Class War in Chicago

America, circa 1900, had virtually no middle class. Cities like Chicago had neighborhoods of high society and old money and slums of immigrants suffering in atrocious conditions. The separation of these two classes, the rulers from the serfs, and overall alienation from nature allowed the living and working environments of the lower class to become unbearable. With no power to fight for themselves, the poor, along with the environment itself, were simply ignored. Until the wealthy took notice of the great injustices occurring in their own city, reform movements could not happen.

Lewis Hine, a photographer in the early 20th century, decided that only facts would compel people to want change. He set out to document the tragic lifestyles of the lower class. In the film, America and Lewis Hine, a recording despairs, “We do not live in America, we live underneath America. America goes on overhead.” This sentiment was echoed through the slums of America. Working conditions, a focus of Hine’s, were especially deplorable. The standard of the day was perfect work or no pay, with child labor a common occurrence. At home, women and children as young as three worked long hours, seven days a week. In factories, men struggled to survive, with death and injury extremely common.

Jacob Riis, another photographer, focused on living conditions in his book How the Other Half Lives. With the perfection of a flash camera, he was able to show the upper class the horrors of tenements in the slums. An influx of immigrants to cities led to overpopulation, which created these tenements – houses converted to accommodate as many people as possible. Urbanization and Industrialization had indeed improved conditions across America, but not e...

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...nues today. Because America is set on appeasing those with the most money to pay in taxes, movements such as Occupy Wall Street occur. Until America will listen to the demands of the lower and middle class without being backed by the richest 1%, there will always be a need for dissent and protest.

Works Cited

America and Lewis Hine (1996).

Steven Forbes and Robert Earle Richardson. Some Recent Changes in Illinois River Biology. 1919. PSW 16-28

Jane Addams, Twenty Years at Hull House, Chapter XIII. PSW 9-14

Hull House Residents, “An Inquiry Into The Causes Of The Recent Epidemic Of Typhoid Fever in Chicago,” Commons 81, no. 8 (April 1903): PSW 4-9

Hull House Residents, “An Inquiry Into The Causes Of The Recent Epidemic Of Typhoid Fever in Chicago,” Commons 81, no. 8 (April 1903): PSW 8.

Upton Sinclair, The Jungle (1905), Chapter Nine. PSW 1-3