set fire to the room he was in. Later, he switched to a method that required him to heat the flash powder in a frying pan. The world before smart phones was harsh indeed. Considering these technical limitations, Riis’s photographs are all the more remarkable: candid, dramatic, and sensitive.
It is all too easy to criticize this book from the perspective of the present. Really, Riis is impressive by any measure. He learned English late in life and writes better prose than most of us. He was a brilliant pioneer of photography, and of muckraking journalism. He even had a small hand in the construction of the New Croton Aqueduct, since he documented unsanitary water supplies, as well as the New York Subway, since he was among the reformers who advocated for improved transportation to lessen population density in the slums. Most importantly, despite his flaws, he believed that society had an obligation to its least privileged members, and could not avert its eyes with a clear conscience.
This island is still in use, by the way. Twice a week, a ferry comes bearing corpses in simple pine coffins, which are buried in mass graves dug out by bulldozers, with prisoners paid fifty cents an hour acting as pall-bearers. It was only in 2015, almost 150 years after the island began being used as a cemetery, that relatives were given permission to visit the island. Before that, the bodies disappeared completely—off limits to the public, isolated by the sea, out of the sight and out of mind.
I mention Hart Island, not only because it was already in use back in Jacob Riis’s day (he took a seminal photo of a burial there), but because it is a perfect example of how the city’s poor can be made invisible. In writing this book, Jacob Riis explicitly tried to combat this invisibility. He wanted to bring home to middle-class readers just how bad life in the tenements could be.
Riis was a precursor to the muckraking journalism made famous by Upton Sinclair and his ilk, who came a generation later. In Riis’s case, the term “muckraker” is almost literally accurate, since it was grime he was trying to document. Immigrants from all over the world were pouring into New York City, many of them desperately poor, and housing simply did not keep up with the need. And because there were few building regulations on the books, this resulted in squalid and unsanitary tenements—shabby and dark (many rooms had no windows), and totally packed as families took on lodgers to afford the rent. The overcrowding not only made the buildings fire hazards, but also centers of disease.
Jacob Riis first experienced the plight of the poor when he arrived in New York City fresh from Denmark, aged twenty-one, trying to find work as a carpenter. He struggled for years to get by, occasionally sleeping in police lodging houses alongside beggars and street urchins. When he eventually found his vocation as a journalist, he wound up accompanying the police in nightly patrols of the poorest neighborhoods in the city. He wrote articles about what he saw; and one of them was so successful that he eventually expanded it into How the Other Half Lives.
I must say that this book is not a very compelling read. The prose is fine, but Riis is not a natural story-teller. The writing drifts on in an aimless, impressionistic way, never quite cohering into a cogent overview of the situation. The book itself is somewhat jumbled, with each chapter focusing on one aspect of the poor neighborhoods—stale-beer dives, lodging houses, “street Arabs,” paupers, and so on. You quickly learn that, however indignant Riis may be on behalf of the poor, he is not above racial bigotry. He has an unkind word for nearly every group—Italians, Irish, Jews, Chinese. To his credit, however, he is relatively progressive on the subject of the color line between blacks and whites.
I don’t know if this is true, but I quickly got the impression that Riis never actually spoke with the poor people he took upon himself to document. He mentions a few casual conversations, but no distinct individual emerges. To Riis, the poor seem to be nameless masses, with an ethnicity but not an identity. You occasionally wonder whether Riis is outraged by the injustice of the situation or is simply disgusted by the filth. This complete lack of individual stories contributes to the book’s underwhelming impact. Probably I am judging this book a little harshly, though, since I read this book concurrently with Sinclair’s The Jungle, and the comparison is not flattering for Riis.
There was one area, however, in which Riis excelled: photography. This edition has over one hundred of his photographs, and they are stunning. Riis was able to capture things nobody had before, since he was one of the first field journalists to use flash photography. The early generation of flash cameras used a pistol-like device that was extremely loud and fairly hazardous; twice, Riis set fire to the room he was in. Later, he switched to a method that required him to heat the flash powder in a frying pan. The world before smart phones was harsh indeed. Considering these technical limitations, Riis’s photographs are all the more remarkable: candid, dramatic, and sensitive.
It is all too easy to criticize this book from the perspective of the present. Really, Riis is impressive by any measure. He learned English late in life and writes better prose than most of us. He was a brilliant pioneer of photography, and of muckraking journalism. He even had a small hand in the construction of the New Croton Aqueduct, since he documented unsanitary water supplies, as well as the New York Subway, since he was among the reformers who advocated for improved transportation to lessen population density in the slums. Most importantly, despite his flaws, he believed that society had an obligation to its least privileged members, and could not avert its eyes with a clear conscience.
July 13, 2009
Had to up this rating because this book's vividness makes me SEE and SMELL and HEAR the New York City of more than 100 years ago, and because, imperfect though the book is, it is a very compelling, informative and important social document; a classic of its type and subject. (Final comments and observations at bottom of review).
------
A famous early cry for reform, from the earliest days of the muckrakers, Riis' investigation of the slums of New York from 1890 has been featured in so many documentaries (nicely in Ric Burns' fantastic PBS documentary series, "New York: A Documentary Film") and referenced in so many books and yet, for some reason, despite a desire to track this down and read it I never actively did so until now. The whole thing is available online at http://www.bartleby.com/208/
I've started reading, and it's a fascinating vision of squalor, but equally interesting for the patronizing tone of Riis himself; who seems to be equally aghast at landlords and tenants, the latter for their slatternly immorality or some such.
-----
Riis' overall sense of wrongness trumps his casual and typical-of-the-age racism; maybe because of this he is better at describing physical horrors (his sense of the ebb and flow of the city; the physical ghosts of its past encroaching on the present and the "feeling" for what the slums look like) than he is at really conveying the human consequences. He seems to look down upon the people he talks about as akin to scurrying insects. Whenever he doesn't understand something of another culture, he simply refers to it as "odd," rather than realize that it's just different from what he knows. He never seems to want to talk to the people he writes about.
I'm not always sure if Riis is offended by the injustice of the slums on its dwellers or -- like a neighbor who keeps his yard impeccably clean and trimmed -- he is simply aghast at the messy ways of the folks across the street.
The condescending tone notwithstanding, the book is vivid in its scene painting. The sense of life in the streets and the alleys and the hovels is palpable; you can smell the stench; one thinks of Bosch and Hogarth. There's also a sardonic edge in Riis' voice, even when he appears to be racist; he seems to insult an entire race of people but at the same time seems to compliment them, or at least suggest that everyone is corruptible, which is a great equalizer of humanity.
In the end the book turns out to be something that Riis did not intend: an inadvertent study of him, or, a socio-cultural study of how his own dominant cultural assumptions color his perceptions. We are studying him studying others. Interestingly we do so with our own colorations. It is easy to forget that some of what Riis says here is not necessarily wrong. It's when he extrapolates great evils from individual behaviors that we find him on rocky ground.
The way he talks about the Chinese, for example, he might as well be describing alien life forms; so contemptuous is he. Lest we doubt him, he makes sure to bring forth a "Chinaman" beating his wife, which makes him hard to dispute. A cheap type trope, but one still commonly used today to demonize whole peoples in the name of something or another righteous ("freedom", national security, etc.)
Many readers today run the risk of missing the enlightening qualities of this tome by choosing to be offended. There's much here to be gleaned about the teller and the tale; all of it fascinating and worthy of consideration. Ironically, Riis' sense of superiority and his now "un-PC" views make his descriptions of the teeming hives fearless. His description of the Tenth Ward ("Jewtown") is as masterly and photogenic as his cultural view of the Jews is offensive. By contrast, his portrait of the "negro" is downright glowing and sympathetic.
In any case, this might not meet the standards of a "study," but it is quite a book, and a compelling read.
A few additional thoughts: I've resumed reading this again after a hiatus. The sections on the fates of children in the slums are harrowing. The "baby farms", where unwanted babies are taken in for a small fee to be slowly starved to death and fed drugs to keep quiet while they slowly die (a corrupt coroner signs the death certificate to certify an innocuous cause of death) is hardcore. Those interested in the origins of American gangsterism will find the chapter on the early youth gangs of New York fascinating. It was a short hop from there to the Mafia, and nothing really changed, from the "protection rackets" to the endemic corruption of the police and the system where the prevalent tavern was the conduit for all exchanges. Only the slang and the clothes were different. In these chapters, Riis is at his least culturally judgmental.
Overall, I am recommending this highly.
------
A famous early cry for reform, from the earliest days of the muckrakers, Riis' investigation of the slums of New York from 1890 has been featured in so many documentaries (nicely in Ric Burns' fantastic PBS documentary series, "New York: A Documentary Film") and referenced in so many books and yet, for some reason, despite a desire to track this down and read it I never actively did so until now. The whole thing is available online at http://www.bartleby.com/208/
I've started reading, and it's a fascinating vision of squalor, but equally interesting for the patronizing tone of Riis himself; who seems to be equally aghast at landlords and tenants, the latter for their slatternly immorality or some such.
-----
Riis' overall sense of wrongness trumps his casual and typical-of-the-age racism; maybe because of this he is better at describing physical horrors (his sense of the ebb and flow of the city; the physical ghosts of its past encroaching on the present and the "feeling" for what the slums look like) than he is at really conveying the human consequences. He seems to look down upon the people he talks about as akin to scurrying insects. Whenever he doesn't understand something of another culture, he simply refers to it as "odd," rather than realize that it's just different from what he knows. He never seems to want to talk to the people he writes about.
I'm not always sure if Riis is offended by the injustice of the slums on its dwellers or -- like a neighbor who keeps his yard impeccably clean and trimmed -- he is simply aghast at the messy ways of the folks across the street.
The condescending tone notwithstanding, the book is vivid in its scene painting. The sense of life in the streets and the alleys and the hovels is palpable; you can smell the stench; one thinks of Bosch and Hogarth. There's also a sardonic edge in Riis' voice, even when he appears to be racist; he seems to insult an entire race of people but at the same time seems to compliment them, or at least suggest that everyone is corruptible, which is a great equalizer of humanity.
In the end the book turns out to be something that Riis did not intend: an inadvertent study of him, or, a socio-cultural study of how his own dominant cultural assumptions color his perceptions. We are studying him studying others. Interestingly we do so with our own colorations. It is easy to forget that some of what Riis says here is not necessarily wrong. It's when he extrapolates great evils from individual behaviors that we find him on rocky ground.
The way he talks about the Chinese, for example, he might as well be describing alien life forms; so contemptuous is he. Lest we doubt him, he makes sure to bring forth a "Chinaman" beating his wife, which makes him hard to dispute. A cheap type trope, but one still commonly used today to demonize whole peoples in the name of something or another righteous ("freedom", national security, etc.)
Many readers today run the risk of missing the enlightening qualities of this tome by choosing to be offended. There's much here to be gleaned about the teller and the tale; all of it fascinating and worthy of consideration. Ironically, Riis' sense of superiority and his now "un-PC" views make his descriptions of the teeming hives fearless. His description of the Tenth Ward ("Jewtown") is as masterly and photogenic as his cultural view of the Jews is offensive. By contrast, his portrait of the "negro" is downright glowing and sympathetic.
In any case, this might not meet the standards of a "study," but it is quite a book, and a compelling read.
A few additional thoughts: I've resumed reading this again after a hiatus. The sections on the fates of children in the slums are harrowing. The "baby farms", where unwanted babies are taken in for a small fee to be slowly starved to death and fed drugs to keep quiet while they slowly die (a corrupt coroner signs the death certificate to certify an innocuous cause of death) is hardcore. Those interested in the origins of American gangsterism will find the chapter on the early youth gangs of New York fascinating. It was a short hop from there to the Mafia, and nothing really changed, from the "protection rackets" to the endemic corruption of the police and the system where the prevalent tavern was the conduit for all exchanges. Only the slang and the clothes were different. In these chapters, Riis is at his least culturally judgmental.
Overall, I am recommending this highly.
Read
August 19, 2018This is another book that I am not able to give a rating to.
This was a piece of non-fiction first published in 1890 that deals with poverty and race. So you can already guess where it’s going.
This was a piece of non-fiction first published in 1890 that deals with poverty and race. So you can already guess where it’s going.
June 24, 2013
I'm not quite sure what to rate this. Was it a boring read? Yes. Were the prejudices and stereotypes completely inappropriate for today's culture? Definitely. Is it an important work in our country's history? Yes.
Riis describes the tenements of the late nineteenth century. It's hard for me to see how this book evoked any sympathy for the people who lived in the tenements (it did), because Riis describes the different ethnic groups with lots of negative stereotypes. His main message seems to be that the people are poor, slovenly, dirty, unenterprising, ignorant, etc. because that is all that circumstances allow them to be. Yet he also writes statements that imply that certain ethnic groups are predisposed to be lazy, deceitful, dirty, etc.
This wasn't an enjoyable read, but it was enlightening. It's an important work, so I'm glad that I read it.
Riis describes the tenements of the late nineteenth century. It's hard for me to see how this book evoked any sympathy for the people who lived in the tenements (it did), because Riis describes the different ethnic groups with lots of negative stereotypes. His main message seems to be that the people are poor, slovenly, dirty, unenterprising, ignorant, etc. because that is all that circumstances allow them to be. Yet he also writes statements that imply that certain ethnic groups are predisposed to be lazy, deceitful, dirty, etc.
This wasn't an enjoyable read, but it was enlightening. It's an important work, so I'm glad that I read it.
August 10, 2018
I'm giving this book four stars as a well-researched, groundbreaking classic. After reading of the piece-rate home-based sweatshops I gained an appreciation of the television commercial from my childhood "Look for the Union label..." (International Ladies Garment Workers).
However, I found it frustrating trying to match the locations visited in 1890 against my experience in New York a century later. I would say this situation was largely eradicated by the WW II era, so that this story could be of London or Chicago just easily.
Recommended for (social) historians and those interested in working conditions over casual readers with an interest in the era, particularly NYC.
However, I found it frustrating trying to match the locations visited in 1890 against my experience in New York a century later. I would say this situation was largely eradicated by the WW II era, so that this story could be of London or Chicago just easily.
Recommended for (social) historians and those interested in working conditions over casual readers with an interest in the era, particularly NYC.
August 14, 2016
This book was published in 1890 and gives a detailed view of poverty and tenement living in New York City in the 1880s. I experience the book as both an e-book and an audible book. But I feel like I barely scratch the surface of the e-book because there are so many footnotes that through highlighted links lead to extensive in-depth information. There are also some photographs in the e-books though it seems possible there are more in the actual paper books. The author was apparently on the cutting edge of using photography to highlight his work. The author was among the noted muckrakers of the late 19th century exposing social ills. The horror of life for many low income people is graphically displayed in this detailed book.
January 10, 2020
I read these 2 Jacob Riis books as they were referenced often in EVICTED that I read last year.
May 31, 2020
TL;DR: this is hopelessly racist. Don't read it.
DNF @ 34%
How I read this: freebie at project Gutenberg
I wanted to read this book because it's one of the earliest sources of photos available on the life of poor people in multicultural urban settings. Unfortunately, there aren't that many photos (as I imagine they must've been hard and expensive to take at that time), but that's not why I dropped the book. There are plenty descriptions that could replace the photos, but I found them unbearable to read because they are incredibly, disgustingly racist and I just couldn't keep going.
I understand that this is a product of a previous time, more than 100 years ago - but, still. Perhaps it's better to leave books like this in the past. Racism, nationalism is on every page - the author, despite being non-American born himself, has words to say on EVERY nationality he encounters - and we're not just talking skin color. He has things to say on stereotypes about every heritage and country out there. He dehumanizes EVERYONE while also trying to come across as purely academic - what I imagine may been the unfortunate norm at that time.
I tried to keep on reading purely on the academic interest of learning how the poor of those days lived - but it isn't worth it. I can't continue to read this mess. Every page is disgusting.
If you want to learn how the poor lived, watch a documentary. Read this only if you've been forced to for some academic thesis, I don't even know. I don't see what would justify reading something so dated and so disgustingly racist. Don't put yourself through this.
DNF @ 34%
How I read this: freebie at project Gutenberg
I wanted to read this book because it's one of the earliest sources of photos available on the life of poor people in multicultural urban settings. Unfortunately, there aren't that many photos (as I imagine they must've been hard and expensive to take at that time), but that's not why I dropped the book. There are plenty descriptions that could replace the photos, but I found them unbearable to read because they are incredibly, disgustingly racist and I just couldn't keep going.
I understand that this is a product of a previous time, more than 100 years ago - but, still. Perhaps it's better to leave books like this in the past. Racism, nationalism is on every page - the author, despite being non-American born himself, has words to say on EVERY nationality he encounters - and we're not just talking skin color. He has things to say on stereotypes about every heritage and country out there. He dehumanizes EVERYONE while also trying to come across as purely academic - what I imagine may been the unfortunate norm at that time.
I tried to keep on reading purely on the academic interest of learning how the poor of those days lived - but it isn't worth it. I can't continue to read this mess. Every page is disgusting.
If you want to learn how the poor lived, watch a documentary. Read this only if you've been forced to for some academic thesis, I don't even know. I don't see what would justify reading something so dated and so disgustingly racist. Don't put yourself through this.
March 14, 2022
Смятана за емблематична книга от тия, които имат самочувствието, че знаят по-добре от бедните как да се погрижат за тях и живота им, How the other half lives още в заглавието си задава тема и начин на разсъждаване върху бедността.
Знаете ги тея хора - които се "борят с бедността", която обаче гледат главно отдалече и по-скоро изпитват погнуса от самите бедни хора. Авторът е точно такъв.
Четейки за отвратителните условия на живот на скорошните емигранти на остров Манхатън (който тогава е клоака, а не като сега) в края на 19 век, оставаме с впечатление, че Рийс всъщност никога не е говорил с никой от тях. За него те са анонимна човешка маса и читателят неусетно почва да се чуди дали на автора всъщност му пука за тея хора, или просто го е гнус да живее в един град с такива гнусни бедняци.
Подобен тип "банкетни социалисти" Джордж Оруел перфектно описва в едно от есетата си в книгата Пътят към кея на Уиган (не е превеждана на български).
Да, за тях бедните са "другата половина", те не са като нас, цивилизованите хора. Затова ние сме призвани да им покажем как трябва да се живее, и ако не искат... е, ще ги задължим. Което не е чак толкова лош подход, ако вземаше предвид причините за бедността, а не се опитваше да оправи последствията от нея - лошите условия на живот. Което още веднъж затвърждава мнението, че Рийс го е гнус от мръсотията просто.
Хората... е, хората да се оправят. То така и става, когато в резултат от надигналия се обществен глас (обществен от страна на богатите в Ню Йорк, не на бедните, естествено) са приети закони и наредби за качеството на отдаваните под наем жилища. В резултат на което условията значително се подобряват.
С това, разбира се, се "подобрявят" и цените на наемите, поради което бедните или бягат от Ню Йорк или остават бездомни. Градът е "изчистен" от мизерни гета, нали това искаше "обществото"... в Манхатън вече не живеят бедни, а се нанасят все по-богати.
Резултатите от тая политика продължават и сега - Ню Йорк от тогава е един от градовете в САЩ с най-тежки регулации за строеж на сгради, с най-високи наеми и най-голямо бездомно население. Ама се "грижат за бедните", нали...
Знаете ги тея хора - които се "борят с бедността", която обаче гледат главно отдалече и по-скоро изпитват погнуса от самите бедни хора. Авторът е точно такъв.
Четейки за отвратителните условия на живот на скорошните емигранти на остров Манхатън (който тогава е клоака, а не като сега) в края на 19 век, оставаме с впечатление, че Рийс всъщност никога не е говорил с никой от тях. За него те са анонимна човешка маса и читателят неусетно почва да се чуди дали на автора всъщност му пука за тея хора, или просто го е гнус да живее в един град с такива гнусни бедняци.
Подобен тип "банкетни социалисти" Джордж Оруел перфектно описва в едно от есетата си в книгата Пътят към кея на Уиган (не е превеждана на български).
Да, за тях бедните са "другата половина", те не са като нас, цивилизованите хора. Затова ние сме призвани да им покажем как трябва да се живее, и ако не искат... е, ще ги задължим. Което не е чак толкова лош подход, ако вземаше предвид причините за бедността, а не се опитваше да оправи последствията от нея - лошите условия на живот. Което още веднъж затвърждава мнението, че Рийс го е гнус от мръсотията просто.
Хората... е, хората да се оправят. То така и става, когато в резултат от надигналия се обществен глас (обществен от страна на богатите в Ню Йорк, не на бедните, естествено) са приети закони и наредби за качеството на отдаваните под наем жилища. В резултат на което условията значително се подобряват.
С това, разбира се, се "подобрявят" и цените на наемите, поради което бедните или бягат от Ню Йорк или остават бездомни. Градът е "изчистен" от мизерни гета, нали това искаше "обществото"... в Манхатън вече не живеят бедни, а се нанасят все по-богати.
Резултатите от тая политика продължават и сега - Ню Йорк от тогава е един от градовете в САЩ с най-тежки регулации за строеж на сгради, с най-високи наеми и най-голямо бездомно население. Ама се "грижат за бедните", нали...
December 19, 2022
It's hard to give this book a straightforward rating because on the one hand, Riis's work opened the door for some much needed reform, but on the other hand some of his photos are obviously staged, and on the other hand he makes some very offensive generalizations about all sorts of races, but on the other hand I don't want to impose my modern standards for racial equality onto someone from so long ago, and I just... I'm starting to run out of hands, you know?
Essentially: I think Riis is probably good intentioned but he's also pretty dehumanizing and othering toward those living in tenement housing
Essentially: I think Riis is probably good intentioned but he's also pretty dehumanizing and othering toward those living in tenement housing
September 19, 2017
Riis uses his photos and narrative to show the well-off people of New York City how some of its occupants live in poverty during the long century. It's commendable that Riis wanted to have a part in the progressive era, but he was still very ignorant and racist. He had something to say about everyone except the poor who were American born.
The narrative is jumbled and I got the feeling that if the people Riis talked about ever found themselves above the poverty line, he would have had something to say about immigrants and African Americans taking wages away from Americans.
The narrative is jumbled and I got the feeling that if the people Riis talked about ever found themselves above the poverty line, he would have had something to say about immigrants and African Americans taking wages away from Americans.
October 15, 2018
I have heard about this book and the impact it had on housing laws for years and have always meant to read it for the historical and social context. It is a very detailed overview of the neighborhoods of late 1800s NY. A interested even if dated read. Recommended
May 3, 2012
“One half of the world does not know how the other half lives.” This statement is as true today as it was in 1890, when Jacob Riis wrote his groundbreaking work about the abhorrent living conditions in and around New York City tenements. In the same vein as Upton Sinclair and his book “The Jungle,” Riis airs the dirty laundry of the Public Health Department of the United States and its treatment (or lack thereof) of the tenement population in true muckraker fashion. Using his own research, which mainly consisted of personal visits to the tenements in question coupled with statistics produced by the Registrar of Vital Statistics, Dr. Roger S. Tracy, Riis begins his exposé. He approaches nearly activist levels with his searing synopsis of the tenement landlords and in his calling for government intervention on behalf of the impoverished tenement residents.
Though this expository work of non-fiction was written in the late 19th century, its over-arching questions are still valid today: Why, in this day and age, must our fellow human beings be forced to live in such squalor, filth and poverty and what can or ought to be done about it? Jacob Riis delves deeply into the less-than-satisfactory living standards of New York tenements. Leaving no stone unturned, he vividly describes the horrific housing of some of the most notoriously bad residences. The book is a bit outdated and Riis’ constant references to certain New York City district and street names are not at all relatable to modern readers. Indeed the overall purpose of this book, improving the lives and living conditions of those tenement dwellers has been fulfilled ten-fold, and in most cases, eradicated entirely.
Every chapter in this acidic indictment is essentially a very long and descriptive list of offenses against the immigrant population of the tenement districts. Rather than structure the book with a presentment of the problem, citing a few examples (emphasis on “few”), and then a proposed solution, Riis merely describes example after example after example of the horrendous living conditions and their risks. This is followed up at the very end of the book, in the very last chapter with a few statements about how the government needs to step in and do something about the issue at hand. He certainly has a gift for clearly illustrating (both literally and figuratively) what he is witnessing with colorful diction supplemented with sketches of photographs taken by the author himself. He adds to this with his research with consisted entirely of personal observations and photographs by the author, statistics from the Registrar of Vital Statistics in New York, and talking to the local Chief of Police and President of the Board of Health in New York City. In the end however, after all of the mudslinging to the side of the tenement landlords is done, the reader finds himself or herself asking: so what? What could I possibly do (or have done?)
Despite its subtle flaws and archaic expressions, this work stands, along with Sinclair’s “The Jungle,” as one of the many stalwart pillars supporting the Equal Rights Movement and the ERA. In their broadest sense, The Movement and the ERA were about granting equal rights to all people everywhere in the United States. How the Other Half Lives deals with the largely unnoticed and forgotten silent majority, the “unwashed masses,” the poor. Truthfully it was not until the 1960’s with U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson and his “Great Society” programs that the issue of the poor and impoverished was dealt with head-on. Having been written nearly a century before the modern Civil Rights Movements, Riis’ book truly was ahead of its time and wholly groundbreaking for its day. These reasons alone should warrant a hearty recommendation from all its readers, past and present. It could reasonably be argued that this book, along with others like it, were the reasons for the establishment of housing and living condition and public health standards that still persist today.
Perhaps the most telling and compelling line in this tenement treatise is from chapter one. With its description of the appalling lack of fresh, outside light and air in tenement rooms: “Crazy old buildings, crowded rear tenements in filthy yards, dark, damp basements, leaking garrets, shops, outhouses, and stables converted into dwellings, though scarcely fit to shelter brutes, are habitations of thousands of our fellow-beings in this wealthy, Christian city.”
Jacob Riis reasonably examines the effects of tenement living on the surrounding community: increased crime, disease, and death. His proposed answer, found in the final two chapters, is government intervention on the side of “public sentiment.” While this appears a decent proposal, it provokes the questions of government authority in the everyday lives of American citizenry. Perhaps the seemingly unsolvable question of how much authority to give the local or federal governments to govern the everyday lives of their subject peoples could be addressed. While it is true that the poor living (indeed if it can be called living) conditions within tenements were very real, why did the supposed afflicted occupants not move elsewhere? If it really was so difficult to live a tenement, why stay? Is it the role of government to improve the lives of its people if they will not or cannot improve them themselves? There may be no right or wrong answers to any of these queries, or any solution to them at all.
In summation, Riis’ thesis and purpose in writing can be stated thus: hopelessly horrific circumstances were found in American tenement living and the government with its various departments and bureaucracies needed to step in and forcefully improve the lives of the struggling poor class and bring the “robber-baron” tenement landlords to justice for crimes against humanity. Only in this way can equality for all be assured, at least in New York City. With all opinions, short comings of the book and criticisms aside, this work strongly calls in to questions mankind’s treatment of its own. Though the suffering of the thousands of people trapped in dark, airless tenements has been assuaged, there yet exists similar suffering of millions of others around the world. Though they may not live in tenements, the shameful treatment of others of the human race around the world has long been a problem at the forefront of mankind’s struggle for peace, prosperity and equality. The effects on society of these terrible standards of living, found in many third world countries are still prevalent today. One need only read in any newspaper or watch any news report on TV to see a testament of its destructiveness. Though humankind has come a long way in equality of treatment of our brothers and sisters, when and how will the final solutions to this infinite struggle be achieved? There may be no answers to these questions.
Though this expository work of non-fiction was written in the late 19th century, its over-arching questions are still valid today: Why, in this day and age, must our fellow human beings be forced to live in such squalor, filth and poverty and what can or ought to be done about it? Jacob Riis delves deeply into the less-than-satisfactory living standards of New York tenements. Leaving no stone unturned, he vividly describes the horrific housing of some of the most notoriously bad residences. The book is a bit outdated and Riis’ constant references to certain New York City district and street names are not at all relatable to modern readers. Indeed the overall purpose of this book, improving the lives and living conditions of those tenement dwellers has been fulfilled ten-fold, and in most cases, eradicated entirely.
Every chapter in this acidic indictment is essentially a very long and descriptive list of offenses against the immigrant population of the tenement districts. Rather than structure the book with a presentment of the problem, citing a few examples (emphasis on “few”), and then a proposed solution, Riis merely describes example after example after example of the horrendous living conditions and their risks. This is followed up at the very end of the book, in the very last chapter with a few statements about how the government needs to step in and do something about the issue at hand. He certainly has a gift for clearly illustrating (both literally and figuratively) what he is witnessing with colorful diction supplemented with sketches of photographs taken by the author himself. He adds to this with his research with consisted entirely of personal observations and photographs by the author, statistics from the Registrar of Vital Statistics in New York, and talking to the local Chief of Police and President of the Board of Health in New York City. In the end however, after all of the mudslinging to the side of the tenement landlords is done, the reader finds himself or herself asking: so what? What could I possibly do (or have done?)
Despite its subtle flaws and archaic expressions, this work stands, along with Sinclair’s “The Jungle,” as one of the many stalwart pillars supporting the Equal Rights Movement and the ERA. In their broadest sense, The Movement and the ERA were about granting equal rights to all people everywhere in the United States. How the Other Half Lives deals with the largely unnoticed and forgotten silent majority, the “unwashed masses,” the poor. Truthfully it was not until the 1960’s with U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson and his “Great Society” programs that the issue of the poor and impoverished was dealt with head-on. Having been written nearly a century before the modern Civil Rights Movements, Riis’ book truly was ahead of its time and wholly groundbreaking for its day. These reasons alone should warrant a hearty recommendation from all its readers, past and present. It could reasonably be argued that this book, along with others like it, were the reasons for the establishment of housing and living condition and public health standards that still persist today.
Perhaps the most telling and compelling line in this tenement treatise is from chapter one. With its description of the appalling lack of fresh, outside light and air in tenement rooms: “Crazy old buildings, crowded rear tenements in filthy yards, dark, damp basements, leaking garrets, shops, outhouses, and stables converted into dwellings, though scarcely fit to shelter brutes, are habitations of thousands of our fellow-beings in this wealthy, Christian city.”
Jacob Riis reasonably examines the effects of tenement living on the surrounding community: increased crime, disease, and death. His proposed answer, found in the final two chapters, is government intervention on the side of “public sentiment.” While this appears a decent proposal, it provokes the questions of government authority in the everyday lives of American citizenry. Perhaps the seemingly unsolvable question of how much authority to give the local or federal governments to govern the everyday lives of their subject peoples could be addressed. While it is true that the poor living (indeed if it can be called living) conditions within tenements were very real, why did the supposed afflicted occupants not move elsewhere? If it really was so difficult to live a tenement, why stay? Is it the role of government to improve the lives of its people if they will not or cannot improve them themselves? There may be no right or wrong answers to any of these queries, or any solution to them at all.
In summation, Riis’ thesis and purpose in writing can be stated thus: hopelessly horrific circumstances were found in American tenement living and the government with its various departments and bureaucracies needed to step in and forcefully improve the lives of the struggling poor class and bring the “robber-baron” tenement landlords to justice for crimes against humanity. Only in this way can equality for all be assured, at least in New York City. With all opinions, short comings of the book and criticisms aside, this work strongly calls in to questions mankind’s treatment of its own. Though the suffering of the thousands of people trapped in dark, airless tenements has been assuaged, there yet exists similar suffering of millions of others around the world. Though they may not live in tenements, the shameful treatment of others of the human race around the world has long been a problem at the forefront of mankind’s struggle for peace, prosperity and equality. The effects on society of these terrible standards of living, found in many third world countries are still prevalent today. One need only read in any newspaper or watch any news report on TV to see a testament of its destructiveness. Though humankind has come a long way in equality of treatment of our brothers and sisters, when and how will the final solutions to this infinite struggle be achieved? There may be no answers to these questions.
July 27, 2009
What is shocking is that this book is still lauded by history texts as part of the gradual enlightenment of American public opinion by muckrakering journalists. The book is really an endless series of crude stereotypes of different ethnic groups and Riis's often laughable attempts to improve their living conditions by kicking them out of their homes. He says it all in the book: "To fight poverty, you must fight the poor."
And does he fight them! Almost all he does in this book is tip off the police to overcrowded tenements or late-night beer dives (where the poor could gain a seat to sleep in for two cents) and watch as they are thrown outside into the cold. Where these people were supposed to go or to what benefit remains an unspoken mystery.
Riis sees the problem as fundamentally a cultural one of the poor, and specifically of the poor among New York's white ethnic groups (as a Republican he has some sympathy for the then-Republican voting blacks). The ethnics are poor because they refuse to see the light and love middle-class homes. The Jews are "filthy," the Chinese are "inscrutable" and "love gambling," the Italians are morons and fools, the Bohemians (the ethnic not artistic group) are "the worst of all." It is just one ridiculous belabored stereotype after another.
When people today cite the wonders of the earlier progressives in improving living conditions in New York City, this is what they're referring to. That they undoubtedly did more harm than good is abundantly apparent from reading their staunchest advocate and defender.
And does he fight them! Almost all he does in this book is tip off the police to overcrowded tenements or late-night beer dives (where the poor could gain a seat to sleep in for two cents) and watch as they are thrown outside into the cold. Where these people were supposed to go or to what benefit remains an unspoken mystery.
Riis sees the problem as fundamentally a cultural one of the poor, and specifically of the poor among New York's white ethnic groups (as a Republican he has some sympathy for the then-Republican voting blacks). The ethnics are poor because they refuse to see the light and love middle-class homes. The Jews are "filthy," the Chinese are "inscrutable" and "love gambling," the Italians are morons and fools, the Bohemians (the ethnic not artistic group) are "the worst of all." It is just one ridiculous belabored stereotype after another.
When people today cite the wonders of the earlier progressives in improving living conditions in New York City, this is what they're referring to. That they undoubtedly did more harm than good is abundantly apparent from reading their staunchest advocate and defender.
August 2, 2012
Jacob Riis' How the Other Half Lives is one of the most important American texts ever composed. Originally published without pictures, it exposes the statistics of how poor the Gilded Age poor really were. These numbers initially did not impress the need for change on the wealthy and middle class readers. Therefore, it was re-issued with the frightening pictures of the squalor and filth in which the poor lived. The pictures resulted in an avalanche of legislation and laws that would prevent the immigrant poor from living in such deplorable conditions. In the years following the pictorial re-issue, laws were passed dictating air circulation, windows, hygiene, and disease prevention in the tenement housing. New York became the epicenter for social change concerning living conditions and assistance for the poor.
For the average reader, some of the statistics can slow down the text. However, other readers will be amazed by how far we have come and that Americans ever allowed our fellow citizens to live in such conditions. It also helped kick off the Progressive Era, which helped close the gap between the very rich and the very poor that had widened during the Gilded Age.
The effects of Riis' book have always fascinated me as an American Studies student, and it is a must read for any student studying sociology, American Studies, American history, or urban studies.
For the average reader, some of the statistics can slow down the text. However, other readers will be amazed by how far we have come and that Americans ever allowed our fellow citizens to live in such conditions. It also helped kick off the Progressive Era, which helped close the gap between the very rich and the very poor that had widened during the Gilded Age.
The effects of Riis' book have always fascinated me as an American Studies student, and it is a must read for any student studying sociology, American Studies, American history, or urban studies.
August 13, 2008
This is probably one of the most remarkable books I've ever read. Having re-read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn to the point where I can now recite whole passages from memory, Riis' photographs and first person insight into the derelict city tenement dwellings of the early part of the 20th century are a welcome visual to Smith's text. Although descired by many as a novice photographer at best, the pictures that DID develop well show Riis' ability to capture the essence of raw humanity in the struggle for survival. I would have to say though, although I appreciated much of the text, as well as the fantastic photographs, the author's lack of recognition or tolerance for cultures other than his own make the material an uncomfortable read. It's all very well for a man who's made his way from squalor to have his own opinions, but there is no call for many of his judgements. People of the time had as many limitations coming here as generations before them, and it was not culture of race that kept people from succeeding; rather, the proletariat class that ignored the plight of the people under their heels in their own quests to prove themselves worthy of the European aristocracy.
April 20, 2020
An eye-opener source to see the living conditions of immigrants in the NYC slums during the Progressive Era. With the help of stunning pictures, Riis briefly reports the corruption, ethnic biases, violence and overall tragedies of migrants who have left their countries and come to the USA in the hope of having a better life.
The racist expressions, stereotypes and generalization in the book are the reasons why I subtracted a star in my voting, even though I believe those statements truly represent the era and mentality of the time when the book was published.
Overall, it is a realistic photojournalism publication and a must-see if you’re interested in tenants, social justice or photography. I would like to call this book a ‘historical classic’ but not sure whether these chaotic images are already history and the living conditions of the immigrants have changed much in the USA since then.
The racist expressions, stereotypes and generalization in the book are the reasons why I subtracted a star in my voting, even though I believe those statements truly represent the era and mentality of the time when the book was published.
Overall, it is a realistic photojournalism publication and a must-see if you’re interested in tenants, social justice or photography. I would like to call this book a ‘historical classic’ but not sure whether these chaotic images are already history and the living conditions of the immigrants have changed much in the USA since then.
September 13, 2016
While revolutionary for its day, I was enamored by the stories and history presented in this novel. However, what struck me most is how one-sided it all felt. It was obvious that Riis wasn't in this for the love of his work. He found a novel idea that would make him money and solidify a name for himself and he took it. Do I think this is a bad thing? Absolutely not! It's an author's dream to find that one story that places them in the spotlight, but I do feel that it would've been nice that since we were looking at how the other lived, we got an account from them as well.
September 1, 2020
Read for my writing class
Read
November 30, 2016Well, if you ever wanted statistics on how the poor people of New York lived in 1890 with a generous side helping of racist stereotypes, this is the book for you.
September 17, 2018
SIX WORD REVIEW: Muckraking ages gracefully in some parts.
Read
April 21, 2024I’m not going to rate this one. I’m not sure why, but learning about this one in middle school history classes really stuck with me, and I’ve wanted to read it for a long time. It is a really interesting historical perspective of New York (and of the US) not because of its contents, but because of the reactions to it. This was the first really successful attempt to put poverty into the awareness of the wealthy classes. It is really old so obviously has some pretty offensive stereotyping going on, but in context I found it fascinating.
My favorite quote: “I am not willing even to admit it to be an unqualified advantage that our New York tenements have less of the slum look than those of older cities. It helps to delay the recognition of their true character on the part of the well-meaning, but uninstructed, who are always in the majority.
The "dangerous classes" of New York long ago compelled recognition. They are dangerous less because of their own crimes than because of the criminal ignorance of those who are not of their kind. The danger to society comes not from the poverty of the tenements, but from the ill-spent wealth that reared them, that it might earn a usurious interest from a class from which "nothing else was expected." That was the broad foundation laid down, and the edifice built upon it corresponds to the groundwork. That this is well understood on the "unsafe" side of the line that separates the rich from the poor, much better than by those who have all the advantages of discriminating education, is good cause for disquietude. In it a keen foresight may again dimly discern the shadow of the man with the knife.”
My favorite quote: “I am not willing even to admit it to be an unqualified advantage that our New York tenements have less of the slum look than those of older cities. It helps to delay the recognition of their true character on the part of the well-meaning, but uninstructed, who are always in the majority.
The "dangerous classes" of New York long ago compelled recognition. They are dangerous less because of their own crimes than because of the criminal ignorance of those who are not of their kind. The danger to society comes not from the poverty of the tenements, but from the ill-spent wealth that reared them, that it might earn a usurious interest from a class from which "nothing else was expected." That was the broad foundation laid down, and the edifice built upon it corresponds to the groundwork. That this is well understood on the "unsafe" side of the line that separates the rich from the poor, much better than by those who have all the advantages of discriminating education, is good cause for disquietude. In it a keen foresight may again dimly discern the shadow of the man with the knife.”
August 31, 2021
How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York by Jacob A. Riis (Sagamore Press Inc. 1957)(331.8) (3564).
Originally published in 1890, this volume is an expose of the state of New York City’s appalling tenement housing and those poor people unfortunate enough to call the slums home.
Riis was a reformer who advocated for the City to rein in the slums and slum lords. He writes about the various waves of ethnic groups who washed over the city and, having been absorbed, changed the face of the poor. “Jewtown”, “Chinatown”, and the “Street Arabs” were various neighborhoods and populations which Riis particularly found objectionable.
In my humble opinion, this screed reads so much like the novel The Jungle which Upton Sinclair published in 1906 that it is simply not possible that Sinclair failed to use Riis’ book as source material.
My rating: 7/10, finished 8/28/21 (3564).
August 22, 2015
“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
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
August 20, 2022
A Book Review of How the Other Half Lives
A couple of days ago I finished reading it. It's a very short story mostly explaining about some old photos which were taken in NY.
Since I love looking at old photos, I really enjoyed reading the book. I learned history of people's lives in 19th century in NY. At that time, NY started getting bigger to accept lots of immigrants. I learned about poverty there as well.
A couple of days ago I finished reading it. It's a very short story mostly explaining about some old photos which were taken in NY.
Since I love looking at old photos, I really enjoyed reading the book. I learned history of people's lives in 19th century in NY. At that time, NY started getting bigger to accept lots of immigrants. I learned about poverty there as well.
January 30, 2020
The book is an important historical document that deserves to be read so that people can get a real sense for how life was really like in the New York of the late 1800s. Riis was a muckraker before it was even a term, and a photojournalist before such a thing ever existed. The stories are difficult and unbelievable to read - if Riis didn't have the documentation to back up his claims you would find some of the anecdotes truly fantastical.
"'How shall the love of God be understood by those who have been nurtured in sight only of the greed of man?'" (p. 62)
"On cold winter nights, when every bunk had its tenant, I have stood in such a lodging-room more than once, and listening to the snoring of the sleepers like the regular strokes of an engine, and the slow creaking of the beams under their restless weight, imagined myself on shipboard and experienced the very real nausea of sea-sickness. The one thing that did not favor the deception was the air; its character could not be mistaken." (p. 117)
"I state in advance as my opinion based on the steady observation of years, that all attempts to make an effective Christian of John Chinaman will remain abortive in this generation..." (p. 120)
"...the Russian Jew...The old women are hags; the young, houris. Wives and mothers at sixteen, at thirty they are old." (p. 128)
"Lives, like clothes, are worn through and out before put aside." (p. 152-153)
"Seventeen hours a day, seven days in the week, at thirteen cents an hour for the two, six cents and a half for each! Good average earnings for a tenement-house cigarmaker in summer." (p. 153)
"It is not at all uncommon to find the hoards of a whole lifetime of hard work and self-denial squandered on the empty show of a ludicrous funeral parade and a. display of flowers that ill comports with the humble life it is supposed to exalt." (p. 175)
"Another stated that she worked from 4 o'clock in the morning to 11 at night." (p. 217)
"...the tenement that was built for 'a class of whom nothing was expected,' and which has come fully up to the expectation." (p. 227)
"Natural feelings and affections are smothered in the tenements." (p. 230)
"This is true particularly of the poorest. They are shiftless, destructive, and stupid; in a word, they are what the tenements have made them." (p. 239)
"'How shall the love of God be understood by those who have been nurtured in sight only of the greed of man?'" (p. 62)
"On cold winter nights, when every bunk had its tenant, I have stood in such a lodging-room more than once, and listening to the snoring of the sleepers like the regular strokes of an engine, and the slow creaking of the beams under their restless weight, imagined myself on shipboard and experienced the very real nausea of sea-sickness. The one thing that did not favor the deception was the air; its character could not be mistaken." (p. 117)
"I state in advance as my opinion based on the steady observation of years, that all attempts to make an effective Christian of John Chinaman will remain abortive in this generation..." (p. 120)
"...the Russian Jew...The old women are hags; the young, houris. Wives and mothers at sixteen, at thirty they are old." (p. 128)
"Lives, like clothes, are worn through and out before put aside." (p. 152-153)
"Seventeen hours a day, seven days in the week, at thirteen cents an hour for the two, six cents and a half for each! Good average earnings for a tenement-house cigarmaker in summer." (p. 153)
"It is not at all uncommon to find the hoards of a whole lifetime of hard work and self-denial squandered on the empty show of a ludicrous funeral parade and a. display of flowers that ill comports with the humble life it is supposed to exalt." (p. 175)
"Another stated that she worked from 4 o'clock in the morning to 11 at night." (p. 217)
"...the tenement that was built for 'a class of whom nothing was expected,' and which has come fully up to the expectation." (p. 227)
"Natural feelings and affections are smothered in the tenements." (p. 230)
"This is true particularly of the poorest. They are shiftless, destructive, and stupid; in a word, they are what the tenements have made them." (p. 239)
February 26, 2015
There is no doubt this book brought about huge changes in New York City policies toward the poor and indigent in 1890 when it was published. I just finished "Five Points" which motivated me to finally read this volume even though I was already familiar with many of the photographs found herein, like the iconic "Bandits Roost" (which was bulldozed shortly after publication to make way for the park that still stands today).
Therefore, the most surprising thing for me is how "politically incorrect" the writing seems in this day and age. I was expecting someone a little more empathetic to other cultures, but it more closely resembles the sensationalist moralizing of Victorian-era Protestants. The saloon, the gambling den and other "heathenish" practices are cited as reasons why conditions are so horrible. Nowhere is this more evident than in the chapters on Chinatown and "Jewtown," although the Italians, Irish and Bohemians (aka the Czechs) do not come off much better. However, to be fair, he cites many examples of model tenements whose more spacious and open design improved the character of the occupants almost overnight.
As harsh as the author's judgmental tone may sound today, the reader should overlook the lack of political-correctness, because it is a fascinating tour of New York street life (the large tenements, the flop houses, the stale beer dives, the sweat shops, the youth gangs). Looking back, it is surprising how much survived into the 1970s (and even 1990s). For instance there is a chapter cataloging the "famous" professional beggars who were staples of the tenement neighborhoods. One in particular posed as a blind veteran of the Franco Prussian War (and made so much money, he used his earnings to open a museum in Connecticut). In contrast, the ubiquitous "blind man selling pencils" (which, until fairly recently, was still a feature of street life in and around Times Square) was generally legitimate.
It's not all one relentless downer though. There are quite a few laugh out loud moments. Highly recommended especially for people who are intimately familiar with the streets of New York.
Therefore, the most surprising thing for me is how "politically incorrect" the writing seems in this day and age. I was expecting someone a little more empathetic to other cultures, but it more closely resembles the sensationalist moralizing of Victorian-era Protestants. The saloon, the gambling den and other "heathenish" practices are cited as reasons why conditions are so horrible. Nowhere is this more evident than in the chapters on Chinatown and "Jewtown," although the Italians, Irish and Bohemians (aka the Czechs) do not come off much better. However, to be fair, he cites many examples of model tenements whose more spacious and open design improved the character of the occupants almost overnight.
As harsh as the author's judgmental tone may sound today, the reader should overlook the lack of political-correctness, because it is a fascinating tour of New York street life (the large tenements, the flop houses, the stale beer dives, the sweat shops, the youth gangs). Looking back, it is surprising how much survived into the 1970s (and even 1990s). For instance there is a chapter cataloging the "famous" professional beggars who were staples of the tenement neighborhoods. One in particular posed as a blind veteran of the Franco Prussian War (and made so much money, he used his earnings to open a museum in Connecticut). In contrast, the ubiquitous "blind man selling pencils" (which, until fairly recently, was still a feature of street life in and around Times Square) was generally legitimate.
It's not all one relentless downer though. There are quite a few laugh out loud moments. Highly recommended especially for people who are intimately familiar with the streets of New York.
December 27, 2022
Jacob A. Riis documented the squalor and misery of those who lived in lower Manhattan during the end of the 19th Century through to the early 20th Century. At one point the tenement population swelled to over a million. The tenements were dark, airless, and riddled with crime, disease, and despair. Irish, Jewish, German, Russian, Italian, Chinese, Bohemian, Mr. Riis often reveals his deep seated prejudice against the many ethnic groups who came to America. His commentary about the Chinese and Jews is not worthy of repeating here. Interestingly, his narrative about the black population is surprising. He marveled at their cleanliness and the stability of their service jobs before issuing the ultimate racial slur that none of their fine attributes mattered because they could never rise above the lowly station in life of being black. Mr. Riis’ ethnic and racial slurs were entirely normal during his lifetime. However, it is a sad reminder that humanity will never be without prejudice—human beings maligning people different from themselves, thereby elevating themselves at someone else’s expense. And yet, it is essential to understand what life was like for so many during a time in history when misery was shared by so many. One in ten was buried in Potter’s Field, where bodies were packed three stories deep, shoulder to shoulder, as crowded in death as they were in life. The scarcity of living space, water, food, resources and job opportunities is a wake-up call for Americans to see just how far we have come as a culture. Photography was in its infancy when Jacob A. Riis produced his astonishing photojournalism that is the foundation for How the Other Half Lives, a work that was published in this edition in 1970. It is an excellent read for anyone who desires to learn more about the history of the tenement culture of New York City. Many of Mr. Riis’ astonishing and graphic photos that are in this book are also part of a collection that can be viewed at the Museum of the City of New York.
January 15, 2013
I do generally love a good muckraking - The Jungle is an old favorite of mine - and New York is another favorite subject. On the topic of New York, Riis' book, unfortunately, compares rather poorly with the dishy and entertaining Lights and Shadows of New York Life, which covers much of the same territory and which I read a few months ago. HtOHL comes to feel repetitive, is excessively moralistic in tone, too reliant on the police for information which seems not terribly credible, and is surprisingly racist in places. The part of the book I learned the most from, sadly, was the picture of Riis' attitudes toward people of other races and extractions as an illumination of the racism of the era, rather than from feeling I'd been enlightented on the book's subject much more than what Lights and Shadows had accomplished in a chapter or two. I struggled with the sentence structure quite a bit throughout - too many dependent clauses strung in webs as dense, dark, and maze-like as the tenements themselves - but that is probably the fault of the cognitive problems caused by my illness rather than the text being especially hard to decipher.
June 24, 2014
This book is a classic and an early example of the involved and probing journalism that came to be known as muckraking. Riis provides a series of studies of the various aspects of tenement life in New Yorkk City in the late 1880s. Over a million people lived indire poverty in these slums and Riis proviides horrifying examples of how the "other half" lived in these conditions - often invisible to the rest of society. Riis talks about life in the buildings, the various ethnic groups among the poor, sanitation and health problems. gang and crime problems, the poor conditions of tenement based industriies (cigar making), and lots of other topics. Thw writing is superb and moving. The perspecctive is one of self-interested and practical reform that must be accomplished by legal reform and public/private development. This book no doubt had a huge influence on subsequent reformers from Teddy Roosevelt to Jane Jacobs. Riis is not without his own dated perspectives on these problems and might seem a bit un-PC today. The value and heart of this book is obvious, however, and it is well worth the investment of time.
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