How the Other Half Lives

Jacob Riis’s How the Other Half Lives (1890) is a photojournalistic account of New York City’s working class of the late 19th century and the tenements that housed them. Riis exposes the appalling and often inhumane conditions in and around the tenements. He attributes New York City’s squalor and degradation to sheer greed on the part of landlords who prioritize maximum profits over basic decency. More importantly, he documents these conditions with more than 40 visual supplements, nearly all of them photographs. These images contributed to the book’s success and helped pioneer a style of “muckraking” journalism in pursuit of social reform. Riis concludes that the landlords themselves could solve the tenement problem by adopting Christian principles in their treatment of tenants and settling for a reasonable return of 5-6% on their investment in tenement property.

Content Warning: The text uses antiquated language regarding race and other terms relating to women, people without houses, suicide, and sex work that are considered insensitive to modern audiences.

Summary

Riis opens with a brief introduction that highlights the book’s major themes. First, the appalling conditions facing those who are impoverished are The Consequences of Greed.