How the Other Half Lives · Chapter
XII: The Bohemians—Tenement-House Cigarmaking explained
This chapter examines the exploitation of Bohemian immigrants in New York's tenement cigar factories, where landlords double as employers, trapping workers in a cycle of low wages, high rents, and grueling labor.
What happens
This chapter examines the exploitation of Bohemian immigrants in New York's tenement cigar factories, where landlords double as employers, trapping workers in a cycle of low wages, high rents, and grueling labor. It details the harsh conditions, the role of women and children, and the failure of reform efforts, while also challenging exaggerated claims about filth and disease among the Bohemian community.
Themes in this chapter
Exploitation and Greed
Landlord-employers exploit Bohemian tenants by charging exorbitant rents and paying starvation wages, creating a system of virtual serfdom.
Tenement Life and Housing
Detailed descriptions of cramped, dark tenement rooms doubling as living and workspaces, with rents as high as $12.25 for minimal accommodation.
Child Suffering and Exploitation
Children are depicted as barefoot, hungry, and working alongside parents, with one family of eight surviving on a meager diet and the mother's low wages.
Public Health and Disease
Discusses cases of consumption possibly linked to tobacco fumes, but notes that death records do not show a high rate among Bohemians.
Characters to notice
- The Bohemian
The central figure of the chapter, representing the exploited Bohemian cigarmakers who work long hours in tenement factories under oppressive conditions.
- Jews
Mentioned as the landlord-employers who often exploit Bohemian tenants, contrasting with the earlier depiction of Polish Jews.
- The Czech
Referenced in the context of historical ethnic hatred between Bohemians and Germans, echoing the Thirty Years' War.
- The Doctor
Cited as attributing a case of consumption to tobacco-fume inhalation in a Bohemian cigarmaker.
- A Gentle and Refined Woman
Implied in the description of the wife who continues to work in the shop after her husband falls ill, supporting the family on eight dollars a week.
Key passages
“Evil as the part is which the tenement plays in Jewtown as the pretext for circumventing the law that was made to benefit and relieve the tenant, we have not far to go to find it in even a worse role.”
The tenement's role in Jewtown is bad, but it's even worse in the Bohemian quarter.
Introduces the chapter's focus on the Bohemian tenement system.
“In the Bohemian quarter it is made the vehicle for enforcing upon a proud race a slavery as real as any that ever disgraced the South.”
In the Bohemian area, the tenement is used to impose a form of slavery as harsh as Southern slavery.
Highlights the severity of exploitation faced by Bohemians.
“Men, women and children work together seven days in the week in these cheerless tenements to make a living for the family, from the break of day till far into the night.”
Entire families work every day from dawn until late at night in these dreary tenements.
Describes the relentless labor of Bohemian families.
“The point has been reached where the rebellion comes in, and the workers in these tenements are just now on a strike, demanding $5.00 and $5.50 for their work.”
Workers are currently on strike, demanding higher pay for their cigarmaking.
Documents a specific labor action in the tenements.
“There is no waste in these tenements. Lives, like clothes, are worn through and out before put aside.”
Nothing is wasted in these tenements; people are used up completely before being discarded.
Poignant metaphor for the dehumanizing conditions.
