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Series highlights single works to frame eras and their social norms
Harvard University Gazette - Feb 25, 2010
She acknowledged Jacob Riis (1849-1914), calling him “the father of reform photography,” who preferred sentiment to science. His traveling “magic lantern” ...

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Jacob Riis books

How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York

by: Jacob A. Riis
Essential classic to refresh past and current thinking on urban development and inequality. History is repeating itself all too comfortably.
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The Other Half: The Life of Jacob Riis and the World of Immigrant America

by: Tom Buk-Swienty
I first read the book in Danish. A cousin in Denmark sent it to me for my birthday. I enjoyed the book so much that I bought a copy in English to circulate among friends. Although I knew of Jakob Riis, I didn't know much about him. Now I do. His life had many unusual twists and turns. His marriage was so surprising. Read the book and you'll see why. Riis is an excellent example of how one person can make a difference in the lives of many. As he lay dying, his last days were covered by the nations press.
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Rediscovering Jacob Riis: The Reformer, His Journalism, and His Photographs

by: Bonnie Yochelson, Daniel Czitrom
This is a photographer that I personally had never heard of before I read the book review. This book gave me a realistic view of how my great-grandmother and her mother, lived when the arrived in New York in 1896. I enjoyed it, it captures the weariness of the times
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How the other half lives; studies among the tenements of New York, by Jacob A. Riis; with illustrations chiefly from photographs taken by the author.

by: Michigan Historical Reprint Series
Heart-rending. The classic work which moved so many to support social reforms.

Riis's commitment to record, report, and assist the poor tells of another time, when standards were quite different. It is not surprising, then, that his language reflects the context of his time. Many of his words seem awkward and racist when evaluated according to modern standards. It will seem odd to some modern readers, to hear such sweeping and biased generalizations of the poor, together with such genuinely compassionate, impassioned pleas for fair and ethical treatment of the poor, issuing from the same source.
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