1. Jacob Riis ( )
COM 241
Photography I

2. Documentary photos Reflect a humanitarian point of view Realistic
Usually focus on people
Capture a way of life
Realistic
Meant to represent fact
Accurate and truthful

3. Jacob Riis (pronounced reese) “America’s first photojournalist”
Born in Denmark, immigrated to U.S. when he was 21
Lived in one of police-run poor houses in NYC
Eventually got a job as a crime reporter for New York Tribune

4. Decided to document with photographs
Wrote a series of articles on living conditions on Lower East Side of NY
No one took seriously
Decided to document with photographs
One of first photographers to use flash

5. “How the Other Half Lives” in 1890
As result of his photos, city closed police-run poor houses

6. Bottle Alley, Mulberry Road

7. Jacob Riis
Bandit's Roost,
59 1/2 Mulberry Street
c. 1888

8. Jacob Riis
Mullen's Alley,
Cherry Hill
c. 1888

9. Old house on a Bleecker Street back lot, between Mercer and Greene Street

10. Typical tenement fire-escape serving as an extension of the flat: Allen Street

11. Jersey Street tenements

12. Home of an Italian Rag Picker on Jersey Street. c. 1888

13. Police station lodgers, West 47 Street, early 1890s

14. Men's Lodging Room in the West 47th Street Station c. 1892

15. Police station lodgers waiting to be let out c. 1892

16. Police station lodgers, Madison Street

17. Bunks in a sevent-cent lodging-house, Pell Street

18. Police station lodgers, West 47 Street, early 1890s

19. "Knee-pants" at forty-five cents a dozen--a Ludlow Street sweater's shop

20. Twelve-year-old boy (who had sworn he was sixteen) pulling threads in a sweat shop, about 1889

21. Bohemian cigarmakers at work in their tenement

22. Girl and a baby on a doorstep

23. Fighting tuberculosis on the roof.

24. Bottle Alley, Mulberry Bend

25. The man slept in this cellar for four years, about 1890

26. In poverty Gap, West 28 Street: an English coal-heaver's home

27. Street Arabs in Sleeping Quarters [church corner]

28. Street Arabs in sleeping quarters [areaway, Mulberry St.]

29. Getting ready for supper in the newsboys' lodging-house

30. A flat in the pauper barracks, West 38 St., with all its furniture

31. A blind beggar stands in the middle of a street and begs for someone to buy one of his pencils.

32. Police Station Lodger, A Plank for a Bed c. 1890

33. Street Arabs in night quarters

34. On the roof of the Barracks