Explore histories of migration, citizenship and belonging in Germany and the U.S. over the centuries.
At the height of the Gilded Age, a period marked by extreme economic inequality, Danish immigrant and photojournalist Jacob Riis published ,[object Object],, an account of immigrant tenement life in the densely populated Lower East Side neighborhood of Manhattan.
The book provided a detailed tour of poor immigrants’ living conditions for its middle and upper class readership. Riis’ book was monumental in crediting the plight of poverty to environmental conditions. Critics have noted, however, that his writing tended to divide the poor into “deserving” and “undeserving” camps and reproduced several popular racial/ethnic stereotypes of Jews, Irish, and Italians. Despite these limitations, Riis’ work is believed to have conveyed genuine sympathy for the poor he photographed. He became known as a social reformer and an advocate against slum housing.
Robert Siegel. Jacob Riis: Shedding Light On NYC’s ‘Other Half’. NPR. June 30, 2008. Date accessed: August 31, 2015.
Jacob A. Riis. The New York Times. Date accessed: August 31, 2015.
Books by Riis, Jacob A. (Jacob August). Project Gutenberg. Date accessed: March 17, 2015.
Jacob Riis. Museum of the City of New York. Date accessed: March 17, 2015.
Tom Buk-Swienty. The other half: the life of Jacob Riis and the world of immigrant America. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2008.
Bonnie Yochelson, Daniel Czitrom. Rediscovering Jacob Riis: exposure journalism and photography in turn-of-the-century. New York: New Press, 2007.
Jacob A. Riis’ New York [slideshow]. The New York Times. Date accessed: September 14, 2015.
