Jacob Riis How The Other Half Lives Summary
APPARTS: # 161. Jacob Riis Describes How The Other Half Lives, 1890*
Author: This document was written by Jacob A. Riis, an excerpt from his How the Other Half Lives. The author views that most people do not realize the tremendous amount of poverty surrounding them. They do not realize how the “other half” of the population; meaning the poor, manage to make it through a living. Riis wants to describe the living conditions of the lower class to create Americans an image of how the poor has many difficulties.
Place and Time: Jacob Riis wrote this document in the late nineteenth century. This was when immigrants, mostly from Southern and Eastern Europe, came in an abundance amount of number to American cities very rapidly. However, Jacob Riis focuses mainly on New York City in this excerpt, for it was the major entry port for Europeans and possessed more foreign-born residents and more densely populated neighborhoods than any other U.S. city.
Prior Knowledge: The first great wave of immigration began in the 1820s during a period in American history that witnessed expansion, innovation, and the beginning of a …show more content…
However, the majority of these immigrants were living in poverty. They were residing in crowded conditions, not being able to support their family or themselves without any sort of income, food, or property. Being the “other half” that were poor; they did not get enough if any, attention from the “other half” that were either rich or classified as the upper class. In this excerpt, Jacob Riis acknowledges the living conditions of the poor; he sees how they get by with their daily lives. He just wonders if they are all corrupted or not, and speedily, by their atrocious surroundings. He also believes however, that things cannot get any worse. He believes that the slums’ sediment was going for a steadier
Author: This document was written by Jacob A. Riis, an excerpt from his How the Other Half Lives. The author views that most people do not realize the tremendous amount of poverty surrounding them. They do not realize how the “other half” of the population; meaning the poor, manage to make it through a living. Riis wants to describe the living conditions of the lower class to create Americans an image of how the poor has many difficulties.
Place and Time: Jacob Riis wrote this document in the late nineteenth century. This was when immigrants, mostly from Southern and Eastern Europe, came in an abundance amount of number to American cities very rapidly. However, Jacob Riis focuses mainly on New York City in this excerpt, for it was the major entry port for Europeans and possessed more foreign-born residents and more densely populated neighborhoods than any other U.S. city.
Prior Knowledge: The first great wave of immigration began in the 1820s during a period in American history that witnessed expansion, innovation, and the beginning of a …show more content…
However, the majority of these immigrants were living in poverty. They were residing in crowded conditions, not being able to support their family or themselves without any sort of income, food, or property. Being the “other half” that were poor; they did not get enough if any, attention from the “other half” that were either rich or classified as the upper class. In this excerpt, Jacob Riis acknowledges the living conditions of the poor; he sees how they get by with their daily lives. He just wonders if they are all corrupted or not, and speedily, by their atrocious surroundings. He also believes however, that things cannot get any worse. He believes that the slums’ sediment was going for a steadier