Teresa Christie
HISTO-1140 NET05
Life in the Tenements
Jacob Riis was like a majority of his people from his time, an immigrant. He came to the
United States from Denmark in 1870. “Jacob Riis was a photographer and writer whose book
How the Other Half Lives led to a revolution in social reform.”(bio.com) According to Meriam
Webster, the definition of social segregation is the separation or isolation of a race, class, or
ethnic group by enforced or voluntary residence in a restricted area, by barriers to social
intercourse, by separate educational facilities, or by other discriminatory means. The rise of
the industrial metropolis in the nineteenth century was hard on the working class immigrant.
Social segregation was on the rise, as well as the need for jobs and housing. Jacob Riis
investigated how social segregation was effected due to the rise of the industrial metropolis, its
outcome on the racial and ethnic prejudices, as well as what life was like living in the tenements
in New York City.
The rise of the industrial metropolis in the late 19th century lead to increased social
segregation in the cities of the United States because cities were growing rapidly. Companies
were booming. People were willing to work for nothing. New Immigrants from Eastern Europe
and China were quickly immigrating to the new country for opportunities, but being paid very
little to do so. The immigrants were being housed in tenements. “A typical tenement building
had five to seven stories and occupied nearly all of the lot upon which it was built (usually 25
feet wide and 100 feet long, according to existing city regulations).” (history.com) However, in
the late nineteenth century, with the industrial metropolis booming, the renters were running
out of room to rent. At this time, they took it upon themselves, to build their own walls within
the tenements, so they could house more people. The richer were getting richer, and the
poorer were getting poorer. According to Riis, “It was rent the owner was after; nothing was
said in the contract about either the safety or the comfort of the tenants.”(p.9)
Italians spoke no English, or learned very little. Children of Italian immigrants barely
knew how to speak Italian. Germans learned English, same with the Poles and Jews.
“Oppression, persecution, have not shorn the Jew of his native combativeness one whit. He is
as ready to fight for his rights, or what he considers his rights, in a business transaction—
synonymous generally with his advantage—as if he had not been robbed of them* for eighteen
hundred years.” (p. 109–110) “The Italian comes in at the bottom, and in the generation that
came over the sea he stays there. In the slums he is welcomed as a tenant who “makes less
