How the Other Half Lives by Jacob A. Riis: Summary and Review
Summary
How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York (1890) is a seminal work of photojournalism and social exposé by Danish-American journalist and social reformer Jacob A. Riis (1849–1914). Published at the height of the Gilded Age and the massive influx of European immigrants, the book documents and vividly exposes the squalid, overcrowded, and dehumanizing living conditions within the tenement slums of New York City in the 1880s, primarily in the Lower East Side of Manhattan.
Riis, who had himself experienced poverty as an immigrant, worked as a police reporter for the New York Tribune and the New York Sun. This beat constantly exposed him to the city's underbelly—the crime, disease, and destitution concentrated in the poorest neighborhoods. He became convinced that the dire moral and physical state of the poor was not a result of inherent moral failure, as many wealthy contemporaries believed, but was directly caused by the deplorable environmental conditions imposed by the tenement system.
Content and Structure
The book functions as a literary and visual "slum tour," taking the oblivious middle and upper classes through the dark, congested, and unsanitary alleyways, back yards, and interiors of the tenement districts.
The Tenement System: Riis begins by explaining the history and structure of the tenements. He describes how old houses were partitioned, and new buildings constructed, to maximize density and profit on 25-by-100-foot lots, resulting in buildings lacking basic necessities like air, light, and sanitation. By 1890, three-fourths of New Yorkers lived in tenements, with some areas being among the most densely populated places on Earth.
The Ethnic Mosaic: Riis dedicates chapters to the various immigrant and ethnic groups living in segregation within the slums, such as "Jewtown," "Chinatown," "The Italian in New York," and sections on the Irish and African Americans. He details their specific living arrangements, labor, and social habits, often painting distinct, though highly stereotypical, portraits of each group. He shows that many worked in brutal sweatshop conditions within the tenements themselves, making meager wages.
Visual Evidence and Flash Photography: Riis pioneered the use of magnesium flash powder to photograph the pitch-dark interiors and nighttime scenes of the tenements. This new technique was revolutionary; it allowed him to capture powerful, raw images of people sleeping in hallways, basements, and tiny, crowded rooms, often catching his subjects by surprise. The photographs served as undeniable, factual evidence of the squalor, which was crucial for shocking the public conscience.
A Call for Reform: The final chapters move from documentation to advocacy. Riis forcefully attributes the problem to the greed and neglect of wealthy landlords and apathetic city officials. He argues that the slums are a breeding ground for crime, disease (like cholera), and social unrest, posing a physical and moral danger to the entire city, not just the poor. Riis proposes a solution rooted in what he sees as Christian morality and enlightened capitalism: landlords should accept a reasonable profit (5–6% return) and invest in constructing and maintaining better-designed, safer, and cleaner tenement buildings. He also advocates for public services like parks, playgrounds, and better schools to help the children escape the cycle of poverty.
The overarching hypothesis is clear: poor housing creates poor people, and reforming the environment is the necessary first step to improving their moral and physical condition. Riis sought to convince his readers that the poor were victims of circumstance, not merely of character.
Review and Critique
How the Other Half Lives is celebrated as a foundational text of investigative journalism and social documentary, yet it is also a complex work fraught with the prejudices of its time.
Strengths and Historical Impact
Pioneering Photojournalism: Riis is recognized as a forerunner of modern photojournalism. His innovative use of flash photography transformed the field by providing visceral, high-impact visual proof of invisible social realities. Before Riis, photographs were rarely used in popular books or journalism to drive social reform; his work established a powerful new activist legacy that married photography and social critique, influencing the later muckraking movement.
Catalyst for Reform: The book was an immediate sensation, receiving widespread praise and prompting a public outcry. Its impact was concrete and substantial. It caught the attention of politicians like Theodore Roosevelt (then New York Police Commissioner, later President), who became Riis's friend and ally, helping to effect change. The exposé directly contributed to the Tenement House Act of 1901, a landmark piece of legislation that mandated significant improvements in light, ventilation, sanitation, and fire safety in tenement buildings, fundamentally changing New York’s housing landscape.
Moral Clarity and Empathy: Riis’s writing, which borrows the passionate, descriptive style of Charles Dickens, is filled with barely restrained anger and genuine, heartfelt empathy for the suffering of children and the "honest" working poor. His ultimate objective was a humanitarian one: to ensure every human being had the right to a decent home.
Weaknesses and Modern Criticism
Overt Stereotyping and Racial Bias: The most significant critique from a modern perspective is Riis’s use of ethnic and racial slurs and sweeping stereotypes. His chapters, while attempting to classify and humanize the diverse immigrant populations, often rely on an overt ethnic hierarchy, frequently painting groups like the Chinese and Irish with broad, negative generalizations regarding their inherent morality, work ethic, or capacity for assimilation. He frames social reform, at times, in terms of Protestant virtue and assimilation to a Christian model, which minimizes the cultural dignity and complexity of the groups he photographed.
The "Gaze" and Objectification: While Riis's access was unprecedented, the nature of his photography—often conducted at night, with a blinding flash, and without informed consent—raises ethical concerns about the objectification and sensationalism of his subjects' suffering. Critics argue that the photos can, at times, reduce complex individuals to mere symbols of destitution, designed to shock a comfortable audience rather than fully represent the tenants' lives.
A Limited Scope of Reform: Riis's proposed solutions, while effective for housing legislation, were narrowly focused on tenement reform, often overlooking broader systemic issues. He did not advocate for wealth redistribution or massive public welfare programs, instead emphasizing the moral obligation of landlords and the need for moderate, Christian-minded business practices. He also sharply distinguished between the "worthy" poor (the hardworking families) and the "unworthy" poor (tramps and criminals), a distinction rooted in Victorian-era charity models.
Conclusion
How the Other Half Lives is a towering achievement in American social history. Its ability to galvanize public opinion and legislative action against entrenched urban squalor is a testament to the power of documentary evidence. It successfully forced a crucial conversation: that the fate of the poor was tied to the structure of society, not just personal failing. While readers must confront the problematic, outdated prejudices woven into Riis's narrative, the book’s enduring legacy rests on its groundbreaking integration of text and image to serve as a powerful engine for social change. It remains an essential, though controversial, document of early Progressive Era reform efforts in America.
이 비디오는 야콥 리스의 작품과 그의 동시대인들이 19세기 말 뉴욕의 빈곤층을 어떻게 기록했는지에 대한 자세한 내용을 제공하여, 책의 내용을 이해하는 데 도움이 될 것이다.
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How the Other Half Lives — Summary and Review (Approx. 1,000 words)
By Jacob A. Riis
Summary
Jacob A. Riis’s How the Other Half Lives is one of the most influential works of American social reform. Published in 1890, the book exposes the harsh living conditions of New York City’s urban poor—especially immigrants crowded into Lower Manhattan tenements during the Gilded Age. Combining investigative journalism, social analysis, and groundbreaking flash photography, Riis depicts life in overcrowded rooms, dangerous lodging houses, back alleys, sweatshops, and impoverished immigrant neighborhoods.
1. The Tenement Problem
Riis begins by describing the explosive growth of New York’s population and the failure of housing systems to keep up. Tenements—cramped apartment buildings subdivided into tiny rooms—became the default housing for millions. Intended originally as affordable housing, they devolved into dark, airless, disease-ridden structures owned by absentee landlords who prioritized profit over human well-being.
Riis presents statistical data showing high death rates from tuberculosis, cholera, and infant mortality. He emphasizes that these were not just unfortunate outcomes but predictable results of the environment: rooms without ventilation, windows, or sanitation; entire families sleeping in one bed; thousands living in windowless interior rooms.
2. The Geography of Poverty
Different neighborhoods were associated with different immigrant groups:
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Mulberry Bend: largely Italian, known for severe overcrowding.
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Jewish East Side: sweatshops and home-based garment production, with long hours and child labor.
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Chinatown: portrayed by Riis as isolated, misunderstood, and to him somewhat mysterious.
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Black communities in certain districts faced discrimination, displacement, and extremely limited employment opportunities.
Riis maps these neighborhoods as a “topography of misery,” showing how geography, ethnicity, and poverty were intertwined.
3. Immigrant Life and Labor
Riis examines how working conditions shaped immigrant life. Many worked twelve- or sixteen-hour days in sweatshops for extremely low wages. Families often relied on every member—including children—to earn money. “Home work,” where living rooms were turned into small factories, was widespread, combining domestic and industrial spaces in unhealthy ways.
He notes that exploitation was often directed by earlier waves of immigrants against newer arrivals, creating a chain of economic domination within ethnic groups.
4. Children in the Slums
One of Riis’s most powerful sections focuses on children. Many grew up in environments where survival required early entry into labor markets. He documents newsboys (“newsies”), bootblacks, factory girls, juvenile delinquents, and street gangs. The lack of education, recreation, and safety resulted in cycles of deprivation.
Riis argues that children represent the future of the city, and leaving them in such conditions ensures that poverty reproduces itself.
5. Urban Crime and Vice
Riis connects environmental factors with crime. Not all who lived in slums were criminals, but slum conditions often nurtured illegal activities. He describes gang culture, gambling dens, brothels, and saloons. He sympathizes with individuals trapped in vice because they had few alternatives.
He especially criticizes political corruption—Tammany Hall bosses who relied on immigrant votes while ignoring housing reform. Poverty, he argues, is not a natural condition but politically sustained.
6. Housing Reform and Solutions
The last portion of the book proposes concrete reforms, including:
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stricter housing regulations
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better ventilation, lighting, and sanitation
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demolition of the worst tenements
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expansion of public parks and playgrounds
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settlement houses to offer education and social support
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municipal responsibility for welfare
He argues that reform is both a moral duty and a practical necessity: a city cannot thrive when half its population lives in misery.
Review
1. A Pioneering Work in Social Documentary
How the Other Half Lives is foundational in the history of investigative journalism and social photography. Riis was one of the first to use flash powder photography, allowing him to capture dark interiors of tenements. His photos shocked middle- and upper-class readers who had never seen such conditions.
The narrative is direct, vivid, and uncompromising. Riis does not rely on abstractions; he shows actual homes, actual faces, actual children sleeping on floors. In this sense, his work is a precursor to later photographers like Lewis Hine and filmmakers like Jacob Holdt (whom you just asked about).
Riis changed not only journalism but American public consciousness.
2. Empathy with Limits: Humanitarian but Paternalistic
Riis’s compassion for the poor is genuine. He lived in poverty as a young immigrant himself, and his anger toward slum landlords, corrupt officials, and unsafe working conditions comes from lived experience. He treats the poor as full moral beings, not objects of charity.
However, one limitation of his work is paternalistic and racialized language, characteristic of late-19th-century social reformers. He sometimes portrays certain immigrant groups—especially Italians, Chinese, and Eastern European Jews—using stereotypical generalizations. His descriptions mix sympathy with Victorian moral judgments, and he occasionally attributes social problems to “national character” rather than purely structural forces.
Nevertheless, these flaws coexist with a sincere desire to help. Riis’s prejudices are important to recognize but do not erase his positive impact on reform.
3. Structural Analysis—Ahead of Its Time
Despite paternalism, Riis was remarkably modern in recognizing structural causes:
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He treats poverty not as personal failure but as a product of environment.
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He shows how housing conditions shape mental health, crime, and education.
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He argues that laws and public resources must change for social conditions to change.
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He sees children as the central victims of inequality and advocates child-centered reform.
Riis anticipates later “environmental determinism” in sociology and urban studies: social environments produce social outcomes.
4. Impact on Policy and Social Reform
The book had enormous real-world influence:
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It inspired the demolition of Mulberry Bend and the creation of Columbus Park.
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It spurred tenement reform laws, including minimum ventilation standards.
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It energized Progressive Era activism, leading to settlement houses (like those of Lillian Wald).
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It helped shape modern social work and public housing movements.
Few books of journalism have reshaped a city the way this one did.
5. Contemporary Relevance
Riis’s work remains relevant in today’s debates about:
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urban poverty
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homelessness
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immigrant precarity
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gentrification and displacement
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racialized policing
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inequality in global cities
Many modern readers are struck by how familiar Riis’s descriptions feel. Tenement-like conditions still exist—not only in American cities but worldwide. The same structural forces he described—profit-driven housing, political neglect, immigrant vulnerability—continue to shape urban life.
6. Limitations of Perspective
A modern critique is that Riis sometimes speaks about communities rather than with them. His voice dominates; the poor rarely speak for themselves. He occasionally moralizes about drinking, gambling, or “improper” family behavior without considering deeper psychological or structural causes.
Yet these limitations are largely products of his time rather than personal malice.
Conclusion
How the Other Half Lives is a landmark in American journalism, urban sociology, and social reform. Despite its period-specific biases, the book offers a powerful, uncompromising look at inequality in Gilded Age New York. Riis combines shocking images, firsthand observation, and moral urgency to demand a more humane society. His work catalyzed real change, and its lessons remain valuable today—especially in an era of widening inequality.
If you’d like, I can also provide:
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a side-by-side Korean translation,
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a comparison with Jacob Holdt’s American Pictures,
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or a Quaker-ethics–based reading of Riis’s reform tradition.
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