How The Other Half Lives

The book How the Other Half lives, is one of those books that definitely affects you as soon as you read it. Jacob Riis the author of the book, wrote it exactly for the purpose, to affect people and get them to realize how bad the conditions were back then in New York City. He goes into full depth, of what the living conditions were like, who lived in them, and how they were affected by them. Mostly how each ethnic group lived in the tenements, and what the city did to improve them.

These “newcomers” did not deserve to come here and steal their jobs. Mike Trudic’s account from his childhood referred to his father’s hunt in America to desperately find work, “At the end of a week he was taken ill and died. It said he died of a broken heart”(Mike, 188). There were just too many workers and not enough jobs to be filled. Another first hand source provided by Rose Cohen, called Out of the Shadow, depicts the story of a jewish girl in New York and the experiences her family goes through in order to reach a sustainable lifestyle. The struggles included descriptions of harsh working conditions and anti-semitism, which created difficulty for immigrants who were trying to assimilate into the American culture.

Jacob Riis’ book How the Other Half Lives is a detailed description on the poor and the destitute in the inner realms of New York City. Riis tries to portray the living conditions through the ‘eyes’ of his camera. He sneaks up on the people flashes a picture and then tells the rest of the city how the ‘other half’ is living. As shocking as the truth was without seeing such poverty and horrible conditions with their own eyes or taking in the experience with all their senses it still seemed like a million miles away or even just a fairy tale.

In How the Other Half Lives, the author Jacob Riis sheds light on the darker side of tenant housing and urban dwellers. He goes to several different parts of the city of New York witnessing first hand the hardships that many immigrants faced when coming to America. His journalism and photographs of the conditions of the tenant housing helped led the way of reformation in the slums of New York. His research opened the eyes of many Americans to the darker side of the nation's lower class. Though it seems that he blamed both the victims and the board forces of society, I believe that he placed more of the blame on the board forces for the conditions that many immigrants faced.

However persuading a largely hostile audience to take a sympathetic view point toward the immigrant was a daunting task especially since Riis was an immigrant himself. It would require not only a sophisticated awareness of the audience, especially of its ethnic assumptions, but a refined understanding of the writer-audience dynamic and how it operates-more specifically, how it might be manipulated. Therefore because of the success of Jacob Riis one has to wonder maybe he is conscious of his contradictions, maybe he is indeed brilliant.

He makes multiple comments against immigrants that are somewhat derogatory and also brings up some points in the book over and over again. However, although it may be tedious to read variations of the same topic, when evaluating Riis’ strategies from a historical perspective, it makes sense to repeat certain things constantly as doing so underscores the significance of the topic. For example, Riis brings up the topic of disorderly conduct multiple times throughout the book. During the late 1800s, the poor did not have many options when it came to making a livelihood. Most earned very little and some earned so little that they had to live in the sewers because they could not afford to live in tenements. To cope with the pressure of living, the poor turned to alcohol and engaged in illegal activity. Even young children became involved in thievery because their parents were not making enough to sustain them. During this time period, alcoholism and crime were very prominent issues. By bringing up these issues repeatedly, Riis stresses the historical significance the issues and calls for

Riis wrote about different ethnic groups when he was living in New York. He wrote about greedy Jews, drunken Irish, and sloppy Italians. Riis also wrote with Christian morality. He blamed the faults of the above mentioned people on the poor living conditions that they were in. Like any other photographer or author, Riis’s motive must be figured out. It was already clear that he wanted change for the slums but in his pictures, the authors of the passage describe some pictures having Riis’s Christian morality in play. Riis highlights the needs for stable, wholesome families. The picture of page 191 is an example of a non-wholesome family. The home is supposed to be a resting place but factory work made its way into the home, making the entire family work. Photos like these were examples of Riis’s motives behind his photos. The photo on page 193 called “Room in a tenement flat” showed a family portrait. The room that they were in was very crammed and Riis again shows a family in poor living conditions. Riis also photographed many children, like the ones in “street arabs” on page 195. The photo is heart wrenching and captivates any viewer because of the pitiful place they had to sleep in.

We saw prejudice and discrimination throughout the book. For example, when Lafayette’s was charged with a crime due to hi, been associated with who did it. When LaJoe lost her benefits from the state due to her on and off husband using her home address and when collecting unemployment benefits which LaJoe did not claim as income coming into the home. In both instances, the Rivers were treated as if they were liars and criminals. Because of Lafayette being from the inner city, there was this predetermine thought about any youth that lived in the inner city from the court system. LaJoe was treated with disrespect by the welfare office because of the prejudgment they had formed about people that lived in the inner city. Due to the location in which they stayed, the importance of healthy living condition was not a priority to the city. They were forced to live in the vicinity of garbage, broken sewer systems, dead animals, etc. Also, the children were forced to either stay in their apartments or play on the railroad tracks because the city had only a few areas for them to play. These areas had become run down and it was unsafe for kids to play in. It is unsure why the was such neglect for those areas of the inner city, but one could only think that it had to do with how this race has been treated for years.

Elie Wiesel’s book “Night” shows the life of a father and son going through the concentration camp of World War II. Their life long journey begins from when they are taken from their home in Sighet, they experience harsh and inhuman conditions in the camps. These conditions cause Elie and his father’s relationship to change. During their time there, Elie and his father experience a reversal in roles.

In “Part One: The Negro and the City,” Osofsky describes the early Black neighborhoods of New York City, in the lower parts of Manhattan: from Five Points, San Juan Hill, and the Tenderloin. He describes the state of

The ghettos are the first form of Alienation we see in the novel. The ghettos were places that the jews were forced to live in. Elie’s home

How the Other Half Lives: Studies among the Tenements of New York (1890) was an early publication of photojournalism by Jacob Riis, documenting squalid living conditions in New York City slums in the 1880s. It served as a basis for future "muckraking" journalism by exposing the slums to New York City’s upper and middle classes. This work inspired many reforms of working-class housing, both immediately after publication as well as making a lasting impact in today's society. Vivid imagery and complex syntax establish a sympathetic tone which Riis uses to expose poverty to the general public and calls upon them to take action and make a difference.

In the autobiography, “Out of the Shadow”, author Rose Cohen, a Russian-Jewish immigrant, explains the social and economic conditions during the late 1800s and early 1900s for Jews immigrating into the United States. Cohen explains how many Jews fled Eastern Europe and Russia during this time due to the ruling of the tsar, fear of religious persecution, and economic restrictions. Because these restrictions were becoming the norm for Jewish people in their county, Rose’s father, a tailor, began to embark on a journey to the United States of America, in hopes of beginning a new life for himself and his family. Even though her father is captured at the border of Russia and returned home, he managed to get to America. Once in

In the beginning, Riis described a raid which was made by policemen. The object of that raid was the stale-beer dives. He said that the squads sent to make simultaneous control on all tramp’s lair in the area. After that, they caught several tramps and sent them to the police station. Then, Riis described a room of one tenement. There was a dirty floor, broken chair, and many things that it shouldn’t in the memory of the man. In that place, there was a group of poor people. The policemen broke into that room and surrounded those people. There was a thirteen person in that dirty room. The police took them and went to another location. In another location, the policemen found seventy-five men and women and arrested them in four small rooms. When they went back to the police station, there were two hundred seventy-five tramps, who were captured by policemen, packed them into groups to be arraigned in the police court. He said that the tramps might be sent to an island for six months. After that, he described the people’s life in that area which known as “the bend”. He said that a share of stale-beer traffic has left “the bend” due to an Italian tramp landlord. He

In my part of view, from the movie 50/50 I feel the counseling session with Katherine and Adam was good. Katherine was putting her best effort to help Adam to feel better and come out from the box of thinking about his illness. I can say that this counseling session was effective for Adam because I got to understand his mother situation and become more positive want to live and not thinking about his illness. But their relationship as a doctor-patient had become deeper into a love live relationship which is proven at the end of the movie from clip 1.34.12-1.35.39minutes where Adam gets ready for his date with Katherine at his house. As a counselor at first Katherine should not have a feeling towards Adam and should not exchange her personal