Writing Resources
Prior to the Civil War the United States was searching for places to export goods the efforts to find a foreign market to offload the economic goods was stopped due to the beginning of the Civil War Washington State University Large amounts of materials were being produced in country in order to stabilize the economy The Civil War allowed the northern states to increase their manufacturing capacity in order to sell their goods to the war efforts Washington State University The manufacturing capacity had been devoted to the war efforts and was continued through reconstruction Norton 2015 This time period had many struggling One example of the reconstruction and age of American imperialism is written in Jacob Riis Chronicles the Struggles of the Urban Poor Jacob Riis is known to be one of the best known writers to investigate the problems facing poor and working class residents of America Riis 2009 Riis spent years observing and taking photographs of different people in different places in New York City in the 1800s With his experiences he wrote a book titled How the Other Half Lives In the book he described the dirty overcrowded situations he encountered in the tenements this sad truth forcing many middle class Americans and government officials to confront the problems faced in the nation's urban slums
