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Review Of Jacob Riss's 'How The Other Half Lives'

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How the Other Half Lives is a well written chronicle by Jacob Riss during the era of the late 1800s and the early 1900s in order to bring awareness of the abandoned immigrants that lived in what is described as the lower part of Manhattan. Immigrants from all over and different ethnicities like the Germans, African- Americans,Chinese,Irish,Jews,Italians,and the Bohemians would flee to New York. Most immigrants would live in what are called tenements which were owned by the some of the wealthiest families. After the year of 1900 approximately 80,000 tenements were created. A good majority of the population lived in tenements. Tenement living conditions were dirty and not safe for people to live in. They also had very high rates in crime and had a large amount of a variety of diseases. With many diseases there was more than 5,000 deaths due to cholera. Then he goes in depth in each chapter describing each race and the characteristics that they have and also how those immigrants are portrayed by others. Riss defines the harsh environment that the people live in and describes how the harsh yet shocking of the society. He speaks of the illegal and legal events that were happening during the time. Jacob also goes on to explain how each the adult suffered because of the number of infants that were dying. …show more content…

Matthew the creator of the review acknowledges the poor living conditions and the epidemic diseases of the times. The reviewer further goes on to summarize the novel and explains the immigrant ethnicities and how they played a role to giving examples of the living conditions in the tenements. The second person to review the novel Roy describes the novel of the many people who died during The Progressive era. He goes on to speak of the segregation of the ethnicities and also the separation of the wealthy and people living in poverty. Further in the review he gives a short biography of the

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