Does this remind you of “How the Other Half Lives” How so?

Jacob Riis, "Italian Mother and Baby, Ragpicker, New York," ca. 1889-1890.

Jacob Riis, "A Cave Dweller, One of 4 Pedlars Who Slept..." ca. 1890

Jacob Riis, Children sleeping in Mulberry Street (1890)

“Five Cents a Spot”

Jacob Riis

• Danish Immigrant • 1870

• Experienced poverty in NYC• Police Reporter NY Tribune

(Mulberry)• 1889 published images and essays

on poor– 1890, “How Other Half Live”

• Journalist 1873, flash powder camera

• Descriptions, sketches, photographs, statistics

• Filth, disease, exploitation, overcrowding

• "poor were the victims rather than the makers of their fate”, Jacob Riis• Women and children especially

“Some Things We Drink” 1891 “I took my camera and went up in the

watershed photographing my evidence wherever I found it. Populous towns sewered directly into our drinking water. I went to the doctors and asked how many days a vigorous cholera bacillus may live and multiply in running water. About seven, said they. My case was made.”

Harsh Statistics • “Of 508 babies received at the Randall's Island

Hospital last year 333 died, 65.55 per cent. But of the 508 only 170 were picked up in the streets, and among these the mortality was much greater, probably nearer ninety per cent.”

• “Often they come half dead from exposure. One live baby came in a little pine coffin, which a policeman found an inhuman wretch trying to bury in an up-town lot. But many do not live to be officially registered as a charge upon the county. Seventy-two dead babies were picked up in the streets last year.”

Muckrakers Pushing for Change Riis argued for better housing, adequate

lighting and sanitation, and the construction of city parks and playgrounds.

Theodore Roosevelt (police commissioner at the time) called Riis, “the most useful citizen of New York”

The Effects Muckraking

1890 - Street cleaning leagues were set up to engage young people in sanitation-friendly activities

1901 New York State Tenement House Law lights in dark hallways, a

window in each room faces air/light

Courtyard design garbage removal

Good Intentions?

The Tenement House Commission of 1900 wrote: “The most terrible of all the features of tenement house life in New York, however, is the indiscriminate herding of all kinds of people in close contact, the fact, that, mingled with the drunken, the dissolute, the improvident, the diseased, dwell the great mass of the respectable working-men of the city with their families”[

SOCIAL REFORM

On a Local Level

Does it go far enough?

The Social Gospel Spreads through Organizations

Organizations form that exemplify the social gospel

Progressive Groups

The Salvation Army The YMCA NY Society for Ethical Culture Settlement Houses – Hull House Christian Women’s Temperance Union Anti-Saloon League

What type of services did the YMCA, Salvation Army and NY Society for Ethical Culture offer? Basic necessities Education to advance position in society Assimilation

Based on what we have studied thus far, were these services needed?

What do you notice about all of these “reforms?

Role of Women “Christian Values” Morality Proper behavior Proper health Cleanliness Privately run & funded

Is there anything about the services provided or even the names of the organizations that implies something negative?

How effective will these reforms be? What else do they need behind them?

The Littlest Victims…. What can we do?

Lewis Hine – 1911 “Shrimp and Oyster Worker” Mississippi

1880-1919 - 23 million immigrant children1908 US Immigration Commission

58% children in 37 cities had foreign born fathers NY had 72%!!

Progressive Goals For Children• preservation of life• preservation of health• opportunity to play• the education of children• the freedom from toil (work)

In Problems of Child Welfare, George Benjamin Mangold writes that the child is not a commercial asset of the parents and that the relation is exactly reversed – parents should take care of their children until the child reaches a certain age

Play

In 1887, The Small Parks Act was passed Tenement House Commission of 1894

devoted some time to the creation of small parks

Children’s Health

Children’s Bureau, 1912 Hull House –

resident Julia Lanthrop headed program

Reduce maternal and infant mortality

1921 federal funding healthcare infants and moms

Helping Children Through Education

"Democracy has to be born anew every generation, and education is its midwife,“ John Dewey wrote in School and Society, published in 1889

More accessible, better run, make good citizens

Mid 19th century - Mostly private, public school attendance only a few weeks a year during winter!

By 1918 all states had compulsory education laws for elementary school

Mississippi last

1890 7% of 14-17 year olds enrolled in school; by 1920 goes up to 32%

Two Main Objectives….

Individual improvement Social reform

“These Southern and Eastern Europeans are of a different type than north Europeans who preceded (came before) them. Illiterate, docile, lacking in self-reliance and initiative…their coming has served to dilute tremendously our national stock” – 1909 Stanford Professor Ellwood Cubberley

The Curriculum

More than 120 million copies of McGuffey’s readers, which emphasize the ideals of “literacy, hard work, diligence, and virtuous living,” are sold Why??? Who might be behind this?

Ironic?? Massachusetts Teacher article:

“In too many instances the parents are unfit guardians of their own children … the children must be gathered up and forced into school” What does this tell you?

What is the purpose of education?

Teaching to be moral Prevent crime, immorality, the

destruction of America Learning to be “American” and

hopefully teaching their parents Assimilation Anti-Catholic?

1925: Pierce versus Society of Sisters

Good citizens (democracy) Cannot work fulltime if in

school

Does education fix the real problem/s?

What are the real problems? Parents living in poverty How can the kids go to school?

Child’s wages are necessary for survival so cannot go to school

How do you fix this?

Child Labor – America’s Greatest Shame…?

Why children are used? Low wages, small hands/fingers & desperate Some – whole family employed in factory town

Some local laws, usually ignored… How people tried to fight child labor?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_t-9ORCu6zw (7 Minutes) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sb3yCEQxp1E Part 2 (7 minutes)

Exhibitions with images Lewis Hines (photographer) Statistics about injuries and development issues

Labor unions (lowered wages for all)

A national fight against childlabor

Helping the Kids…

Education Reformers: want kids in school, Americanize them, democratization

Moral Reformers: Protect our national “stock”, stop immoral behaviors through teaching

Compassionate People: terrible conditions & safety

Unions: Jobs, hours, pay for adults

Does this end the problem??? What does Sophina’s story tell us?