The Battle With the Slum

by Jacob A. Riis

American journalist JACOB AUGUST RIIS (1849-1914) was the man for whom the term muckraker was coined, and the reason why is perfectly stark in this collection of true stories from the slums of late-19th-century New York City. As a police reporter and photographer for several newspapers in the 1870s, Riis became intimate with-and disgusted by-the most crime-ridden areas of the city, which were inevitably the poorest and most overpopulated by desperate immigrants. An immigrant himself-Riis had emigrated from Denmark-his work had morphed, by the 1880s, into a humanitarian cry for help for the city's most impoverished citizens, and culminated in his groundbreaking 1891 book How the Other Half Lives, a pioneering work of photojournalism that revealed the inhuman conditions of New York's tenements to an oblivious upper class. The Battle with the Slum, dating from 1902, is the sequel to that book, documenting much that had changed in a mere decade, thanks to Riis's own advocacy, and how much work still remained to be done. A replica of that first 1902 edition, complete with all the original photographs and illustrations, this is essential reading for anyone interested in the history of New York, of social justice, and of activist journalism.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Classics, Sociology

465 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1902

About the author

Reports, including How the Other Half Lives (1890), of Danish-born American journalist and reformer Jacob August Riis on living conditions in city slums led to improvements in housing and education.

This Christian helped the impoverished in city of New York; much of his writing focused on those needy. In his youth in Denmark, he read Charles Dickens and James Fennimore Cooper; his works exhibit the story-telling skills, acquired under the tutelage of many English-speaking writers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Riis

Reviews

[Frank Stein · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book, from 1902, is certainly less larded with casual racism and ethnic stereotypes than his last book, "How the Other Half Lives" (1890), and that does make it seem a little more trustworthy and a little more reasonable. And while his other book carried an almost apocalyptic tone, shrilling warning of the perils of the unchurched, "unsexed," and unwashed masses, this book, from 1902, is generally hopeful, and describes the numerous reform attempts to house and wash those masses. Still, most of the outrageously inflated claims he makes for the success of these efforts can be looked at sceptically after 100 years.

Riis is obssessed with playgrounds. He consistently claims that they basically eliminated crime and disease wherever they were created within moments of their establishment. He is also obsessed with knocking down old tenement buildings, claiming that they were the breeding ground of basically all crime, disease, and misfortune in the city. He states that the newly built model tenements have ensured peace, tranquility, and good-morals among all their residents, while his efforts to eliminate the old ones have displaced "only" 12,000 people (?!).

Some of the other reform movements he relates seem simply misguided, like the attempts to establish free municipal baths everywhere downtown, or to create "play piers" in the East River, or to force every school to create a "roof garden" for children and adults. In Riis's telling, every one of these efforts resulted in flag-waving, gleeful street-urchins pledging their lives to hard-work and reform.

Despite it's faults, this is still a great vista of fin-de-siecle New York and the first wave of Progressive politics.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars, but I’ll round up all day long for anything by Jacob Riis. It only took me FOREVER to finish this one, but I’m glad I did because I never tire of the triumphant demonstration of the goodness of humankind that Riis so often uses to close his books.

I’m consistently struck by how timely Riis’s work is, even though it was written over a century ago. He discusses immigration, crime, and the education system, all of which are still very much apart of the modern political conversation. After “the Other Half” Riis did not stop fighting for justice in the slums of Manhattan. He fought long and hard, updating the public, in this particular book, about all the reform that had been done over the years. He admits that there is a long way to go, but he does not say so regretfully. He admits it ready to embrace the challenge.

I love that Riis put so much of his efforts into the betterment of the lives and education of poor children. He wants the best for them because he knows they are the future. His discussion of the centrality of the home and good citizenship was also very interesting.

I look forward to reading more of Riis’s work, as he is such an underrated figure in American history.

[Terry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Still well worth reading!

[RYD · Rating 2 out of 5]

Years ago, I read Jacob Riis' "How the Other Half Lives," and thought it was great. Recently, I read a biography of Riis that I also really enjoyed. This book come across like it is: dated. But there were several passages I highlighted that were timeless. Here's one: "Knocking a man in the head with an axe, or sticking a knife into him, goes against the grain. Slowly poisoning a hundred so that the pockets of one be made to bulge may not even banish a man from respectable society. We are a queer lot in some things."

[Tara Lynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Harvard Online Libraries find...I loved this book, as I do all of Riis' work.

[Jacki · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazingly accurate account of the street life of the poor and the activists that tried desperately to find solutions to the problems, especially in the lives of the vagrant youth.