...grew from the problems. Even though the United States became known as the land of opportunities it also had its gloomy side to it. The Progressive Era showed how people underwent poor housing, deterioration due to unsanitary food production, and workers related death due to no work regulations. This lead to the reforms of fixing these problems that were leaving the United States with a dissatisfied society. The first problem came from uncomfortable living environment the families were set to live in. Towards the beginning, tenements were a comfortable place for living. More immigrants were coming in everyday and the tenements became crowded. For example, multi family dwellings had two to three families living in a one family room. This lead to unsanitary conditions for living. Certain families would have no window in their part of the room leading to no fresh air or natural light. A reform proposed by the Progressives to improve this situation was, dumbbell tenements (Notes 7). These tenements had a dumbbell shape, pinched in the middle, creating an alley in between the two buildings. The purpose for these tenements...
Words: 662 - Pages: 3
...when he revealed to the world, combining detailed written descriptions with graphic photographs, the horrific conditions of New York City’s tenement housing. How the Other Half Lives raised many questions, such as how and why the poor are subjected to such terrible living conditions and how that environment affects them. Riis also reveals his fears and prejudices toward certain ethnic groups as he investigates each tenement in order to find some kind of solution. The miserable surroundings Riis discusses throughout the length of his entire document focus on the tenement. The tenement is a building, which due to the immigration boom was modified by its landlord to create as many rooms as possible, therefore sacrificing the human necessities of air and light. Riis says, “Large rooms were partitioned into several smaller ones, without regard to light or ventilation.”(Pg. 69) These rooms were too small to house one family and too dark and stagnant too live in, yet it was common to have as many as three or four families in one “apartment”! Tenements are the pit of filth, hot, dank and disease ridden. It was very common for a whole building to be wiped out by a disease such as cholera. The tenants were so cramped that many babies died of “foul air”, the cause of which was no ventilation. Deaths due to the poor condition of the tenement houses were so great the first year...
Words: 1676 - Pages: 7
...Apartment • Apartment: a relatively self-contained housing unit in a building which is often rented out to one person or a family, or two or more people sharing a lease in a partnership, for their exclusive use. Sometimes called a flat or digs (slang). Some locales have legal definitions of what constitutes an apartment. In some locations, "apartment" denotes a building that was built specifically for such units, whereas "flat" denotes a unit in a building that had been originally built as a single-family house, but later on subdivided into some multi-unit house type.[5] • Apartment building, Block of flats: a multi-unit dwelling made up of several (generally four or more) apartments. Contrast this with the two-family house and the three-family dwelling. An apartment (in US English) or flat (in British English and often associated with or miscontrued as social housing) is a self-contained housing unit (a type of residential real estate) that occupies only part of a building. Such a building may be called an apartment building, especially if it consists of many apartments for rent. Apartments may be owned by an owner/occupier or rented by tenants (two types of housing tenure). The term apartment is favored in North America, whereas the term flat is commonly, but not exclusively, used in the United Kingdom, Hong Kong and most Commonwealth countries. In Malaysian English, flat often denotes a housing block of lesser quality meant for lower-income groups, while apartment...
Words: 12388 - Pages: 50
...of the most influential factors were overpopulation, lack of living wages, and diseases. Perhaps the biggest of the three factors was overpopulation, which was mainly due to a huge influx of immigrants arriving in the U.S. As a result, the city's infrastructure was overwhelmed and did not have a place to provide for the immigrants. In addition to overpopulation, terrible living conditions were caused by the lack of funding for infrastructure. A temporary solution for both of these problems was the creation of tenements. Tenements were low-rise apartment buildings that were converted into barracks; tenements were overcrowded by landlords, who were trying to exploit desperate immigrants in need of a place to stay. The population in New York skyrocketed over a ten-year span, from 1,206,299 in 1880 to 1,575,073 in 1889. The overpopulation and the lack of proper infrastructure brewed like the perfect storm in the gilded age city. Many immigrants resorted to renting out cheaper alternatives to the tenements because they simply could not afford to pay the exorbitant rates. Some had to resort to renting out to stay at places for three cents a night in the Bend. Others were forced to stay in police stations or any other type of shelter, the most unlucky of the population had no other alternative except what we would know today as homelessness. One of the most influential factors in the terrible conditions for the immigrants during the Gilded age stemmed from the rise of trusts and...
Words: 928 - Pages: 4
...During the progressive age, the American people pursued to change dangerous tenements, child labor issues, the unsanitary conditions in the meatpacking industries, and the unfairness of the political bosses. Tenements The cities was overcrowded with industrial workers. Most lived in low cost multifamily housing designed to squeeze in as many people as possible. Several families shared the same apartment. There was few windows and little sanitation and no water or electricity. It was run down, dangerous, and unhealthy buildings. Cites was filthy because of poor sanitation. The streets was littered with trash because there was no garbage disposal system. Horse and human waste dumped in the streets. The use of candles, lanterns, kerosene heaters, and wooded buildings side by side cause big fire problems. Like the Great Chicago fire in 1871. Child labor The percentage of working children ages between ten and fifteen decreased about sixty-eight percent from 1890 to 1920. Children often worked long hours in dangerous factory conditions for very little money. Children were useful as laborers because their size allowed them to move in small spaces in...
Words: 423 - Pages: 2
...change the environment—from housing to food safety—moved from public health to other governmental agencies. The limitations of our medicalized public health system, with its focus on individual behavior, have become clear when we review the lack of progress over recent decades in reducing rates of diabetes, asthma, and obesity, or in creating equitable health status across racial and ethnic lines. Today’s public health challenges require that the public health workforce travel well upstream to have a positive effect on the health of their communities. As public health practitioners become attuned to the critical interaction of populations with their social, cultural, and physical environments, they are identifying strategies beyond individual solutions and addressing environmental factors to create living conditions that promote health. Nurses make up the single largest professional discipline in the public health workforce today, and the time has come for them to play key roles again in this crucial function of public health practice. By the end of the 20th century, public health nurses found their realm of action shifting from earlier broad environmental health and safety concerns to a focus on individual health. With the new century underway, the time is ripe for a widespread return of public health nursing practice to leadership roles in improving health through broader environmental and social action. Historical background The modern public...
Words: 529 - Pages: 3
...children’s childhood met by living in the horrid tenement buildings. According to Riss, “Life in the tenements in July and august spells death to an army of little ones whom the doctor’s skill is powerless to save…little coffins are stacked mountains high on the deck of the Charity Commissioners’ boat,” (Riss Source 1). Riss’ appealed to the sympathy of his readers by describing the dreadful amount of children that were dying due to the inhumane living conditions present in the tenement buildings. The muckrakers tried to gain their reader’s sympathy for the Americans who were suffering in this...
Words: 1584 - Pages: 7
...rise in urban industry. Low cost housing was built with no consideration for the needs of its inhabitants, houses were often without running water,no sanitation and with floorboards laid on bare earth, poor roofing and the use of ‘Billysweet’ a soap making byproduct instead of traditional mortar meant that houses were damp and of extremely poor quality and thus rapidly declined...
Words: 655 - Pages: 3
...businesses and improvements in public health. The historical trends discuss why the Gilded Age should be separated from the years, 1865 to 1879 and the Progressive Era from 1880-1920s. The Gilded Age should be renamed the era of unsolved problems as a result of the Industrial Revolution. The Industrial Revolution caused strikes, poverty and the mistreatment of workers. The Progressive era should be rename the era of action, as government increased...
Words: 497 - Pages: 2
...HQ: During the Progressive Era and Gilded Age how did the government affect child labor, food sanitation and immigrants? Thesis: Throughout these time periods the government attempted to resolve the problems of child labor, food sanitation and immigrants to the best of their ability and in result helped the environment. Boys and girls only the age of 10 through 12 worked in dangerous working conditions for 10 hours and to only get paid 10 cent per day (Doc A). Most children didn't have a education, but very few could read at low level. However, there was night schooling for them but after working those long hours, most children didn't go because they were overworked and tired. For example, in 1910 a little girl only 11 years...
Words: 805 - Pages: 4
...in the South Bronx lead to more crime. Violent and nonviolent crimes occur more in low income communities. Tremont is a neighborhood in the Bronx struck with poverty leading to more problems exacerbated by the construction of the Cross Bronx Expressway between 1948 to 1972. On the other hand, the Lower East Side in Manhattan where many immigrants reside is going through the opposite. This community is going through gentrification which means higher income residents are moving into the community. History of East Tremont First recorded in 1609 by European settler Henry Hudson , the Bronx...
Words: 601 - Pages: 3
...factory based production. Britain was the first nation in the world to go through the process of becoming industrialised. The industrial Revolution is thought to have begun at some time in the 18th century, and continued to the 20th century. Historical evidence shows that, during this period, industrialisation transformed British society and the lives of British people. Social transformation did not happen suddenly,as though one Britain was a pre-industrial, agricultural society and next it was ‘indusrtialised’. There was a gradual change in methods of production and the location of people’s work that combined with other important social, political and economic developments-are linked to the developments of major health and social welfare problems. This essay is going to look at how industrialisation At the beginning of the 18th century, Britain was primarly an agricultural country with most people living in rural areas. The population of Britain was only 9 million, but was about to expand rapidly. The majority of workers and industries operated within domestic system. This involved people working in their own homes to produce goods, or components of goods, and also to cultivate food on their own farm or piece of land. The advantages of this system were that workers and their families were free to work for themselves at their own pace, work and family life was relatively intergrated, and working conditions could be controlled by workers. During the 18th century there was a gradual...
Words: 3626 - Pages: 15
...War After the Civil War the United States became a much more industrialized society. Between 1865 in 1920 industrialization and proved American life in many ways. However industrialization also created problems for American society. This paper will introduce my previously crafted thesis statement where I stated my opinion on how industrialization after the Civil War influenced US society, economy, and politics. This paper will also identify three major aspect of the industrialization during 1865 in 1920 that influenced United States society, economy, and politics while considering issues such as; geography, entrepreneurship, and legislative representation. This paper will also identify three specific groups that were affected by industrialization and provide two examples of each group describing how the group was affected while considering issues such as race, ethnicity, gender, and child labor. Finally this paper will summarize how industrialization affected the life of the average working American during this period. After the Civil War the United States became a much more industrialized society. Between 1865 in 1920 industrialization improved American life in many ways. However industrialization also created problems for American society. When industrialization, which is the large scale introduction of manufacturing, advanced technical enterprises, and other productive economic activity, (Industrialization, 2014) came to the...
Words: 1781 - Pages: 8
...The Section 8 program is also known as the Housing Choice Voucher Program. The program is a Federal Government housing or rent assistance program. It provides different forms of housing assistance to low income renters and even homeowners. The main people who receive this assistance are low income individuals or families who are living in poverty, the elderly, and the disabled. This program helps families to afford decent, safe, and sanitary housing. This can be single-family homes, townhouses, and apartments. The families that qualify for the assistance it pays the monthly rental fee for the homes and apartments that are located anywhere. There are many public housing agencies that certify the tenants and the people who participate in the...
Words: 1535 - Pages: 7
...During the Progressive Era, the Progressives created reforms because they believed in the improvement of society. Many reforms had different outcomes. Some reforms were noticed and were solved, while others were neglected. There was a variety of reforms created such as urban life problems, racism, and the lack of women’s rights. Overall, I believe that the progressives deserve a B+ from the events that took place during this era. For most of the issues that they faced, they handled it appropriately, but there were a few issues that they didn’t control properly. Some reforms were addressed while others weren’t focused on and were left unsolved. One very significant part to the movement was woman suffrage. A famous leading figure in the women’s...
Words: 671 - Pages: 3
