In the Old Testament book of Genesis, it is written that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, the lights, the waters, the stars, the great sea creatures, the livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth (ESV Study Bible, Genesis 1:1-24). Last of all, “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27). Likewise, man became a creator and he too built great things. From the glorious civilizations of ages past and present to the splendor of the churches, history bears witness to man’s creations. But, asks the poet,
Have ye founded your thrones and altars, then,
On the bodies and souls of living men?”
And think ye that building shall endure,
Which shelters the noble and crushes the poor? (Lowell 25-28).
These lines, from James Russell Lowell’s poem, “A Parable,” imply that the oppression of the poor and weak, at the hands of the rich and powerful, bring about the destruction of a nation. Inspired by Lowell’s poem and convicted by his Christian morality, Jacob Riis, a late nineteenth century social reformer, published How the Other Half Lives (1890) so that he might expose the plight of the weak and encourage reform to the living conditions of New York’s poor.
Replete with biblical imagery, How the Other Half Lives refers back to the Genesis account of creation from the very first chapter, “Genesis of the Tenement.” Initially a “blessing” for New York’s working poor, man created the tenant-house in response to the combined demands of industrialization, immigration and urbanization (5). However, unprecedented population growth placed considerable strain on the limited housing resources and before long the wealthy took advantage of ...
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...tian cares for their fellow man is a reflection of how he cares for God himself. In the end, whether or not one subscribes to Jacob Riis’ religious convictions is irrelevant, for his message remains applicable to all.
Works Cited
Davis, Kay. “Photographs and Lantern-Slide Lectures.” Documenting “The
Other Half” The Social Reform Photography of Jacob Riis & Lewis Hine. University of Virginia. 2000-2003. Web. 30 Sep 2011.
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (ESV). Wheaton: Crossway Bibles,
a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. 2001. Print.
Lowell, James Russell. “A Parable.” The Cry for Justice: An Anthology of the
Literature of Social Protest. Ed. Upton Sinclair. Philadelphia: The John C. Winston Co., 1915. Bartleby.com Great Books Online. Web. 30 Sep 2011.
Riis, Jacob. How the Other Half Lives. New York: Dover Publications, 1971.
Print.
Jacob A Riis said “one half of the world does not know how the other half lives” (1) in the introduction of his great book How the Other Half Lives, which was published in 1890. It was simply because the one half did not care how the other half lived. Although unknowing how the other half lives had not been a matter, it brought into relief the gap between people over middle-class and the poor around 1900s in New York City where was the youngest city in the world.
Jacob Riis’ book How the Other Half Lives is a detailed description on the poor and the destitute in the inner realms of New York City. Riis tries to portray the living conditions through the ‘eyes’ of his camera. He sneaks up on the people flashes a picture and then tells the rest of the city how the ‘other half’ is living. As shocking as the truth was without seeing such poverty and horrible conditions with their own eyes or taking in the experience with all their senses it still seemed like a million miles away or even just a fairy tale.
Similarly, the Bible says, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them”(Genesis 1:27).
People have been trying to explain the existence of humans and the origins of our world since ancient times. There are many different theories and myths that attempt to describe the earliest beginnings of our present world. In the Ancient Near East one of the most popular creation myths was the Babylonian creation myth also known as Enuma Elish. Hebrew nomads like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and David lived in tents while traveling to different locations in search of water and pastures for their livestock. Nomads were constantly moving and searching for other places which would have allowed them to hear many different creation myths throughout the Ancient Near East. These nomads would have been surprised by the first chapter of Genesis because it was extremely different than any other creation story they had ever heard of, especially from the Babylonian epic of Enuma Elish. The way Genesis is written would be very attractive and inviting to the Hebrew nomads because it was more realistic and gave human life value more than any other creation myth they would have heard at that time.
We can see the oppressive environment and life in Chicago through Sinclair’s eyes and feel the depressing periods of socialism that, evidently, transformed from a dream to a nightmare. Works Cited Sinclair, Upton. The Jungle. Charleston, South Carolina: Forgotten Books, 1942.
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth (Genesis1:1.) God’s perfect wisdom created everything. In Genesis 1 and 2 we can see that God has loving and gentile nature when He created the earth and heavens. God created man in his image and we are the only creation that God breathed in the breath of life for human beings (Genesis 2:7). God did not do this for any of other creations but only for humans. The Bible has many scriptures that tell us how creative God is. Genesis 1;26 states “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” God created all of this for us to have fellowship with him.
Where Genesis I describes a more ordered creation - the manifestation of a more primitive cultural influence than was responsible for the multi-layered creation in Genesis II - the second creation story focuses less on an etiological justification for the physical world and examines the ramifications of humankind's existence and relationship with God. Instead of Genesis I's simple and repetitive refrains of "and God saw that it was good" (Gen 1:12, 18, 21, 25), Genesis II features a more stylistically advanced look at "the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens" (Gen 2:4). While both stories represent different versions of the same Biblical event, Genesis II is significantly more complex than its predecessor and serves both to quantify the relationship between God and his creations and lay the foundation for the evolving story of humankind as well.
“How the Other Half Lives follows a general outline for the charity writings of the nineteenth century: a section on crime, the Protestant virtues and vices intemperance, idleness, disorder, uncleanliness, miserable conditions of living, disease, the loss of modesty especially in women, the dissolution of the family, the institutions that would help in their uplift, as well as future sources of reform.” The difference was the introduction of photography to prove the squalid conditions, and increase sympathy for the individuals living in these slums. Riis finally convinced the average reader of newspapers that the poor were not so by choice; that the dangerous and unhygienic conditions in which they lived were imposed by society, rather than the result of loose moral standards; that the slums were something that needed to be fixed rather than gaped at or
In Upton Sinclair's 1906 novel, “The Jungle,” he exposes corruption in business and government and its disastrous effects on a family from Lithuania. The novel follows immigrant Jurgis Rudkus as he struggles against the slow ANNIHILATION of his family and is REBORN after discovering that socialism as a cure away to all capitalism’s problems. The Jungle is an example of protest literature because it exposes in a muckraking style the DANGEROUS, INHUMAINE conditions that workers lived and worked in, corruption in business and politics and the unsanitary meat that was sold.
In 1890, Riis’ book was an instant success and had an immediate impact since it contained major social criticism, proving to be an eye-opening experience for the reader by highlighting details and facts incorporated in its pages. In a coincidence of good times, flash photography had recently been invented, yet Riis managed to master this new invention and became a pioneer in its use, employing the new technique to capture stark perturbing scenes. “The images he brought to the public’s eye were full of crowded tenements, dangerous slums and poignant street-scene images of a downtrodden underclass that most readers had only previously read about, at best.” Theodore Roosevelt, moved by Riis’s usage of pathos had an intent on improving life in New York, and he famously said to Riis, “I have read your book, and I have come to help” and improvement followed as he ordered affairs in immigrant neighborhoods. Riis brought hidden worlds to light and he continued to write many other books relating to the same topic.
History textbooks seem to always focus on the advancements of civilization, often ignoring the humble beginnings in which these achievements derive. How the Other Half Lives by journalist-photographer Jacob A. Riis explores the streets of New York, using “muck-racking” to expose just how “the other half lives,” aside from the upbeat, rich, and flapper-girl filled nights so stereotypical to New York City in the 1800s. During this time, immigrants from all over the world flooded to the new-born city, bright-eyed and expecting new opportunities; little did they know, almost all of them will spend their lives in financial struggle, poverty, and crowded, disease-ridden tenements. Jacob A. Riis will photograph this poverty in How the Other Half Lives, hoping to bring awareness to the other half of New York.
The word “genesis”, in the original Hebrew, means “in the beginning”; the book of Genesis tells the account of how all of earth, humanity, celestial bodies, and life came to be. It is more than just a historical document about the origins of life itself; it is a book that establishes the foundation of the Christian faith, and it affects the worldviews that are held by the believers in faith. When analyzing Genesis, it is arguable that chapters one through eleven are very crucial in shaping the way Christians view the natural world, human identity, human relationships, and civilization.
...of the entire Earth and Humans shown in the text of the Hebrew Bible/ Old Testament “And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good”. God approved of what he had made and felt it was the perfect creation of Earth.
‘Out of the hillock the first god emerged. He was referred to as a ‘he’ for the mere sake of expediency, but he embodied both the male and female principles with himself. As a result this enabled him to create new forms all by himself without the help of another deity. By spitting and masturbating he created a pair of new gods. This new pair copulated and created another pair, who in turn created another pair. This continued until the entirety of the cosmos had come into
Every day God created something new and blesses it. God created nothing irrelevant or unworthy. Entirely everything he created served a purpose. Also all he had created came from nothing. The fish were undeniably produced out of the waters, and the beasts and man out of the earth; but that earth and those waters were made out of nothing. God created what is known as the world today and everything that exists on the earth. Reading Genesis 1 gives all mankind an idea of how life started and how the earth was formed to be this magnificent place. The earth is very complicated yet God could solve all of the problems and create blessings. He gave us light and darkness, day and night, water and land. He created all living creature including mankind.