Gilded Age and Progressive Era (1870-1920)

“Today three-fourths of its [New York’s] people live in tenements. . . . If it shall appear that the sufferings and the sins of the ‘other half,’ and the evil they breed, are but as a just punishment upon the community that gave it no other choice, it will be because that is the truth. . . . In the tenements all the influences make for evil; because they are the hotbeds of the epidemics that carry death to rich and poor alike; the nurseries of pauperism and crime that fill our jails and police courts; that throw off a scum of forty thousand human wrecks to the island asylums and workhouses year by year; that turned out in the last eight years around half million beggars to prey upon our charities; that maintain a standing army of ten thousand tramps with all that that implies; because above all, they touch the family life with deadly moral contagion.” Jacob A. Riis, journalist, How the Other Half Lives, 1890

Briefly describe one living condition in the tenements of New York City during the late 19th century.

Briefly explain how the tenement conditions in New York City during the Gilded Age reflect broader social trends of the period.

Briefly explain how the tenement conditions in New York City during the Gilded Age reflect broader economic trends of the period.