Lap 5 Blog 2: Describe/comment on a Jacob Riis photo.

This is one of Jacob Riis photo selections. This pictures title is "Under the dump, Rivington Street, about 1890". In my opinion, this photo shows the life style and living in the 1890s. People didn't have much to give just because of the poor community and life that everyone lived in. Most of the time one person can not afford their own roof to live under so they connect with about 4-5 people to purchase one small room to live in. This led to unsanitary circumstances, where people will get dead sick and have no privacy to recover only because if they get someone else under your roof sick and you recover they'll just get you sick again. Guaranteed i think nothing in this room was comfortable from the beds to being crammed in the room with multiple amounts of people. I thought the picture was just taken at an older time and that's why the color is like that, but i don't think that's the age of the photos fault. I think that's what the room really looked like back then. Dirty!!! If i would have to live in that place i would probably just kill my self with no choice because if i didn't kill myself, i will surely die regardless from the sickness or even starvation.

Lap 5 Blog 1: Compare the conditions workers in China face currently with those of workers in America at the turn of the century.

            At the turn of the century workers in China were people that were really put to work. Really. The Chinese were really put to work. The workers in china worked in places called sweatshops, any working environment considered to be unacceptably difficult or dangerous. Sweatshop workers often work long hours for very low pay, regardless of laws mandating overtime pay or a minimum wage. Companies basically make their work place a sweatshop to make more money than they give away easily and faster. Since there are so many workers that work in one sweatshop alone that works for a long period of time and also receives low wages the owner benefits off all the workers.

            The labor in America was not easy neither; working isn’t a easy thing to do at all. Andrew Carnegie was a company owner and he also put all his workers into hard labor just like the workers in China today. You can basically say that Carnegie owned his owned his own sweatshop. When they workers worked for Carnegie when you were cold you would wear layers of clothes even working in front of a close fire all day and also include you are super exhausted. They could be so tired that they can fall asleep while working in front of the fire and fall into the fire. Carnegie will hear about the report, but to him safety is not his concern. Is all this work for both Carnegie’s workers and the Chinese workers today all worth it? It may be a risk to take, but sometimes if people really want to get somewhere in life they really work to death to help themselves and maybe even their family.