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The Potter’s Field
One of the elements of tenement-house life that Riis examines is the high rate of saloons packing the neighborhoods home to the poorest residents of New York. Riis characterizes “stale-beer dives” and other alcohol shops as a natural outgrowth of poverty. A typical Progressive-era reformer in this way, Riis assumes a moral connection between alcohol and moral depravity, even if he sees alcoholism as the result and not the cause of the unjust social and economic conditions of the poor. Drinking alcohol is, in his characterization, what the poor do because they are in need of some kind of solace for their situation. But stale-beer dives are also some of the only spaces of leisure open to this population. Places like reading rooms, cafés, and gardens, for instance, are absent from tenement neighborhoods: as a result, Riis argues, the saloons are both an emblem and a source of the worst things that can be found in the poorest areas of the city.
Beer Quotes in How the Other Half Lives
The How the Other Half Lives quotes below all refer to the symbol of Beer. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 7 Quotes
The meanest thief is infinitely above the stale-beer level. Once upon that plane there is no escape. To sink below it is impossible; no one ever rose from it. One night spent in a stale-beer dive is like the traditional putting on of the uniform of the caste, the discarded rags of an old tramp.
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These are harsh words that Riis uses to condemn the “stale-beer dives” or unofficial, unlicensed, and often ephemeral gathering places for “tramps” to drink beer, places scattered throughout tenements that last until being broken up by the police. Riis’s contrast of the tramps that frequent these establishments with thieves is meant to highlight what he sees as a greater evil even than crime: idleness and refusal to work. Thieves, at least in his account, are often pushed into crime by desperation: even if they do something illegal, at least they’re attempting to feed themselves (and often their family) by acting. Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectetur et. Dicta impedit ut. Ducimus possimus
Chapter 18 Quotes
One may walk many miles through the homes of the poor searching vainly for an open reading-room, a cheerful coffee-house, a decent club that is not a cloak for the traffic in rum. The dramshop yawns at every step, the poor man’s club, his forum and his haven of rest when weary and disgusted with the crowding, the quarreling, and the wretchedness at home.
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Riis contrasts the ubiquity of saloons and bars throughout New York’s tenement-house neighborhoods with the scarcity of any other means of socializing. Many Progressive-era reformers, committed to official education as the key to eradicating social ills, were also convinced that a vibrant public sphere would also serve the purposes of life-long education, supported by spaces including libraries, lecture halls, and social clubs. As is often the case, Riis seems just as appalled by the lack of such places in these neighborhoods as he is by what we might think of as more pressing issues, like sickness-breeding apartments or lack of Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis
A number of [saloons], on the contrary, had brought their owners wealth and prominence. From their bars these eminent citizens stepped proudly into the councils of the city and the State. The very floor of one of the bar-rooms, in a neighborhood that lately resounded with the cry for bread of starving workmen, is paved with silver dollars!
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Once again, Riis is eager to point out the underlying connections between the rich and poor, even when the wealthy purport to know nothing about the lives of New York’s most vulnerable populations. Here the link stems from the fact that many of the saloons he’s described are actually owned by wealthy families, who turn a profit off of getting poor people to drink more and more. (Other Progressive-era reformers would go further than Riis in their condemnation of alcoholism and even promote banning the sale of alcohol.) Riis writes metaphorically here in order to vivify such connections, which usually Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempo
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Beer Symbol Timeline in How the Other Half Lives
The timeline below shows where the symbol Beer appears in How the Other Half Lives. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 2
...tenement. Usually water doesn’t reach higher than the second floor because of shoddy plumbing, though beer can easily quench thirst during rooftop picnics in the summer, Riis says.
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Chapter 7
Riis describes a midnight raid on one of the stale-beer dives in the Bend. Riis accompanies the sergeant into one tenement, where they stumble over...
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...for six months. Seventy-five tramps are then arrested in the four small rooms beyond the beer cellar, including a woman with a new-born baby on a heap of dirty straw. Back...
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The stale-beer dive is known in the Bend as the “two-cent restaurant,” home to home-brewed and unlicensed...
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...the police station, he might return to honest work, but might also return to the beer dives, as one sergeant tells Riis.
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Chapter 15
...said that he didn’t go to school nor to church; he never bought bread, only beer.
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Chapter 18
...than a joke. Riis recounts a story from the newspaper about a boy who carried beer all day one Saturday to his father’s shop on the East Side, and who crept...
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Chapter 24
Riis admits that education works slowly: he’s seen the police break up beer dives only to see them rearrange themselves and become ever more destructive. The rapid increase...
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