Jacob Reese

[Guest broker-bob]

As well as old cars from the early 30s I am enterested in the life of the average person in that time,,,,this is a linque for a U Tube piece ,,,,he took pictures of the bad conditions in NY in the 20s some of you may find this eye opening,,,,,,,,My Mom is 91 years old and she keeps talking about the good old days,,,,look at linque and see what you think.................YouTube - Jacob Riis Clip

Edited January 9, 2011 by broker-bob (see edit history)

[Shop Rat]

While the video is not automobile related it is a fascinating look back at the city of New York in it's earliest days and well worth the time to watch it.

[Grimy]

Jacob Riis (note the spelling) was a "muckraker," and I use the term as a compliment, in the tradition of Lincoln Steffens and others. Theodore Roosevelt is generally credited with the coinage of that term in this context. Note that Riis died in **1914** (born 1849) and his book "How the Other Half Lives" which you cite was published in 1891.

So these conditions were documented between 1878 (see other You-Tube Jacob Riis videos) when he began to use flash photography and 1891, when his book was published. The vid you linked, Bob, contains a statement that Theodore Roosevelt visited Riis's office and left a card with a note reading "I want to help." This was **before** Roosevelt was President (1901-1909).

Thank God, the muckrakers has very good effect, but their ascendancy was long past before the 1920s and your cars of the 1930s.

A critical factor was Henry Ford's decision in 1914 to pay his factory workers $5/day, which essentially was a 400-500% increase over normal industrial wages of the day. This was shrewd, in that it allowed his workers to be able to own the Model Ts they were creating, but is also caused a sharp increase in almost all industrial wages.

Other factors included the post-World War I reduction in the middle class's use of household servants (chauffeurs, cooks, maids, etc.), perhaps because the middle class was priced out of the market for unskilled household help--but that is far too broad a topic to address here.

I don't want to turn this into a political discussion, just to note that Riis's book was published before the earliest American automobiles. And despite the fact that some well-moneyed folks were responsible for all that misery, that vid **can** be viewed as an argument for well-regulated immigration....

George

[Guest broker-bob]

When I searched Reeses name I found it spelled both ways thought this would be of interest to old car people ------------------Broker Bob

[Shop Rat]

When I searched Reeses name I found it spelled both ways thought this would be of interest to old car people ------------------Broker Bob

That can be the case in old records. Many folks when writing someone else's name, spelled names like they "heard" them rather than how they were actually spelled. Add that to folks that couldn't read or write they couldn't tell someone how to spell their name, they could only say it.

[rons49]

There is a large beauitiful park in Brooklyn named after Mr Riis. With all the influence that Riis had with his association with TR, after Roosevelt left office and Taft took over, little was done except for the efforts of Mother Jones and Al Smith, and others. It took a horrific tragedy in 1911 to change forever building codes, When scores of young women(mostly immigrants) died in the Triangle Shirt Waist Factory fire in lower Manhattan. Look it up.

[HarryJ]

Interesting film,,,,I started working in a cotton mill when I was 11 years old.

[Larry Schramm]

Henry Ford started to pay his employees the $5.00/ day wage because there was such great turn over of personnel that it was costing him money to be retraining new employees all of the time. The work in the auto factories at the time was very hard. In addition to slowing down turn over, it also allowed his employees to buy the product that they were building.