Question

Jacob Riis's book, How the Other Half Lives, was significant in that it ______.

• A. drew the public's attention to the harsh conditions slaves lived under in the 1850s.
• B. demonstrated the double standards applied to women in American society at the turn of the 20th century.
• C. criticized the lifestyles of the upper class in the 1920s.
• D. exposed the living conditions of the urban poor at the turn of the 20th century.
• E. chronicled the lives of poor immigrants from Asia and Africa in the 1960s.

Answer 1

The correct option is D exposed the living conditions of the urban poor at the turn of the 20th century.

Jacob Riis's book, How the Other Half Lives, was significant in that it exposed the living conditions of the urban poor at the turn of the 20th century. In his 1890 book, Jacob Riis combined narrative and photographs to portray vividly the life of the urban poor. Other options are incorrect because:

a. Harriet Beecher Stowe addressed the issue of harsh condition for slaves in Uncle Tom's Cabin in 1852.

b. The specific problems of women at the turn of the 20th century were addressed by Theodore Dreiser's novel Sister Carrie in 1900.

c. The lifestyles of the upper class in the 1920s were the subject of the 1925 novel.

e. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The immigrant poor from Asia and Africa in the 1960s (E) lived well past the time when Riis wrote.