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

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

2. Jacob Riis, Children sleeping in Mulberry Street (1890) 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

3. “Five Cents a Spot”

4. 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

5. “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.”

6. 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.”

7. 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”

8. 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

9. 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”[

10. Social Reform On a Local Level

11. Does it go far enough?

12. The Social Gospel Spreads through Organizations Organizations form that exemplify the social gospel

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

14. 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?

15. 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?

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

17. The Littlest Victims…. What can we do? • 1880-1919 - 23 million immigrant children • 1908 US Immigration Commission • 58% children in 37 cities had foreign born fathers • NY had 72%!! • Lewis Hine – 1911 “Shrimp and Oyster Worker” Mississippi

18. 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

19. Play • In 1887, The Small Parks Act was passed • Tenement House Commission of 1894 devoted some time to the creation of small parks

20. 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

21. 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%

22. 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

23. 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?

24. 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

25. 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?

26. 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)

27. A national fight against childlabor • 1904 – National Child Labor Committee – investigated child labor conditions • Mary Harris Jones, i.e, Mother Jones Children’s Crusade, “we want to go to school, not the mines” -march from Philly to NY • Keating-Owen Act – 1916 • Prohibit transportation over state lines goods that were made by child labor • Supreme Court declared Keating-Own Act unconstitutional • States did create own laws

28. 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

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