How the Other Half Lives

In “How the other half lives” Photography’s speaks a lot just like ones action does. Jacob Riis writes about the living conditions of the tenement houses. Most people in these apartments were poor immigrants who were trying to survive. Riis, a photographer, captured the unhealthy, filthy, and horrible conditions not only through his words, but rather through his pictures. His pictures spoke for the people and the dirty conditions they had to live in. Riis’s journalism (muckrakers) and…

with a camera from the police department where he worked. He later compiled his photographs along with a narrative in his book How the Other Half Lives: Studies among the Tenements of New York. Certain chapters consist of different neighborhoods within the tenement districts. Others showcase his opinions on social issues. In its entirety, the book gives an in-depth view into how Riis viewed immigrants in the New York City tenements. While Riis wrote the book to argue social justice and reform,…

staggering 92% of Americans lived rurally. However, this percentage was steadily declining and would continue to do so, as Jacob Riis accurately predicted in his book How the Other Half Lives: “At the beginning of the century the percentage of our population that lived in cities was as one in twenty-five. In 1880 it was one in four and one-half, and in 1890 the census will in all probability show it to be one in four.” In fact, by 1910, the percentage of rural Americans had dipped to 49%. These…

this the author, Jacob Riis, focused only on the hardships of the poor in his book How The Other Half Lives. Oftentimes poverty was seen as the fault of the poor. In many cases it was not, for they were not given many opportunities because of where they stood in the social rank of society. Ranks were overlooked because it depended on the people’s surroundings and lifestyle. Although rank was often ignored, the lives of women, children, and men were not when you lived in a town of poverty. These…

wealthy individuals touring through the lives of individuals who are poor and capturing what it is like to be poor is notorious in American History. Jacobs Riis and James Agree are two interesting authors with different backgrounds, but shared similar motives. The two authors bring the struggled of American poverty to life by inserting themselves among poor families and wrote about their lives. In his book “How the Other Half Lives”, Riis reports on the lives of many ethnic and demographic…

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…

Immigrants and other poor laborers simply could not escape this poverty. They lived hard lives. At work, conditions were poor and wages were low. Many were crowded in overpriced and abysmal housing. In this sense, immigrants, migrants, and low wage earners paid the highest price for rapid industrialization. The slums conjured up by rapid industrialization were eventually exposed. Jacob Riis, a Danish immigrant, photographed and wrote about the slums in New York City. In his book, How the Other…

Not long after, Riis published How the Other Half Lives. This truthfully was an experience to remember for the naive reader. It presented the poverty in New York as statistics that were absolutely shocking. Juxtaposed to that, it contained drawings of the photos from Riis’s crusades of the worst slums of New York City. Having an impact like no other, Theodore Roosevelt (police commissioner at the time) was adamant on improving the quality…

who has worked on several short films before this movie. The Lives of Others is the first film that Donnersmarck had written, directed and won an oscar in 2006 for being the best foreign-language film. This film works in Germany, around 1984, while Germany was still split into 2 parts; East Germany and West Germany. The film depicts how the environment was like in Germany at this point of time and how one side is better than the other war continued. It’s a powerful but quiet film filled with…

It was like any other day; basketball warm ups, a few sprints, rehydration, and everyone gathering around in a circle to start the game. This game wasn’t like every other game, we had a different coach sitting on the bench. We put our heads together and tried to play the game we love, but we looked like baby deer learning how to walk. We were so uncoordinated and confused. My team and I were left with so many question and such little reasoning. As we packed up our bags, you could feel the…