Who was Jacob Riis and what was he known for?
Jacob Riis was an American newspaper reporter, social reformer, and photographer. With his book How the Other Half Lives (1890), he shocked the conscience of his readers with factual descriptions of slum conditions in New York City.
Did Jacob Riis support women’s rights?
New college educated Progressive reformers saw unionization, woman suffrage, protective legislation, and government intervention as ways to achieve far-reaching social change. But Riis had pioneered techniques utilized in the new emerging fields of social work, investigative journalism, and photojournalism.
What was Jacob Riis background & occupation?
Jacob Riis immigrated to the United States in 1870. After a series of odd jobs, he became a police reporter, a job he enhanced with his natural photographic skills.
What was Jacob Riis’s role in improving urban conditions?
While living in New York, Riis experienced poverty and became a police reporter writing about the quality of life in the slums. He attempted to alleviate the bad living conditions of poor people by exposing their living conditions to the middle and upper classes.
What is one thing you will ask for in New York City and never find According to Jacob Riis?
The one thing you shall vainly ask for in the chief city of America is a distinctively American community. There is none; certainly not among the tenements. Where have they gone to, the old inhabitants ?
Why did city government officials allow these conditions to continue how the other half lives?
City government officials allow these conditions to continue because… city governments could not keep pace with the rapid population growth and springing up of new cities.
How does the author describe living conditions in the tenements?
Living conditions were deplorable: Built close together, tenements typically lacked adequate windows, rendering them poorly ventilated and dark, and they were frequently in disrepair. Vermin were a persistent problem as buildings lacked proper sanitation facilities.
What are the elements God meant to be free?
In the phrase “the elements God meant to be free, but man deals out with such hand”, Riis refers to the manipulation of the natural order of things by man which, in this case, creates economic models that favor the enrichment of businessmen that represent a minority in the population, at the expense of the vast …