“How the Other Half Lives and Dies.”Jacob Riis’ 1890 Photos Of New York’s Other Half
Jacob Riis, the man behind some of the most famous photos of New York’s slums, didn’t start out with a camera in hand. In fact, photography was a skill he only picked up much later, after life threw him a series of curveballs. His journey from a small Danish town to becoming one of America’s most significant social reformers is an interesting one, and it all began with heartbreak and a dream of a better life across the Atlantic.
Why Jacob Riis Left Denmark
Born in 1849 in Ribe, Denmark, Riis was the third of 15 children in a reasonably well-off family. His father was a schoolteacher and editor of the local newspaper, and young Jacob inherited some of that journalistic curiosity. However, he was more of a dreamer than an academic, and after an apprenticeship as a carpenter, he found himself somewhat directionless. Adding to his woes, he fell in love with a woman named Elisabeth, but life has a way of messing with love stories. While Riis was away trying to make something of himself, she married a military hero back in Denmark, leaving Riis brokenhearted. This personal setback was enough to make him want to leave Europe altogether, so, in 1870, at the age of 21, Riis packed up and set sail for the United States.
LONG ago it was said that “one half of the world does not know how the other half lives.” That was true then. It did not know because it did not care. The half that was on top cared little for the struggles, and less for the fate of those who were underneath, so long as it was able to hold them there and keep its own seat. There came a time when the discomfort and crowding below were so great, and the consequent upheavals so violent, that it was no longer an easy thing to do, and then the upper half fell to inquiring what was the matter. Information on the subject has been accumulating rapidly since, and the whole world has had its hands full answering for its old ignorance.
– Jacob Riis, Introduction to How The Other Half Lives
Riis’ crossing wasn’t exactly glamorous. He travelled in steerage aboard the Iowa, leaving from Glasgow and arriving in New York on June 5, 1870. His pockets held little more than a lock of Elisabeth’s hair (even though she had moved on), $40 his friends had scraped together for him, and a revolver he purchased “against human or animal predators.” With hardly any cash and not much of a plan, Riis set out to build a new life in America.
The Rough Start in New York
Riis’ early years in New York were tough. He worked a series of odd jobs, doing everything from carpentry to manual labour, but money was always tight. At one point, he ended up living in a cheap lodging house where he lost his gold locket (a keepsake from his youth) to thieves, and to top it off, his dog was clubbed to death. That night, Riis later wrote, “cured him of dreaming.” Life in New York was harsh, and he experienced firsthand what many of the city’s immigrants and poor residents endured daily.
But despite all this, Riis was driven. He eventually found steady work as a police reporter for the New York Tribune. This was a turning point for him. His job took him into the city’s worst neighbourhoods, especially the infamous Lower East Side, and what he saw there shocked him to his core. Families crammed into tiny, airless rooms; children sleeping on the streets; workers toiling away in sweatshops for pennies. The more Riis saw, the more he realised how deep the poverty ran. He felt compelled to do something about it.
Initially, Riis used words to document the plight of the poor. He wrote countless articles about the living conditions in the tenements, but he quickly realised that his writing alone wasn’t making the impact he hoped for. As he later admitted, “It did not make much of an impression — these things rarely do, put in mere words.” And so, in the mid-1880s, Riis turned to photography to give his stories more punch.
The belief that every man’s experience ought to be worth something to the community from which he drew it, no matter what that experience may be, so long as it was gleaned along the line of some decent, honest work, made me begin this book.
-Jacob Riis, Preface to How The Other Half Lives
Photography was still pretty new at this point, and Riis wasn’t a trained photographer. But he wasn’t going to let that stop him. He teamed up with a group of amateur photographers and police officers to help him get the shots he needed. Among them was Henry G. Piffard, a lawyer with a passion for photography, who became one of Riis’ key collaborators. Together, they tackled the technical side of things, experimenting with flash photography, which was crucial for capturing images in the dark, cramped tenements.
The method they used was called Blitzlicht, a primitive form of flash photography that involved igniting magnesium powder and potassium chlorate. It was a dangerous and unpredictable process, but it allowed Riis and his team to light up the dim, airless rooms and alleyways where the city’s poorest lived. Without natural light, these spaces were nearly impossible to photograph. The results, while often rough around the edges, were groundbreaking. Suddenly, the invisible poor of New York had faces.
The Role of His Assistants
It’s important to remember that while Riis is often credited with these photos, he wasn’t always the one behind the camera. His assistants, including Piffard and others, took many of the shots, especially when the logistics got tricky. Sergeant James E. Forbes, a police officer who frequently accompanied Riis, was instrumental in getting access to some of the more dangerous areas of the city. Forbes’ presence not only provided protection but also opened doors to parts of the slums that might have been too risky for Riis to enter alone.
However, Riis was the mastermind behind the project. It was his vision that guided the work, and his writing that gave the photographs context. His mission was to expose the grim realities of tenement life to the city’s more affluent residents, and photography was just another tool in his belt to do so. He always saw himself as a storyteller first, saying, “I am a writer and a newspaper man.” The photographs were a way to reinforce the narrative he was already crafting with words.
How the Other Half Lives and the Power of Photography
In 1890, Riis published his most famous work, How the Other Half Lives. This book combined his photographs with detailed accounts of life in the slums. It was a raw, unflinching look at the conditions faced by New York’s poorest residents, and it hit hard. The combination of words and images made it impossible for readers to ignore the harsh realities of tenement life. Riis’ photographs of children sleeping in alleyways, families packed into tiny, filthy rooms, and workers toiling in sweatshops were shocking to a public that had, until then, largely turned a blind eye.
One of the most famous images in How the Other Half Lives is Bandit's Roost, which shows a group of tough-looking men lingering in a narrow alley in Mulberry Bend, a notorious neighbourhood in the Lower East Side. The image became an emblem of the dangers lurking in the city’s slums. There’s some debate over whether Riis actually took this photograph or whether it was one of his assistants, but it’s clear that it captured exactly what Riis wanted to convey: the dark, threatening world of the tenements.
Riis didn’t always stick to candid shots. Some of his images were staged, which was common at the time. In one famous photograph of homeless boys, or “Street Arabs” as he called them, you can see one boy smiling, clearly aware of the camera. Riis was more interested in the story than the strict authenticity of each shot. He wanted to show the reality of tenement life, even if that meant arranging a few details for the sake of the photograph. To Riis, the narrative mattered most.
A Friendship with Theodore Roosevelt
Riis’ work caught the attention of many powerful people, none more important than Theodore Roosevelt. At the time, Roosevelt was serving as the Police Commissioner of New York, and he quickly became an admirer of Riis’ efforts to expose the city’s social ills. The two men struck up a friendship, and together they worked on several initiatives to improve housing and public safety in the tenements. Roosevelt once said of Riis, “I have read your book, and I have come to help.” The two men’s partnership helped push through real changes in the city’s housing laws and enforcement.
Riis' Later Life and Legacy
By the time Jacob Riis passed away in 1914, his work had already made a lasting impact. Lillian Wald, a social reformer and founder of the Henry Street Settlement, said of him, “He opened up the hearts of a people to emotion.” Indeed, Riis’ combination of words and photographs had done just that. His legacy lives on in the countless reforms that were made as a direct result of his work.
Though Riis didn’t take every photograph attributed to him, it was his vision, his relentless drive, and his storytelling that made these images so powerful. Whether captured by his hand or by one of his assistants, each photograph was part of a larger mission to make the suffering of the poor visible to the rest of the world. And in that mission, Jacob Riis undoubtedly succeeded.
Riis' journey from a heartbroken Danish carpenter to one of America’s most influential social reformers shows just how far a strong sense of purpose can take someone. His work remains a testament to the power of storytelling—whether told through words, photographs, or a combination of both.
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