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CHAPTER XVIII. THE REIGN OF RUM.Year 1890

Eight young males pose for a picture all wearing similar clothing. They all have coats and hats, but the young teenager in the middle (Coatless) stands out as he is the only one without a coat. The guy (Drinker) to his left (our right) is drinking out of a metal mug, and to this lads left another guy (Observer) is looking at him, but it may be easy to miss him as one of the boys (Blocker) is in front of him, blocking most of the Observer from the photo. In front of Blocker is a sheep, and to the right (our left) of Coatless is a guy (Mr. Chill) sitting on what may be a tree stump and leaning back looking with a disturbed look on his face at Drinker. On Mr. Chill’s right is his friend (Mr. Cool) with his hat tilted covering his right eye, Mr. Cool is staring at the camera man (Jacob A. Riis), while leaning on a low wall. Behind Mr. Chill is another friend (The Watcher) who is watching the Drinker. Behind Coatless is the final acquaintance (Mr. Slick) with his hat tipped forward he is looking directly at Jacob. The photograph is taken at the West Thirty-seventh Street dock in New York City, and Jacob names the photo “A Growler Gang in Session”. Jacob offered to take the picture after encountering the bunch in the dock, and noticing that the gang had a successful raid of some sort. Due to the group’s young age and gang related activities, the group was thrilled to receive publicity and recognition for their actions, this is why they were willing to pose for and allow Jacob to take several photos of the group. These kind of gangs target sleeping drunks to steal from and obtain easy money, but if a member can easily murder someone defenseless, then the member is likely to take this action to obtain respect from the other members, and go down in history as a murderer. Gaining full membership means a member is no longer a kid, but a tough hardened criminal equal to the rest of the members. A common goal is to end up appearing in the newspapers as a well known criminal. The sheep that was with the Growler Gang was most likely the groups meal to be, as slaughter-houses were common, and one was near by.

CHAPTER XVI. WAIFS OF THE CITY’S SLUMS.

Twenty or more children wearing identical white bed gowns pray in front of their beds. They all have their eyes closed and you can see dolls underneath each of the beds. There are identical beds in this photo all neatly lined up against both walls. This photograph was taken at Five Points House of Industry which is a nursery school with over four hundred children. This photograph was named Prayer Time in the Nursery, and it shows a glimpse of the importance this house had on the lives of many children. Unlike many other government institutions who tried without prevail, Five Points House of Industry takes in children who have been abandoned, abused, neglected and works to give them a better chance and  a better future. Underneath these white gowns many of these children have scars and other evidence of abuse from their life before the house. Children and Infants suffered greatly in these times of poverty as they were constantly being abandoned, killed, or abused. Mothers would drop off their children on the doorsteps of wealthy families without knowing that hardly any of these infants actually were taken in by these well off families. They were taken to the police station and then taken to the Hospital on Randalls Island. These mothers did not realize that in doing this, they were not providing their children with a better future but rather killing them. 65 percent of the children received by the hospital would die and many more would never get picked up and would die in the cold streets from exposure. Many began to exploit the children’s lives as well. Children would be murdered in order to collect profit from their life insurance and institutions commonly referred to as baby farms would starve the children to death. They would pay a medical to come by and deem the death inanition meaning exhaustion due to lack of nutrition. So common was the abandonment of infants that nuns had to remove the crib they had set up outside the church as the amount of babies there were receiving no longer fit. They moved the crib indoors forcing the mothers to drop of their infants in front of the nuns who would then ask them to stay. If the mother refused she would not be scolded or spoken down to, she would just make her way out. So common were these occurrences that mothers who abandoned their children where seldom questioned. The glowing white robes the children wear along with their serene faces in prayer shows the value in institutions such as Five Points House of Industry. These children are alive, safe, and had a legitimate chance of surviving. The goal of places like this was to defend the defenseless and prevent young lives from ending before their time. The lined up beds, the matching clothes, and the nighttime prayer all suggest order which is something that was extremely lacking in this time. This charity did discriminate on neither class nor race and touched the lives of many children. Not often would one see happier or safer children than you would in these institutions.

Chapter VIII The Cheap Lodging-HousesYear 1890

Jacob A. Riis quotes a justice of the court in his book How the Other Half Lives regarding his experiences with Cheap Lodging Housing. “The ten-cent lodging-houses more than counter-balance the good done by the free reading–room, lectures, and all other agencies of reform. Such lodgings-houses have caused more destitution, more beggary and crime than any other agency I know of.” New York 1887 is a growing city unable to accommodate an ever-increasing number of European immigrants looking for a better life. This gave birth to the city’s tenement buildings where a new American citizen could rent a room from 25cents to 3 cents. 25cents will get you a small room just big enough to hold a cot and a chair. 15cents will get you a bed in room full of others with not even a curtain for privacy. 10 cent and 7 cent lodgings are pretty much the same kind of hell for its renters. A canvas hung across some boards to sleep on and that is all. No place to keep your belongings if you had any. These were the legal lodging-houses; there were unlicensed ones for 5 and 3 cents, which would get you a place to sit in a room or the hallway respectively. All better than what was rumored to be happening in other countries were they would string a clothes line across a room and rent a spot to hang your armpits over to hold you up as you slept for the bargain price of 1 cent. Over 5 million men used these lodgings every year and made some people very rich. One man used as an example owned 3 tenement buildings and made over 8000$ a year. The only kindness showed to the tenants came from Tammany hall when voting time rolled around and they would have been given a free meal to make sure they voted for whoever was buying their votes that year.

The Picture that brings to mind a barrack at any concentration camp during WW2 shows canvas beds strung across boards in a large room with one wood stove in the middle of the room. No chance at privacy with neighbors’ 15inches away on either side or someone on top of you. No place to keep any belongings safe while you work forcing you to take everything you own with you. No place to hide from the disease that spread to everybody living there. The tenants of this Seven-cent lodging-house at least had a window most didn’t. The first two tenement acts passed helped improve living conditions some, but not enough by most standards. The Tenement Act of 1901 required all new construction to have a outside facing window, indoor toilets, an open courtyard, proper ventilation systems and fire safeguards. Jacob A. Riis’s How the Other Half Lives played a part in improving living conditions for New York city’s poor immigrants.