Jacob Riis

Jacob Riis was born in Ribe, Denmark, in 1849 and emigrated to the United States in 1870. While working as a journalist in New York, he began in the 1880s using flash powder to photograph the slums of the Lower East Side at night.^*1 His 1890 book How the Other Half Lives, combining photographs, text, and illustrations, was widely read as a pioneering work of social reform and brought about real changes in New York City's housing and sanitation policy.^*2 The Library of Congress exhibition "Jacob Riis: Revealing 'How the Other Half Lives'" explicitly describes Riis as someone who "well understood the power of photography but did not consider himself a photographer," repositioning him as a "multi-skilled communicator" who worked across the roles of writer, photographer, lecturer, advocate, and ally.^*3 His friendship with Theodore Roosevelt, who was then New York City's police commissioner, shows the political connections his reform activity maintained.^*4 He died in Massachusetts in 1914.

Beyond photographer

The first thing to establish about Riis's practice is that photography did not function alone; it was integrated with writing, lectures, newspapers, books, and lantern slides. The LOC exhibition materials show that Riis left a composite archive including lantern slides for lectures, scrapbooks, letters, and handwritten notes, confirming that photography was only one element of his practice.^*5 The exhibition co-organized by MCNY and LOC demonstrates that his materials include not only photographs but writings, letters, lectures, and scrapbooks, and underscores the importance of understanding his work as "a multi-media reform movement" rather than as a body of photographic work.^*6 The LOC exhibition overview describes Riis as "single-mindedly devoted to fighting for the poor," making clear that his practice was oriented toward social persuasion rather than artistic autonomy.^*7

Flash technology and urban visibility

What is technically significant about Riis's photographic practice is his pioneering use of flash powder for photography in dark spaces. Cellars, tenements at night, tobacco factories, and lodging houses — spaces that had been impossible to photograph with conventional techniques — were made visible through an explosive burst of intense light, and this made the slums a "visible" problem that could be brought into public debate.^*8 The Jacob A. Riis Museum's permanent exhibition shows that his photographs continue to be recognized in contemporary Denmark as a pioneering record of urban society.^*9 MoMA's The Bend shows that individual works have been received as belonging to a level of achievement that has secured their place in museum collections.^*10 The full text of How the Other Half Lives is available through Project Gutenberg and is continually consulted as a primary source.^*11 A specialist essay on PhotoAnthology analyzes the ways in which this publication functioned as a complex of photographs, text, and reform activity.^*12

Reform and representation

The power of Riis's photographs lay in transforming slum dwellers from "invisible" people into a public problem. At the same time, his representations of children, immigrants, workers, and slum residents, while promoting reform, also risked typifying and objectifying his subjects.^*13 MCNY's educational materials list the terms flash powder, narrative, immigration, and labor side by side, pointing to the complex entanglement of technology, institution, and social problems, and inviting a multi-perspective evaluation that resists straightforward heroization.^*14 The Lehigh University Library exhibition presents the material reality of the first edition of How the Other Half Lives and conveys the book's role as a vehicle for reaching readers.^*15 SFMOMA's Lodgers in a Crowded Bayard Street Tenement is a widely known example of flash-illuminated overcrowded living space.^*16

Critical reception

What is significant in Riis's reception is that both the evaluation of him as a precursor to social documentary photography and the critical questioning of the ethics of representing poverty and immigration continue simultaneously. The ICP shows that his photographs were largely forgotten after his death, rediscovered through the finding of negatives and subsequent exhibitions — a discontinuous reception that is itself part of any assessment of Riis.^*17 MoMA's Lodgers in Bayard Street Tenement, Five Cents a Spot shows that individual works have reached the level of scrutiny that comes with a place in photographic history.^*18 The exhibition catalogue Jacob A. Riis: Revealing New York's Other Half, published by Yale University Press, serves as a focal point for scholarly reassessment.^*19 The ICP's bibliographic record for The Complete Photographic Work of Jacob A. Riis indicates that systematic organization of the photographs is progressing.^*20 The LOC exhibition brochure provides an overview of Riis's methods and subjects and has been used in both education and research.^*21 The Hunger Museum's entry positions How the Other Half Lives as a book that transmits the history of poverty and hunger, showing its continuing use in contexts beyond photographic history.^*22 The "The Other Half" exhibition at Foam Amsterdam demonstrates European reception and international reassessment of Riis's photographs.^*23