Before publishing his pioneering book "How the Other Half Lives"a photojournalistic investigation into the poverty of New York s tenement houses, home to three quarters of the city s populationJacob Riis (1849-1914) spent his first years in the United States as an immigrant and itinerant laborer, barely surviving on his carpentry skills until he landed a job as a muckraking reporter. These early experiences provided Riis with an understanding of what it was like to be poor in the immigrant communities that populated New York s slums, and it was this empathy that would shine through in his...

The definitive study of the images made by a pioneer journalist and photographer who passionately advocated for America's urban poor

Danish-born Jacob A. Riis (1849-1914) found success in America as a reporter for the New York Tribune, first documenting crime and later turning his eye to housing reform. As tenement living conditions became unbearable in the wake of massive immigration, Riis and his camera captured some of the earliest, most powerful images of American urban poverty.

This important publication is the first comprehensive study and complete...