Rediscovering Jacob Riis Analysis

At the beginning of this book, Riis talked about the numerous immigrants that arrived to New york from various countries. He described their culture and streets of which they lived upon, and how they each made a living. After doing so, Riis went on to illustrate what was in happening among the tenements where these diverse immigrants lived and the different ways they thrived. In this book by Jacob A. Riis, the author provides the readers with an insight of what the tenement life was like. Riis describes in detail what he saw in the tenements such as extreme poverty, gangs, diseases, and crime. He explains to the readers how it is that the wealthy became wealthy through the poor by creating these tenements. Riis also provided the readers with
Boyer, praises Riis’ novel for its ideas and well organized proposals. The author states that the book, in “both word and image,” has “initiated ideological perspectives and representational strategies that remained current in social thought and public sentiment for much of the twentieth century.” The author is implying how powerful the novel was, and how greatly it has impacted society so that these perspectives continue to remind the readers about the appalling life of the slums throughout the years. In Rediscovering Jacob Riis: Exposure Journalism and Photography in Turn of the …. , authors Bonnie Yochelson and Daniel Czitrom, praise the novel saying that it “passionately portrayed” the “explosive mixture of grinding poverty, sweatshops, and mass immigration, the growing power of urban Democratic political machines, the declining influence of Protestant evangelical churches, the persistence of life threatening public health conditions, the increase in child labor and juvenile crime, and the ‘murder of the home.’” Overall, both reviews were positive and recognized Riis’ detailed descriptions and ideas throughout the novel which are clearly and repeatedly