Jacob Riis How The Other Half Lives Summary

By the late 19th century, New York transformed into an urban metropolis aided by the growth of industrialization and immigration. The growth of the city subsequently brought with it increased poverty. Poor conditions in the slums and tenements grew an alarming degree. It was Jacob Riis that took it upon himself to bring attention to the plight of the poor through documenting “how the other half lives” in photography and journalism. Although Jacob Riis began as a writer, the plight of the poor influenced Riis to learn photography, realizing its potential as a tool in his eventual goal of enacting social change. In this paper I will analyze photographs from How the Other Half Lives, approaching Jacob Riis as an artist and photographer rather

than a social reformer using documentary photos. By exploring thoughts about photography during its introduction into society and looking closely at Riis’s photographs, it is seen why Jacob Riis at the time was not considered an artist.
Jacob Riis was born in Ribe, Denmark in 1849. In 1870 when he was 21, he immigrated to the United States to find work. Like many immigrants to the United States at the time, Riis had a difficult time making a living, despite possessing carpentry skills, which he learned in Copenhagen. Riis had immigrated to the United States at a time when “the growth of industrialism…after the Civil War, the growth of the cities with overcrowding in their slums, and the increasing European immigration brought in their wake terrible problems” (Cordasco xvi). Not only were the circumstances in the slums atrocious, but people were unsympathetic to the exploitation of the poor while corruption ran rampant among city officials. Although this time was difficult for Riis, the need for social reform in the new metropolis combined with the arrival of flash photography created the perfect background for him to make a name for himself and thrive.
In his autobiography, he “recounts the life of an itinerant workingman, tramping across New Jersey, New York State, and the Midwest, including stints in lumber mills, shipyards, furniture factories, ice houses, and peddling books and flat irons” (Czitrom 4). Riis eventually found his way into journalism and police reporting, where he confronted the gritty underside of New York. He wrote articles that were about “national politics, personality profiles, and scandals among the social elite” in addition to New York police reporting (9). His two journalistic styles, combined with his photography in How the Other Half Lives allowed him to successfully bring attention to the plight of the poor. At the same time, the empathy that is evoked from his photographs alone illustrates the inherent artistic qualities of Riis’s works.
Not only was there an ongoing industrial revolution, but also a technological revolution occurring during the mid 19th century. One of the technological innovations of the century was photography. The “inventions in the electrical industries and new discoveries in optics and in chemistry…led to the development of the new means of communication that was to become so important to so many spheres of life – photography” (Price and Wells 12). The invention allowed anyone with enough money to afford a camera the ability to create images, which had before only been done by artists with enough talent to draw or paint what they saw. Even Jacob Riis tried his hand at using sketches to show the conditions of slums in the city. Needless to say, photography was a more powerful tool for social reform.
The ability to capture every detail of a moment exactly as it was in reality highlighted the importance of photography in science and more objective, technical fields. Photography “was celebrated for its putative ability to produce accurate images of what was in front of its lens; images which were seen as being mechanically produced and thus free of the selective discrimination of the human eye and hand” (14). This led to many debates about the place of photography in society. It was asked whether photography could exist as its own art form or if it existed only as a way to objectively document the world. Baudelaire believed that “It should be considered the servant of the art and sciences, and humbly assume the same role as the printing press. For, if photography was allowed to enter the domain of art, art would soon be corrupted, due to the dangerous alliance between photography and the vain crowd” (Grotta 82). Because of these beliefs about photography, Riis’s work has for the most part been labeled as documentary photography or an instrument to enact social change and reform. Jacob Riis was able to simultaneously use his photographs to document the ills of society and artistically capture a moment in time, whether it was intentional or not.
During these early decades of photography, Jacob Riis was also one of the first to make use of flash photography. It was in 1887 that “Riis read a four-line notice in the newspaper about the German invention of a magnesium flash powder, which could provide enough light to capture a photographic image in the dark” (Yochelson 128). Working as a police reporter, he spent much of his time in the poverty ridden streets of New York at night. Flash photography allowed him to both literally and metaphorically illuminate night time scenes as well as the dark interior living spaces of the “other half.” The flash was not only to
Accentuate the shadows, making the dark appear truly stygian, but to bring out, in detail, the accumulations of grime and dust on the walls, the floors, the rickety furniture. ‘His photographs,’ as William Chapman Sharpe puts it, ‘were literally exposures – exposures of greasy wallpaper and grimy skin, filthy bedding and soot-caked stoves that never saw the light of day. It was a vision created only for an instant by the flash camera. (Flint 377)
Through flash photography Jacob Riis was able to capture what was never seen before using a technique that was never seen before, creating photos that are striking and powerful, independent from Riis’s words.
The supposed realism and objectivity of Riis’s photographs comes under question as we analyze his photos and how they are taken. Now that photography is seen as its own art form, we can look back at Riis’s work and see its place not only in journalism or photojournalism, but also in photography. Reginald Twigg writes that
Throughout much of its history the authority of photographic realism has rested precisely on the ability of the photo to present images of reality seemingly free of interpretation. Yet photographic meaning comes from the complex webs of signification in which the image is embedded. Consequently, the practice of photography is best understood as a social text – a critical site where the meaning(s) of reality are constantly challenged and destabilized. (Twigg 306)
Although it seems as though no interpretation is needed of Riis’s photographs, it is true that in How the Other Half Lives the viewer is given Riis’s reporting in tandem with the photos. The data and statistics about the working and lower classes give the viewer the context in which the photographs must be seen. When the words are taken away and only the photographs remain, the urban squalor still exists, but it is an artist and photographer who emerges as the author behind the photo.
Because Riis’s goal was to urge the middle and upper classes to take action against the rampant poverty, he would have taken and selected photographs for How the Other Half Lives with great care. Jacob Riis himself “experienced the precariousness and degradation of the hapless immigrant: often jobless, hungry, and homeless, he was at times on the verge of suicide” (Madison v). As an immigrant who had been in the shoes of the subjects he photographed, he would have known firsthand what living in the slums felt like. Riis’s personal experience with the slums would have influenced the photographs he took. In addition to this, the cameras of the late 19th century still required that the subjects remained still and “posed” for a significant amount of time. So not only would subjects have had to pose to be recognizable, they had to be aware that Riis was taking their photo. Of the pictures that Riis took not all of them were staged, but still required a specific amount of preparation beforehand.
It is important for viewers to note that “his equipment was quite intrusive. All of his images were taken with a bulky tripod camera and many required the use of a flashlight, a dangerous contraption that more closely resembled a flare gun than today’s flashlight” (Huff 577-578). This awareness made Riis more than a passive observer of sordid New York City street life. Riis has an active role in the relationship because “looking at oneself and others through the camera… [situates] the viewing subject in a relation of power with the objectified Other” (Twigg 306). As a social reformer and a member of the middle class, Riis did see that he had the power to alter the plight of the subjects he photographed by allowing them to be looked at from a voyeuristic perspective. He takes these photographs as an outsider, despite having lived through similar conditions.
This relationship between the photographer and the photographed informs the “reality” that is seen through the images. The appeal of photography “comes from its often explicit denial that any active performance of interpretation is necessary. Photographs, nonetheless, are interpretations rhetorically and poetically charged by their ability to ‘write’ reality in ways that appear politically neutral” (Twigg 306). And although Riis’s goal was to be politically charged to shock the public out of apathy, his photographs were not exactly an objective depiction of life in the slums. So in that sense it is not completely “neutral.” The conditions of the slums are present in the photographs, but the subjects photographed do not seem particularly unhappy as the viewer might suspect given the poverty of their surroundings. Riis’s subjects willingly cooperated for the photographs. These relationships and the choices Riis made contributed to the artistry of his work. Although he was an amateur and claimed that he never had any technical skill with photography, his photographs tell another story. Susan Sontag wrote about the subject that “the photographer’s intentions do not determine the meaning of the photograph, which will have its own career, blown by the whims and loyalties of the diverse communities that have use for it” (qtd. in Willmann 223). The more artistic elements of Riis’s photographs emerge through a closer analysis of his work.
One of the most famous photos of Jacob Riis in How the Other Half Lives is “Bandits’ Roost,” a scene from one of the most notorious neighborhoods in New York “the Bend” on Mulberry Street.

Riis writes that “abuse is the normal condition of ‘the Bend,’ murder its everyday crop, with the tenants not always the criminals…their percentage of the total mortality in the block was 68.28” (Riis 52). “Bandit’s Roost” shows a scene from one of the alleys of “the Bend.” But by looking at the photograph, it is not clear to see who the criminals or the tenants are within the frame. There are doubts as to whether or not true criminals would consent to being photographed. There are even women and children within the photo accompanying the men in the alley, while others poke their heads out of their windows to be a part of the photograph. What is interesting is that the alley seems to serve “multiple and sometimes contradictory functions: in the same place the people of “the Bend” socialized and looked after children, they also piled refuse and soot, gathered ash from their fires, and dried their laundry” (Carter 124). Rather than capturing a scene of street thugs or truly menacing criminals, Riis photographed a more ambiguous situation. The audience, through the photograph, is given a peek into another world and another life. In “Bandit’s Roost” Riis “capitalizes on the optical effects of linear perspective, a phenomenon whereby lines running parallel to each other and away from the viewer appear to close in on each other. The linearity that gives the image depth also creates tightness” (Carter 123-124). Framed by the narrow alleyway on both sides and the lines of laundry ascending above, the photograph encloses the space of the alley, encapsulating a world within

itself.
Despite being unintentional, the effects of the relationship between photographer and photographed produces a dynamic work of art. Riis mentions in the chapter that the men “sit or stand in the streets, on trucks, or in the open doors or the saloons smoking black clay pipes, talking and gesticulating as if forever on the point of coming to blows” (Riis 50). The demeanor of the subjects is far from the aggressive and heated behavior described by Riis. From the stance of the men, it seems as though Riis has asserted his presence among the “bandits” in the alley. They are all standing idly and gazing in the direction of the photographer, fully aware of his gaze behind the camera. Even the figures farther in the background and those peeking out their window in the foreground are making sure to look toward Riis and his team. The gaze of the subjects returns the gaze of the camera and makes the viewer feel as if they are intruding upon the scene rather than that they are a part of it. Onlookers to this world are simultaneously pulled into it and set apart.
Bonnie Yochelson posits that “outdoor images such as…’Bandit’s Roost’…are less controlled; [it] is framed by an alley’s narrow corridor and required the cooperation of the residents, who stood still facing the camera” (Yochelson 140-141). Although the photo was less controlled, it does not detract from the scene which Riis was able to capture. Riis photographic art seems to come from good luck and natural intuition, which is a phenomenal feat given the nascent field of photography.
Another largely uncontrolled photo of significance is “Lodgers in a crowded Bayard Street tenement – “five cents a spot.” Unlike “Bandit’s Roost,” this photo was taken indoors, at night, and with flash. These different factors created a distinctive picture of life in the tenements. This specific tenement was located in “the Bend” where the increased influx of Italian immigrants increased overcrowded living situations. Riis records that:
From midnight till far into the small hours of the morning the policeman’s thundering rap on closed doors is heard, with his stern command ‘Apri port’!’ on his rounds gathering evidence of illegal overcrowding. The doors are open unwillingly enough…upon such scenes as the one presented in the picture. It was photographed by flashlight on just such a visit. In a room not thirteen feet either way slept twelve men and women, two or three in bunks set in a sort of alcove, the rest on the floor. A kerosene lamp burned dimly in the fearful atmosphere, probably to guide other and later arrivals to their ‘beds,’ for it was only just past midnight. (Riis 59)
In contrast to Riis’s words, the tenants do not seem afraid or anxious. They are all either sleeping or awoken from sleep. Again it is true that the conditions of the slums are revealed through the stark contrast created by flash photography, but the intrusive quality of the photograph creates a “moment in which there is no time for reflection, and in which, in any case, one is dazzled, shocked, removed from the ordinary—one is catapulted into a sense of immediacy, of self-presence, in which there is no room for thought, for recollection, for distance” for the tenants (Flint 381). Of the faces that can be seen, their eyes are closed due to the shocking brightness of the flash. The flash influences the aesthetics of the photo not only in the tenant’s faces but the shadows and contrasts of the environment are startling as well.
The bright light illuminates the small room and bunk alcove in a dramatic unveiling, almost making the cramped space seem larger. Flash photography had the ability to light up things that even Riis could not see, increasing the likelihood that Riis as well as the tenants would not have known what he had photographed until the photos were developed. The stark contrast between the dark and light draws the viewer’s attention to the independent human faces in the room before the cluttered mess surrounding them, showing that these photos are “environmental shots as much as they are portrait shots” (Murfin 12). Only three of the men in the room are sitting up, while the rest remain in a supine position, constructing what seems to be an unmediated, candid night time shot. But capturing the photo at night while the police were barging through, illustrates the way Riis’s photography allowed the domestic private lives of the working class to become not only a public spectacle, but also art.
In the Jewish neighborhood, Riis takes “Sabbath Even in a coal cellar.” At first glance this photo seems to include several important focal points, but does not focus specifically on any of them. The eye is allowed to wander across the details of the scene, acknowledging the different parts that make up the photo. Some of the details are even cut off from the frame, remaining only in part in the picture. This encourages the viewer to believe in the objectivity of what is in the coal cellar. The four things that attract attention are: the Hebrew sign, the Challah bread on the table, the man who seems to be in the middle of speaking and gesticulation with his hands, and a pair of hands holding a shovel.