About this item
Highlights
- Tenements, saloons, and streets -- How did children survive the perils of New York City slums?
- 9.0" x 6.0" Paperback
- 284 Pages
- Young Adult Nonfiction, Family
Description
About the Book
A study of immigrant children in the slums of New York City and the need for social reforms during the Progressive Era. Includes stories about family life, orphans and outcasts, and child labor at the expense of an education. This special edition has new content, stark photographs, and a thorough subject index for students and general readers.Book Synopsis
Tenements, saloons, and streets -- How did children survive the perils of New York City slums? When this book appeared in 1892, it shocked the privileged class. The evidence of misery and greed was undeniable.
The author, Jacob Riis, was a muckraker and social documentary photographer. His exposé includes stories of survival, child abuse and neglect, orphans and outcasts. He wrote about the sorrows and joys of the " little toilers," and gave a resolute account of child labor at the expense of an education.
The Children of the Poor is a companion to Riis' bestseller How the Other Half Lives. His books inspired social reforms during the Progressive Era.
This special edition includes new content, stark photos, and an in-depth subject index. It will appeal to readers interested in the history of child welfare, immigration, urbanization, or photojournalism.
Beautiful design, sturdy binding, acid-free paper, subject index. Suitable for students and general readers.
Review Quotes
"My whole life was influenced by my long association with Jacob Riis, whom I am tempted to call the best American I ever knew." --Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography
"[Riis] forced the destruction of rear tenements ... [he] wiped out Mulberry Bend, the worst tenement block in the city ... won small parks ... labored years for enough schools ... drove bake shops with their fatal fires out of tenement basements ... demanded light for dark tenement hallways ... [and] worked for the abolition of child labor." --Lincoln Steffens, McClure's Magazine and author of The Shame of the Cities
[Riis'] work did "more to educate the general public on this question [of housing for the poor] than the writings of any other person." --The Tenement House Problem