Sandeep Singh
Suzy Phillips
English 101 P
22 November 2020
Jacob Riis: Transforming Societies through Photography
Jacob Riis (1849–1914) was a journalist and social reformer who examined emergency housing, training, and poverty at the European movement’s growth to New York City in the late 19th century. His position as a reformer was formed by his creative utilization of photographs of New York’s ghettos to prove his words and uncover the real factors of living and working conditions looked by the residents (O’Donnell, 7). Nerve-racking pictures of apartments and rear entryways where New York’s outsider networks lived, joined with his suggestive narrating, were expected to draw in and educate his crowd and admonish them to act. History repositions Riis as a multi-gifted communicator who gave his life to composing articles and books, conveying. The side dividers of the display outline Riis’ source of inspiration on issues he zeroed in on as a columnist—housing, homelessness, public space, movement, schooling, wrongdoing, general well-being, and work (Yochelson & Czitrom, 2). Such problems need to be addressed to stay at the cutting edge of numerous public discussions today. Therefore, the paper is set forth to discuss the photographs of Jacob Riis.
Conclusion
The photographs of Jacob Riis are useful and valuable evidence that can give historical truth of that time. His work generally explains the poverty and the quality of life in the slums when he was a police reporter. Riis wanted to improve the poor living condition of the local people by exposing it to both the middle and upper class people. As a result, his photographic images acted as a tools and agents of change. The never-before-seen photographs enhanced understanding of the unsettling descriptions and also made the New Yorkers to open their eyes on the harsh realities of the conditions of city slums. Generally, the photographs inspired reforms on the working-class housing after its publication and even have a lasting impact on the society today.
Worked Cited
O’Donnell, E. T. (2014). Pictures vs. words? Public history, tolerance, and the challenge of Jacob Riis. The Public Historian, 26(3), 7-26.
Pascal, J. B. (2015). Jacob Riis: Reporter and Reformer. Oxford University Press.
Riis, J. A. (2018). How the Other Half Lives-Studies Among the Tenements of New York. Read Books Ltd.
Twigg, R. (1992). The performative dimension of surveillance: Jacob Riis’ How the other half lives. Text and Performance Quarterly, 12(4), 305-328.
Weinstein, C. (2012). How Many Others Are There in the Other Half? Jacob Riis and the Tenement Population. Nineteenth-Century Contexts, 24(2), 195-216.
Yochelson, B., & Czitrom, D. (2014). Rediscovering Jacob Riis: Exposure Journalism and photography in turn-of-the-century New York. University of Chicago Press.
Yochelson, B., & Czitrom, D. (2014). Rediscovering Jacob Riis: Exposure Journalism and photography in turn-of-the-century New York. University of Chicago Press.