How the Other Half Lives

How the Other Half Lives

by Jacob Riis

Open Ended

A muckraker is a journalist who exposes problems to the public. What are some problems you might expect a muckraker to report on?

Poll

What do you think is more effective or useful in showing a problem to the public?

• Showing photos of the problem

• Describing the problem with words

• Not sure

Jacob Riis

• Immigrated to the United States in 1870

• Worked as a news reporter at The New York Tribune

• Reported on crimes in the New York City slums and tenements

• Displayed photographs of the tenements at a church; Titled his work “How the Other Half Lives”

Dens of Death (1872)

Three Questions to Consider

• Describe the conditions shown in the photograph.

• What does this photograph reveal about life in the tenements?

• Why would this photo be effective in exposing a problem to the public?

Lodgers in Bayard Street Tenement, Five Cents a Spot (1890)

Open Ended

Choose ONE of our questions to answer:

Describe the conditions shown in the photograph.

What does this photograph reveal about life in the tenements?

Why would this photo be effective in exposing a problem to the public?

Chapter 4: The Downtown Back Alley

One day, I witnessed a fire in the tenements. When the blinding effect of the flash had passed away and I could see once more, I discovered that a lot of paper and rags that hung on the wall were ablaze. There were six of us, five blind men and women who knew nothing of their danger, and myself, in an attic room with a dozen crooked, rickety stairs between us and the street, and as many households as helpless as the one whose guest I was all about us. The thought: how were they ever to be got out? made my blood run cold as I saw the flames creeping up the wall, and my first impulse was to bolt for the street and shout for help.

Chapter 4: The Downtown Back Alley

The next was to smother the fire myself, and I did, with a vast deal of trouble. Afterward, when I came down to the street I told a friendly policeman of my trouble. For some reason he thought it rather a good joke, and laughed immoderately at my concern lest even then sparks should be burrowing in the rotten wall that might yet break out in flame and destroy the house with all that were in it. He told me why, when he found time to draw breath. "Why, don't you know," he said, "that house is the Dirty Spoon? It caught fire six times last winter, but it wouldn't burn. The dirt was so thick on the walls, it smothered the fire!" Which, if true, shows that water and dirt, not usually held to be harmonious elements, work together for the good of those who insure houses… 

Open Ended

How does Riis describe the conditions of those living in the city tenements?

(Possible sentence starters: "According to Riis, . . . " or "Riis describes the conditions as. . . )

Open Ended

How does the officer's reaction tell us how people in the tenements were viewed and treated by the rest of society?

(Possible sentence starter: "The officer's reaction tells us that people in the tenements were treated . . . )

Multiple Choice

Closing: What kind of source is "How the Other Half Lives" for understanding tenement life in the 19th century?

• Secondary Source

• Primary Source

Open Ended

Exit Ticket: What problem does Jacob Riis expose to the public in "How the Other Half Lives?" Do you think his photographs/text would be effective in bringing about change in New York City?

(Possible sentence starter: Jacob Riis exposed the problems of . . . I think that his photographs were (not) effective because . . . )