How the Other Half Lives: A Norton Critical Edition / Edition 1

by Jacob Riis, Hasia R. Diner

Overview

How the Other Half Lives occupies a premier place on a small list of American books—along with Uncle Tom’s Cabin, The Jungle, Silent Spring, The Feminine Mystique, and Unsafe at Any Speed—that changed public opinion, influenced public policy, and left an indelible mark on history.

The text of this Norton Critical Edition is based on the 1901 Scribner edition and includes all 47 of Riis’s unforgettable photographs, along with 2 maps. It is accompanied by Hasia Diner’s insightful introduction and detailed explanatory annotations.

An unusually rich “Contexts” section includes autobiographical writings by Riis, observations of “the other half” by Riis contemporaries, including William T. Elsing, Thomas Byrnes, William Dean Howells, Lilliam W. Betts, John Spargo, and Lillian Wald, and contemporary evaluations of Riis and his seminal book by, among others, Warren P. Adams, Joseph B. Gilder, Margaret Burton, and Theodore Roosevelt.

From the many hundreds of books and articles published on Riis and How the Other Half Lives, Hasia Diner has selected nineteen interpretations of the central aspects of author and work. Among these are Jacob Prager on Riis as immigrant and crusader; Louise Ware on Riis the police reporter, reformer, and “useful citizen”; Roy Lubove on the Progressive Movement and tenement reform; Richard Tuerk on Riis and the Jews; Maren Strange on American social documentary photography; Katrina Irving on immigrant mothers; and Timothy J. Gilfoyle on “street culture” and immigrant children.

A Chronology of Riis’s life and work and a Selected Bibliography are also included.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393930269
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	06/22/2009
Series:	Norton Critical Editions Series
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	576
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 9.20(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Hasia R. Diner is Director of the Goldstein-Goren Center for American Jewish History and Paul S. and Sylvia Steinberg Professor of American Jewish History at New York University. She is the author of The Jews of the United States, 1645 to 2000; Hungering for America: Italian, Irish and Jewish Foodways in the Age of Migration; Her Works Praise Her: A History of Jewish Women in America from Colonial Times to the Present; The Lower East Side Memories: The Jewish Place in America; In the Almost Promised Land: American Jews and Blacks, 1915–1935; and A Time for Gathering, 1820–1880: The Second Migration (Volume 2 of The Jewish People of America, edited by Henry Feingold) and coeditor of Remembering the Lower East Side: American Jewish Reflections.

Table of Contents

Introduction vii

A Note on the Text xv

List of Illustrations xvii

The Text of How the Other Half Lives 1

Contexts 167

Map: Lower Manhattan, Late 1800s 168

Map: The Five Points in the 1800s 169

About Riis-In his Own Words 171

From the Making of an American Jacob A. Riis 171

Riis's Contemporaries Observe the "Other Half" 193

From The Dangerous Classes of New York and Twenty Years' Work among Them Charles Loring Brace 193

Tenement- house Morality J. O. S. Huntington 203

From the Poor in Great Cities William T. Elsing 209

Nurseries of Crime Thomas Byrnes 226

From the Housing of the Poor Marcus T. Reynolds 232

From A Daughter of the Tenements Edward W. Townsend 241

From Impressions and Experiences William Dean Howells 248

From First Report of the Tenement House Department of the City of New York, 1902-03 255

Tenement House Reform: Its Practical Results in the "Battle Row" District, New York Francis R. Cope Jr. 274

From The Leaven in a Great City Lillian W. Betts 291

Proposals Affecting Immigration John J. D. Trenor 300

From the Bitter Cry of the Children John Spargo 310

Neighbors Anonymous 316

From the House on Henry Street Lillian D. Wald 317

Contemporary Evaluations of Riis and How the Other Half Lives 324

Boston and "The Other Half" Warren P. Adams 324

The Making of Jacob A. Riis Joseph B. Gilder 327

From Comrades in Service Margaret E. Burton 329

From An Autobiography Theodore Roosevelt 337

From The Autobiography of Lincoln Steffens Lincoln Steffens 345

Criticism 355

From Jacob A. Riis: Police Reporter, Reformer, Useful Citizen Louise Ware 357

Jacob Riis Charles J. Lotz 362

From From the Depths: TheDiscovery of Poverty in the United States Robert H. Bremner 367

From The Progressives and the Slums: Tenement House Reform in New York City, 1890-1917 Roy Lubove 379

From Jacob A. Riis: Photographer and Citizen Alexander Alland Sr. 399

From Jacob A. Riis and the American City James B. Lane 440

From From Main Street to State Street: Town, City, and Community in American Park Dixon Goist 452

Jacob Riis and the Jews Richard Tuerk 463

From Silver Cities: Photographing American Urbanization, 1839-1939 Peter Bacon Hales 477

From Symbols of Ideal Life: Social Documentary Photography in America, 1890-1950 Maren Stange 483

From Immigrant Mothers: Narratives of Race and Maternity, 1890-1925 Katrina Irving 490

From Fighting Poverty with Virtue: Moral Reform and America's Urban Poor, 1825-2000 Joel Schwartz 505

From Slumming: Morality and Space in the New York City-from "City Mysteries" to the Harlem Renaissance Robert M. Dowling 507

From "Unhuman Humanity": Bodies of the Urban Poor and the Collapse of Realist Legibility Joseph Entin 509

Newsboy Funerals: Tables of Sorrow and Solidarity in Urban America Vincent DiGirolamo 516

Street-Rates and Gutter-Snipes: Child Pickpockets and Street Culture in New York City, 1850-1900 Timothy J. Gilfoyle 532

A Chronology Jacob Riis 551

Selected Bibliography 553