How The Other Half Lives, by Jacob Riis

This pioneering work of photojournalism by Jacob Riis focused on the plight of the poor in the Lower East Side, and greatly influenced future “muckraking” journalism. Riis mostly attributed the plight of the poor to environmental conditions, but he also divided the poor into two categories: deserving of assistance (mostly women and children) and undeserving (mostly the unemployed and intractably criminal). He wrote with prejudice about Jews, Italians, and Irish, and he stopped short of calling for government intervention. Still, the catalyst of his work was a genuine sympathy for his subjects, and his work shocked many New Yorkers.

Contents

• Preface
• List of Photographs & Illustrations (with links)
• Introduction
• 1. Genesis of the Tenements
• 2. The Awakening
• 3. The Mixed Crowd
• 4. The Down Town Back-Alleys
• 5. The Italian in New York
• 6. The Bend
• 7. A Raid on the Stale-Beer Dives
• 8. The Cheap Lodging-Houses
• 9. Chinatown
• 10. Jewtown
• 11. The Sweaters of Jewtown
• 12. The Bohemians–Tenement-House Cigarmaking
• 13. The Color Line in New York
• 14. The Common Herd
• 15. The Problem of the Children
• 16. Waifs of the City’s Slums
• 17. The Street Arab
• 18. The Reign of Rum
• 19. The Harvest of Tare
• 20. The Working Girls of New York
• 21. Pauperism in the Tenements
• 22. The Wrecks and the Waste
• 23. The Man with the Knife
• 24. What Has Been Done
• 25. How the Case Stands
• Appendix