Week of Apr. 25

As you read these Chapters,

While reading Chapter IV, watch the focus on the life of poor children. Imagine, both as yourself ans as your alter-ego, what life was like for them. Also look up a view of the areas using Google Maps. They still exist, though they have certainly changed. Find interesting streets, and then put a link to the street in your resource folder on Bridges. For example, here is a link to a streetview of Chatham Square. Browse to see what you find. Are any of the back alleys still there? Make a short text comment in your resource folder as well, I have put one in mine as an example.

While reading Chapter V, look for examples of ethnic prejudice. For example, he writes, The Italian comes in at the bottom, and in the generation that came over ta he stays there. In the slums he is welcomed as a tenant who "makes less trouble" than the contentious Irishman or the order-loving German, that is to say: is content to live in a pig-sty and submits to robbery at the hands of the rent-collector without murmur." Make a text comment in your resource folder. Given the age in which Riis wrote, are we to blame him for his prejudice to the same extene we would blame him now? What do you think? Here, too, check out "East Harlem" on Google Maps. Who seems to live there now? You may have to google Missionary Baptist Church to guess, because Google blocks out faces to preserve privacy. The buildings on the left are properties of the New York Housing Authority Click to learn more about it, and follow some links to see what's going on today. You might add one of the linkes there to your resource folder.

While reading Chapter VI, note that the emphasis here is on mortality and illness, which takes us back to our look at some things last week. The online chapter includes a picture of "The Bend" as it was when this website published the version as well as it was when Riis published his. You might see if you can find other pictures of The Bend as it was then and as it is now. The New York Public Library Digital Resource Collection might be a good place to start. You might find something useable in your Diary. You might also look here.

While reading Chapter VII. Prohibition of Alcohol was coming shortly after The Gilded Age. Riis likely favored prohibition by the time it came along in 1916. In this chapter he says "As a thief never owns to his calling, however devoid of moral scruples, preferring to style himself a speculator, so this real home-product of the slums, the stale-beer dive, is known about "the Bend" by the more dignified name of the two-cent restaurant." Look at the pictures, and decide which one most merits class time for discussion. Imagine a night on the town in a two-cent restaurant. What would it be like?

The Library of Congress has just announced the opening of a new online resource exhibition on Jacob Riis. The picture below is from that collection. Find something interesting in the collection add a link to your resource collection and make a comment about what is interesting about it.