Tenement Housing

Tenement Housing in The Gilded Age

The Gilded Age was a time period in American history spanning from the end of the Civil War to the turn of the century. It was a time of great economic growth, but also of corruption and gross inequality. An increase in heavy industry allowed the robber barons to accumulate extreme wealth but this did not trickle down to the workers. This was extremely detrimental as workers’ wages remained the same as the cost of living rose around them.

At the same time workers were struggling to make ends meet, a new middle class was emerging with disposable income. With their newfound wealth, middle-class families left the over-populated, and often filthy, city centers for suburbia. Landlords quickly bought up these abandoned residences and converted them into multiple apartments for the lowest cost possible, often leading to unsafe living conditions.

The Growth of Tenement Housing and Slums

Because of the opportunities created by industrialization, many citizens from rural areas migrated to city centers for work. At the same time, immigrants from Europe were flooding into urban centers hoping for a better life. As a result, cities across the country boomed in population. Oftentimes, working-class and immigrant families found themselves living in overcrowded slums and tenement buildings.

Fig. 1 - The slums of New York City

Tenement Housing Conditions

As we know, workers were desperate and did not have an option when it came to tenement housing. Landlords were well aware of this and took advantage of the working poor.

Fig. 2 - Conditions inside a tenement house apartment in New York City

Tenement buildings were overcrowded, unsafe, and unsanitary. Typically, the apartment units were around 300 square feet and housed large families that could reach the teens in numbers. There was poor ventilation and lighting and no consideration for actual living conditions. Most apartment units did not even have a window or access to a fire escape. Running water was not yet widespread, so often residents would use outdoor bathrooms or throw their waste into the streets. And as we noted earlier, disease and crime were large problems.

Tenement housing had existed since the early 19th century but proliferated during the Gilded Age. Conditions were notoriously bad in New York City where there were well over 50,000 tenement houses by 1900. In 1890, Jacob Riis, a muckraker, published How the Other Half Lives, which used photographs to expose conditions in New York City slums.

Regulation of Tenement Housing in New York City

The work of muckrakers like Jacob Riis led to calls for the regulation of tenement buildings as well as the improvement of conditions in existing slums. New York City passed a series of Tenement House Acts throughout the late-19th and early-20th centuries that attempted to regulate and better tenement housing (e.g., mandating fire escapes and indoor lighting).

By the turn of the century, conditions began to slowly improve but that is not to say these buildings were livable. A report from the Tenement House Department in 1903 stated:

Government regulation also led to a new, unforeseen problem. Landlords were unwilling to bear the cost of meeting the most basic building codes, so they raised the rent and transferred the added costs to the tenants, many of whom were already struggling to make rent.

Tenement Housing Significance

Tenement housing is significant because, until the New Deal in the 1930s, tenement housing was the housing available to the working class. After the New Deal, public housing entered the equation and essentially ended the tenement era. However, the New Deal did not magically solve the problem of housing the urban poor. Going to any American city today, there will be pockets of poverty within the wealth of the city.

Fig. 3 - New Deal era poster promoting public housing