The Battle with the Slum (New York City) [Paperback]

Jacob A. Riis (Author)

Book Description

Series: New York City | Publication Date: January 27, 1998

Splendid sequel to author's 1902 classic, How the Other Half Lives. Compelling real-life tales, accompanied by rare photographs and engravings, report on the status of living conditions among New York City's poor and exploited, including successful efforts to demolish breeding grounds of crime and the removal from power of Boss Tweed and the Tammany organization.

Product Details

• Paperback: 480 pages
• Publisher: Dover Publications (January 27, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0486401960
• ISBN-13: 978-0486401966
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,080,134 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lower East Side battlefield, June 27, 2004

By 

Rocco Dormarunno (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Battle with the Slum (New York City) (Paperback)

What sets THE BATTLE WITH THE SLUM apart from Jacob Riis' classic, HOW THE OTHER HALF LIVES, is this book's more active response to the conditions of the poor and disenfranchised in New York City's slums. HOW THE OTHER HALF LIVES was a breakthrough in reporting. The reader was given a barrage of facts and statistics, as well as photographs and ethnic break-downs of each of the immigrant groups.

While THE BATTLE WITH THE SLUM also includes photographs and statistics, it also reports on HOW these conditions have to be handled, and details the victories Riis and the reformers achieved in ridding the area of its more notorious elements. In almost militaristic fashion, Riis and the reformers battled corrupt local political machines (read Tammany Hall), interested businesses, and greedy landlords. Each neighborhood is practically mapped out like a battlefield. While HOW THE OTHER HALF LIVES gives the reader an appreciation for the suffering that the poor, BATTLE WITH THE SLUM gives the reader an appreciation for Jacob Riis and what others like him have done.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Politics and Poverty, December 31, 2003

By 

Joanna Daneman (Middletown, DE USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 10 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Battle With the Slum (Hardcover)

Though not as heart-rending as "How the Other Half Lives", this book by Riis is important to shed light on how society cleaned up some of the worst slums in US history.

Tammany Hall, the Democratic party machine, was responsible for political patronage jobs that were do-nothing plums; a photo shows the street-cleaning of Tammany broomsmen versus that of a reformer who took over cleaning the precinct's streets. Various charitable societies worked strenuously to ameliorate the worst of the slums, to pass laws requiring light and air in tenements, though landlords were clever in circumventing or perverting the legal requirements (a window in a room could be on an inside wall; the airshaft--a thin passageway between buildings was all the air many apartments got.) Schools were at first overcrowded rooms with no desks, no ventilation and seventy students attempting to learn. Reformers got desks, ventilated buildings, smaller class sizes. This is a fascinating story of how people worked together to try to better an abusive situation in the poorest sections of American cities.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wake up Call, November 6, 2000

By 

krystlep (Dallas, Tx) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Battle with the Slum (New York City) (Paperback)

This book hilights the lows of urban life around the turn of the century, a time when immigration and migration were happening all around. City life in america had a huge underside with noise, crime, poverty, and squalor. Racial and ethnic conflicts were previlant. Riis' photos capture this side of city life in America.