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Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Past History


I just finished reading a book that took me a long time to get through and absorb. It details the living conditions in New York City after immigrants arrived in the late 1800's. I was impressed. Sometimes when I read a book I go right through it because I'm a fast reader and don't usually have to swallow or remember what I read. Reading is a pleasure to me. Well this book isn't pleasurable to read. It is history with 100 accompanying photographs taken during the time.

The title of the book:

ISBN 0-486-22012-5

I picked up this book at the laundromat several months ago. When I ran out of my usual mysteries and novels, I remembered this one that I had put away. 

It's not going back to the laundromat. I'll find someone who would like to know how times really were in those days in those places in those years. 

Jacob A. Riis has a biography like no other I've come across and I suggest a quick reading of it at:

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Riis

click on link above

2 comments:

  1. sounds like a very difficult time for many.

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  2. I've heard of this book. I may have seen a promo on pbs or an author interview a dramatization, something. Maybe on the radio. Anyway I have seen and read about the squalor and overcrowding. It was not all that different here. Both my grandparents came here a bit later, 1910-15, the same sort of thing went on here but on a smaller scale. I am glad they chose Boston though.

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