John Terry

A dominant theme in American history is access to freedom. Many groups have either

been granted or denied certain liberties and freedoms. Depending on one’s race, gender, or

status as an immigrant, notions of liberty, freedom, oppression, and justice differ.

Jacob Riis’ How the Other Half Lives detailed the disparaging conditions in which

immigrants and laborers lived and toiled in New York City. He listed the “bald facts” of the

situation in New York to argue that tenements were a necessary reality. Based on that

proposition, he felt the best way to improve the lives of those living in tenements was to follow

the example of Ellen Collins and renovate and regulate the properties. Although Riis displayed

some concern, he never challenged the fact that tenements should exist or that immigrants and

workers should labor in industries that created the conditions he feared. It was clear that Riis felt

that these were workers were not permitted the same types of freedoms to which he and

landlords like Miss Collins were entitled.

The story of the city slave girls detailed the problems that the workers of whom Riis

spoke faced. Young female workers lived in filth and barely survived. This description is

especially telling in that it does what Riis failed to do: condemn the shop owners and employers

who were responsible for the conditions in which poor and immigrant laborers sweated.

Sitting Bull provides the clearest example of a denial of liberty and freedom. He

criticized the lifestyle that whites pushed as a form of slavery. Nothing in the white world

matched the freedoms to which Sitting Bull’s people were accustomed. White men had many

things to offer his people, but lacked what they wanted most, freedom. This document is also

notable for Sitting Bull’s eloquence: he is obviously articulate, challenging stereotypes of Native

ignorance. He skillfully countered white arguments by claiming that, regardless of previous

disputes, his people had never told whites how to live; they never deprived whites of liberty.