Rediscovering Jacob Riis: Exposure Journalism and Photography in Turn-of-the-Century New York

Jacob Riis (1849-1914) arrived in the United States as an immigrant and laborer, working in carpentry before becoming a muckraking reporter. His early experiences with poverty in immigrant communities shaped his later work. Before publishing his photojournalistic investigation How the Other Half Lives—which examined tenement housing where three quarters of New York's population lived—Riis developed an empathy for the poor that would define his iconic photographs. Rediscovering Jacob Riis places Riis's images in historical context. In the first half, historian Daniel Czitrom explores Riis's reporting and activism within Gilded Age New York, examining new immigrants, political machines, competitive journalism, evangelical reformers, and the labor movement. Though Riis advocated for charity rather than sociopolitical justice, Czitrom argues his empathetic work continues to inspire urban reformers today. In the second half, art historian Bonnie Yochelson describes Riis's photographic practice for the first time: his initial reliance on amateur photographers, his own camera use, and his later collection of photographs by professionals documenting social reform. Yochelson argues that while Riis was revolutionary in photography's history, he was not a photographic artist. Rather, Riis was a writer and lecturer who used photography to drive social change.