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How the Other Half Lives : A Jacob Riis Classic (Including Photography) by Jacob Riis (2010, Trade Paperback)

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How the Other Half Lives: A Jacob Riis Classic (Including Photography) by Riis, Jacob May have limited writing in cover pages. Pages are unmarked. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less

About this product

Product Identifiers

PublisherCEDAR Lake Publications

ISBN-101611040760

ISBN-139781611040760

eBay Product ID (ePID)124988178

Product Key Features

Book TitleHow the Other Half Lives : a Jacob Riis Classic (Including Photography)

Number of Pages208 Pages

LanguageEnglish

Publication Year2010

TopicPoverty & Homelessness

GenreSocial Science

AuthorJacob Riis

FormatTrade Paperback

Dimensions

Item Height0.4 in

Item Weight10.1 Oz

Item Length9 in

Item Width6 in

Additional Product Features

Synopsis"How the Other Half Lives" by Jacob Riis sheds fascinating light on how our immigrants in the 1800's lived in New York City. A must-read for Americans whose family has been in the U.S. for only a few generations, this book tells what it was really like in the slums. Whether Irish, Italian, Jewish, Chinese or Polish, German, Russian, hordes of refugees ended up in New York on the promise of a better life. Entrepreneurs lured poor people from Eastern Europe and contracted out their labor in sweat shops in the US. The laborers lived in tenements, which were dark, unventilated cages in blocks of buildings that rented for a surprising high rent to people who died by the thousands in the unsanitary conditions. The conditions described by Jacob Riis in this classic are heart-rending, especially the part about foundling babies (abandoned newborns). A cradle was put outside a Catholic Church and instead of a baby each night, racks of babies appeared. The Church had to establish foundling hospitals run by nuns, who persuaded the unwed or impoverished mothers to nurse the baby they gave up, plus another baby. The child mortality rate, especially in the "back tenements" or buildings built on to the back of others (dark and airless) was incredible. Riis also provides interesting information about the gangs of New York in "How the Other Half Lived."