# How the Other Half Lives — Character guide

> Key figures in How the Other Half Lives by Jacob Riis.

- [Unknown](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/how_the_other_half_lives_se/characters/unknown_narrator.md): He moves through Ludlow Street rooms where whole families sew knee-pants from daybreak to nine, tallying wages, rent, and the cost of bread with an accountant's patience. His authority is intimate rather than official: h
- [The Boy](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/how_the_other_half_lives_se/characters/the_boy.md): At the Duane Street lodging-house, the outcast boy pays six cents for a bed and six for breakfast, borrowing against future earnings when trade goes badly and repaying almost without fail. The rules are blunt—no swearing
- [Miss Ellen Collins](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/how_the_other_half_lives_se/characters/miss_ellen_collins.md): She sits beside the dying lace embroiderer and her crippled sister, two of five Irish sisters who came forty years ago and watched wages and eyesight fail together. Around her, the Charity Organization Society's statisti
- [David Smith](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/how_the_other_half_lives_se/characters/david_smith.md): A named individual, possibly a tenant or worker in the tenements.
- [Chief Inspector Byrnes](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/how_the_other_half_lives_se/characters/chief_inspector_byrnes.md): He belongs to the world of shortened beats and doubled patrols, where a German's garden does the work of a dozen police clubs and a park can quiet a nest of agitators. His authority measures the tenement's pressure from 
- [Edward Mulhearn](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/how_the_other_half_lives_se/characters/edward_mulhearn.md): A named individual, possibly a police officer or local figure.
- [Joss](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/how_the_other_half_lives_se/characters/joss.md): A character, possibly a tenant or worker, with limited narrative presence.
- [The Italian](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/how_the_other_half_lives_se/characters/the_italian.md): He shares the crowded back alleys with the Russian and Polish Jew, two races hopelessly different yet alike in the tenements they reproduce wherever they settle. The narrator grants him color, heat, and a stubborn grip o
- [A Gentle and Refined Woman](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/how_the_other_half_lives_se/characters/refined_woman_in_poverty.md): She stands among the registered poor whose stories the narrator gathers—the aged, the crippled, the proud who will not beg. Her plight sharpens the book's central distinction between those who need a lift and those who n
- [The Doctor](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/how_the_other_half_lives_se/characters/the_doctor.md): A medical professional who appears in scenes of illness or reform.
- [A Woman Doctor](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/how_the_other_half_lives_se/characters/woman_doctor.md): A female physician working among the poor in the tenements.
- [The Stranger](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/how_the_other_half_lives_se/characters/the_stranger.md): An unknown person who appears briefly in the narrative.
- [The Young Stranger](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/how_the_other_half_lives_se/characters/the_young_stranger.md): A young unknown person, possibly a newcomer to the city.
- [Jesus Christ](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/how_the_other_half_lives_se/characters/jesus_christ.md): Religious figure referenced in moral or reform contexts.
- [Jews](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/how_the_other_half_lives_se/characters/jews.md): In Riis's racial map of the Lower East Side, the Jews are the gray tide overrunning Jewtown and the sweater shops, disputing every back alley with the Italians. He grants them thrift and rabbinical discipline, yet faults
- [Mary Ann](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/how_the_other_half_lives_se/characters/mary_ann.md): An older female character, possibly a tenant or street figure.
- [Mr. A. T. White](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/how_the_other_half_lives_se/characters/mr_a_t_white.md): A reformer or philanthropist involved in tenement improvement.
- [Mrs. Astor](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/how_the_other_half_lives_se/characters/mrs_astor.md): A wealthy socialite mentioned in contrast to tenement life.
- [The Czech](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/how_the_other_half_lives_se/characters/the_czech.md): A representative Czech immigrant, likely a cigar maker.
- [James Russell Lowell](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/how_the_other_half_lives_se/characters/james_russell_lowell.md): A poet or literary figure referenced in the introduction.
- [Alderman Mullins](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/how_the_other_half_lives_se/characters/alderman_mullins.md): A local politician or alderman mentioned in the text.
- [The Chinese](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/how_the_other_half_lives_se/characters/the_chinese.md): Riis walks the dens with a police captain and finds the girls indifferent, neat, and past saving, calling the officer by name as he sends them up. The Chinaman he paints is cat-clean and cat-cruel, ruling first with a gl
- [The Bohemian](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/how_the_other_half_lives_se/characters/the_bohemian.md): A representative Bohemian immigrant, often a cigar maker.
- [John Chinaman](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/how_the_other_half_lives_se/characters/john_chinaman.md): A stereotypical Chinese character in Chinatown scenes.
- [Paul](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/how_the_other_half_lives_se/characters/paul.md): Biblical figure referenced in moral or religious context.

HTML index: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/how_the_other_half_lives_se/characters