In the 19th century, New York City experienced demographic changes on a scale rarely seen in human history. At the dawn of the century, the city boasted a population of only 60,000. Ninety years later, when Riis published How the Other Half Lives, nearly 2.7 million people called New York City home. The tenement therefore must be understood in the context of a large and unprecedented population surge. The people who went to New York City in the 19th century needed somewhere to live.

Population growth created the city’s housing need, but it did not create the tenement problem. The tenement itself became an issue when housing impoverished people became an opportunity for capital investment and the unmitigated quest for profit. When landlords realized that they could maximize earnings by cramming the largest number of people into the smallest possible spaces and then charging exorbitant rents, the tenement problem was born. Some landlords were more unscrupulous than others, but it was the principle of extracting as much wealth as possible from human suffering that made the tenements what they were: scenes of poverty and despair.

Reform-minded New Yorkers noticed the problem and tried to do something about it.