Message: Irish immigrants are making demands to change America to make it more favorable to themselves

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2 Irish Immigration

3 Message: Irish immigrants are making demands to change America to make it more favorable to themselves Imagery: Irish as apes, alcoholic, violence (Keg of gunpowder) Context: Irish had a large amount of power in urban centers, Thomas Nast is opposed to machine politics that Irish are often benefited by

4 Message: Irish immigrants are bringing papal influence (Catholic influence) to America, this is a threat to government and public schools Imagery: Irish as Pope-like crocodiles, Cross added to Capitol building, Public school fortress Context: Catholic Irish and Protestant Americans often conflicted over Public school s use of the King James Bible

5 Message: Irish immigrants are refusing to assimilate to American life Imagery: Irish as apes, citizenship melting pot, Lady liberty Context: Irish (and other immigrants) often immigrate in groups known as chain migration in particular this helps Irish have large amounts of influence and cultural retention in Eastern Cities (ex. New York & Boston) Irish often dominate politics and churches in those communites

6 Message: Irish immigrants are fleeing unethical and inhuman treatment back in England Imagery: English landlord in background of Left image, vs. Gentleman at the door in right image Context: Irish potato famine, English landlords often drove away poor Irish who were unable to make their rents due to crop failures

7 The Bend, How the Other Half Lives, Jacob Riis WHERE Mulberry Street crooks like an elbow within hail of the old depravity of the Five Points, is "the Bend," foul core of New York's slums. Long years ago the cows coming home from the pasture trod a path over this hill. Echoes of tinkling bells linger there still, but they do not call up memories of green meadows and summer fields; they proclaim the home-coming of the ragpicker's cart. In the memory of man the old cow-path has never been other than a vast human pig-sty. There is but one "Bend" in the world, and it is enough. The city authorities, moved by the angry protests of ten years of sanitary reform effort, have decided that it is too much and must come down

8 Chinese Immigration

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12 How The Other Half Lives, by Jacob Riis In a Chinese joint, Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives

13 How The Other Half Lives, by Jacob Riis One thing about them was conspicuous: their scrupulous neatness. It is the distinguishing mark of Chinatown, outwardly and physically. It is not altogether by chance the Chinaman has chosen the laundry as his distinctive field. He is by nature as clean as the cat, which he resembles in his traits of cruel cunning, and savage fury when aroused. On this point of cleanliness he insists in his domestic circle, yielding in others with crafty submissiveness to the caprice of the girls, who "boss" him in a very independent manner, fretting vengefully under the yoke they loathe, but which they know right well they can never shake off, once they have put the pipe to their lips and given Mott Street a mortgage upon their souls for all time. To the priest, whom they call in when the poison racks the body, they pretend that they are yet their own masters; but he knows that it is an idle boast, least of all believed by themselves. As he walks with them the few short steps to the Potter's Field, he hears the sad story he has heard told over and over again, of father, mother, home, and friends given up for the accursed pipe, and stands hopeless and helpless before the colossal evil for which he knows no remedy.

14 Italian Immigration

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19 Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives Unlike the German, who begins learning English the day he lands as a matter of duty, or the Polish Jew, who takes it up as soon as he is able as an investment, the Italian learns slowly, if at all. Even his boy, born here, often speaks his native tongue indifferently. He is forced, therefore, to have constant recourse to the middle-man, who makes him pay handsomely at every turn. He hires him out to the railroad contractor, receiving a commission from the employer as well as from the laborer, and repeats the performance monthly, or as often as he can have him dismissed

20 Feast of Saint Rocco, Bandits' Roost, Mulberry Street, From Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives

21 Jewish Immigration

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26 Twelve-yearold boy (who had sworn he was sixteen) pulling threads in a sweat shop, about 1889, Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives