Jacob Riis How The Other Half Lives Summary

In every great city throughout history there has always been a separation between those who are marginalized and downtrodden and the upper echelons of society. At the turn of the twentieth century the United States of America was in the process of emerging as an industrial and economic world power. The chance to come to the land of opportunity lead to a massive influx of immigrants, the majority of which were uneducated and poor, that swelled the population of many American cities, none more so than New York City. New York was unprepared for the rate of population increase and was forced to heavily utilize the tenement housing model. The poor, mainly blacks and recent immigrants, were crowded into rundown neighbourhoods where they were exploited by landlords and employers. Jacob Riis, who had been an immigrant himself a number of years earlier, attempted to give an intimate portrait of the struggle faced by New York’s poor in his book How the Other Half Lives. The book showed how the poor were exploited in every facet of their …show more content…
People came from Central, Southern and Eastern Europe to America in search of work and opportunity to make a better life for their families. The largest immigrant groups were the Irish, Italian, German, Jewish, Bohemian and Chinese. The first barrier faced by the newly landed immigrants was the inability to speak English. Upon arrival in the United States, few of the immigrants bothered or had the opportunity to learn English. This caused isolation and left them open to exploitation. For example, many of the Italians who came over were ‘assisted’ immigrants, bound to the financier of their journey in return for labour. Seeing as they couldn’t speak English and were highly suspicious of strangers they relied on their fellow countrymen who often took advantage of