How the Other Half Lives

A growler is a large beer glass or bottle, usually with a handle for ease of carry. Riis uses the term in several places, particularly in Chapters 18-19, “The Reign of Rum” and “The Harvest of Tares.”

“Pauperism” refers to the condition of those who are often unemployed and ask for money for a living. Riis describes tenement-district pauperism at length in Chapter 21. Riis distinguishes between pauperism and “honest poverty.” He argues that the latter are trying to make a living but are held down by low wages, high rents, and other hallmarks of greed from above. For these, he shows sympathy. Riis regards many unemployed impoverished people, however, as “lazy frauds.”

The rear-tenement was a building that had no street access and therefore very little light or fresh air for tenants. Landlords built or operated rear-tenements on the greed-driven principle of maximizing profit by cramming as many human beings as possible into the smallest spaces. Riis notes that the recent abolition of rear-tenements constitutes one major victory for reform and the law.

In these “hotels,” homeless lodgers paid seven cents per night to sleep on a cot. Riis describes these houses in Chapter 8, noting that the ten- and seven-cent lodgings are “different grades of the same abomination” (86). Riis also photographs the inside of a seven-cent lodging house, which features a row of cots strung together between two horizontal beams.

A stale-beer dive was an unlicensed establishment, usually a cellar or some other filthy place, where patrons bought and drank alcohol mixed with illegal drugs. These dives proliferated in the worst tenement districts. Chapter 7 describes a police raid on a stale-beer dive in the “Bend.”

“Street Arab” was an ethnic-slur-derived slang term for boys without houses who hawked newspapers to support themselves. In Chapter 17, Riis describes the “Street Arabs” and the organizations that have tried to rescue them.

The “sweater” operated sweatshops inside the tenements, where tenant-laborers worked to manufacture items such as clothing or cigars. In Chapters 11 and 12, Riis describes these “sweaters” and the inhumane working conditions they imposed on tenants, most of whom spoke no English and had no choice but to work in these shops as a condition of residence. Elsewhere in the book, Riis makes periodic reference to these sweatshop-made goods as an economic problem for honest manufacturers, though his primary concern is the exploitation of human beings.

Nineteenth-century New York City defined a tenement as a building “occupied by three or more families, living independently and doing their cooking on the premises; or by more than two families on a floor, so living and cooking and having a common right in the halls, stairways, yards, etc.” (17-18). In reality, most tenements were occupied by more than three families, and nearly all tenement buildings in the city’s most crowded districts housed dozens of families and well over 100 total residents on six floors or fewer.

The 19th-century “tough” was a New York City gang member. Riis describes these gangs and their wayward young members in Chapter 19, “The Harvest of Tares.”

A “tramp” is a person who is unhoused and moves around in search of work or charity. According to Riis, tenements are magnets for these individuals.

Usury refers to the practice of imposing and collecting unreasonable and exploitative interest on money. Riis uses the specific phrase “usurious interest” only once, but his entire book amounts to an extended condemnation of landlords who apply this practice to rents (265-66).