Revealing "How the Other Half Lives"
Jacob Riis, a struggling immigrant from Denmark at the age of 21, became a pioneer in photojournalism -- his photos helping to improve the living conditions of the poor in New York City. His groundbreaking book "How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York," published in 1890, was instrumental in creating social reform.
The one-of-a-kind retrospective exhibition "Revealing New York's Other Half" at the Museum of the City of New York through March 20, 2016, focuses new attention on the journalist and social reformer's life, work and legacy. The exhibition will travel to the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. and Denmark, where it will be featured at museums in Copenhagen and Ribe.
"One hundred years after his death, inequality remains an essential aspect of American life, and the story of Jacob Riis needs to be remembered," explains Susan Henshaw Jones, Ronay Menschel Director of the Museum of the City of New York.
"Bandit's Roost" (half stereo, left), photo by Jacob A. Riis, ca. 1890
"How the Other Half Lives"
Riis saw himself as an advocate for the poor. He knew their lives well because of his own struggles in the slums of New York City.
Riis arrived in American in 1870 with just $40 in his pocket. The Lower East Side of Manhattan was teeming with hundreds of thousands of immigrants crowded into stark, dingy tenements and Riis struggled among them.
"Little Susie in Gotham Court," 1892
"How the Other Half Lives"
Because Riis believed that poverty was more about circumstances than individual weakness or laziness he worked to show those who were more fortunate in the middle and upper classes what life was like for the poor in order to create change.
Riis became a muckraking journalist in his job as a police reporter for The New York Tribune, pursuing social reform while reporting on crime and poverty.
"Children's Playground, Poverty Gap" 1892
"How the Other Half Lives"
The advent of flash photography in the late 1880s came at an opportune time for Riis. As an early adopter of flash photography, he was able to explore immigrant neighborhoods at night and venture into dark living environments. Photography proved more powerful than words.
"Newsboys Sleeping in the Offices of the New York Sun, 1891-1892"
"How the Other Half Lives"
"How the Other Half Lives," was first published as an 18-page article in Scribner's Magazine in 1889. It was the basis of Riis' book, "How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York," published in 1890 with 17 photographs.
The book, with Riis' graphic, unyielding prose and stark photography chronicling tenement life, deeply shocked many and created strong impetus for social reform. Then police commissioner, and future president, Theodore Roosevelt reacted to Riis' reportage of the city's slum conditions by closing some of the worst lodgings. The city reformed its housing policies.
Roosevelt called Riis "the most useful citizen of New York."
"Bohemian Cigar Makers at Work," ca. 1890
"How the Other Half Lives"
The City Museum of the City of New York holds the world's largest archive of Riis' images. It's the basis of the current exhibition along with Riis' papers from the Library of Congress and the New York Public Library.
Sweatshop in Hester Street
"How the Other Half Lives"
"Five Cents a Spot," ca. 1890
"How the Other Half Lives"
A man atop a make-shift bed that consists of a plank across two barrels, ca. 1890
One of four peddlers who slept in cellar of 11 Ludlow Street rear.
"How the Other Half Lives"
Women sleeping on plank beds and the floor, ca. 1890
Police Station Lodgers 18, Eldridge Street Station
"How the Other Half Lives"
Police Station Lodgers 19. The Single typhus lodger in Eldridge Street, he lay by the stove in the policemen's room no one dreaming what ailed him.
"How the Other Half Lives"
Jacob Riis, Sweatshop in Hester Street, Pach Brothers, 1903.
The exhibition "Revealing New York's Other Half" can be seen at the Museum of the City of New York through March 20, 2016. It will then travel to the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. and Denmark, where it will be featured at museums in Copenhagen and Ribe.