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you are looking at a time left you recorded by the library of congress showing the process of constructing the exhibition riis, revealing how the other half lives. tvt on american history artifacts. we learn about the life of the danish born journalist, social reformer and photographer. this program is just under an hour. >> this exhibition reveals how the other half lives is a co-presentation by the museum of the city of new york. it is the first time that the collections of the library of

theress and it papers -- papers had been married but the photographs and distiller collection with museum of new york. we picked the word co-presentation carefully because the exhibition here follows an exhibit at the museum of new york and that exhibit which was called jacob revealing new york's other half was slightly different. concentrated more on his biography, more on his photography. here we are looking at him as a journalist. that is the strength of our connection. collection. the manuscript are featured well in this exhibition. >> we also really wanted to

emphasize the combination of the photographs and manuscripts in terms of jacob riis's career. people think of them as a writer or a photographer. we are emphasizing the combination of those two things. and his role as a communicator. exhibit byanized the different ways and different mediums that he used as a police reporter, a writer, a photographer, as a reformer and as an ally with other people who are active in social change movement. to get the word out and educate the public about urban poverty, about immigration and the density of having -- housing in lower manhattan and to provide solutions to those kinds of issues. he is a creature of the gilded age. celebrity in real

the 1890's and early 1900s. he is kind of on the cusp between older models of poverty from the gilded age in the late victorian. period and more progressive, governmental policies and solutions. he had a foot in both words -- worlds. 1849 ins born in denmark. he was the son of a schoolteacher and was basically raised in a beautiful small town. he was a rebellious youth and even though he was the friend of a teacher, he was not a good student even though he loved to read. and when hooky a lot he was in new york, he had a lot of sympathy for true on young boys. youngf these -- truant boys.

some of these articles are about truancy. a lot of what he wrote about, he did have personal experience because he was an immigrant to the united states. when he was 21 years old, in 1870, he came to the united states by himself. he had a hard time initially. finding work, he did all kinds of odd jobs. worked as a laborer, worked as a door-to-door salesman, sometimes homeless. sometimes sleeping at night and homeless shelters. in our spirits, he brought into his articles when he was more established as a lease reporter and had -- police reporter and had a salaried job in the lower part of manhattan. bonnie yokelson naira to complete collection catalog of riis's photographs. my engagement started in the

1980's when i was curator of the museum of city of you nor -- new york. there is a great paradox to his photographs which is that he was andurnalist and a celebrity he said all the documentation of his career. he wanted to be remembered for posterity. he created scrapbooks to save his manuscript. every scrap of paper. his photographs because he did not think they were of any value apart from his words or articles or arguments. the way they were discovered is really fascinating. in 1914s a photographer and in the 1940's, a photographer named alexander lanb noticed in his book how the other half lived in on the title page it says with illustrations

after photographs by the author. he said to himself, or are these photographs -- where are these photographs? he tracked down riis's son and and much coursing -- colors coercing, he got the sent to find the pictures. son to find the picture. he found a box with 400 negatives, 300 lantern slides and almost 200 paper prints. and delivered them to alexander land the photographer. taking a couple of years, created an exhibition from the negatives making beautiful prints. working with the curator with the museum of new york and

put on an exhibition called battle of the slums, and for one of riis's books. as anablished riis important photographer and that is how he entered the history of photography. was, we don't have print to show. prints wereintage not by riis at all and the rest were in poor conditions. working with the museum staff, we applied for a grant from the national endowment for humanities and we made a set of what they call vintage material prints from the negatives. the purpose being to make

prints that would like those that riis would recognize. he never worked in a dark room. he took his negatives to a commercial studios and said he would need prints. not in a camera but was any way an expert technician. technicianse expert to doe these prints, not it alexander lamb did. that is what is on exhibition here to represent his photographs. at the beginning of the exhibit, we have chosen three very famous photographs from the .exicon of jacob riis to the left is perhaps his most famous photograph. it was in the middle of an area

called mulberry bend which is a section of mulberry street near baxter street that became a inticularly cause for riis terms of urban reform. he eventually would succeed in working with miscible authorities demolished mulberry and replace it with a park which is another story deeper into the exhibit. thataradox about riis is he himself said he was a photographer after a fashion. he was not a real photographer. he is the camera from a few years. less than 10 years. he only took about 300 pictures. about a third of which were family snapshots and other things not of historic importance. is most famous picture today shows bowlerwhich

hats. the picture was copied by martin scorsese in a movie, gangs of new york. it is a narcotic image -- iconic image. friend was at to a photographer at the time and out to photographers who are found two -- photographers who were interested in flash. he was a writer, journalist, writing in the daily newspaper about the conditions. he read in the newspaper in 1887 oft there was new invention flash powder that could eliminate the darkness and he said, ha ha!

he worked with two other photographers who are interested in flash and technology. among their toad of grass -- aotographs, this taken with camera with two lenses. .wo images the one on the left is the famous image. the other irony is that his most famous image. axa taken by him. taken byt actually him. paidstrates people who adsense or seven cents a night to have temporary lodging -- five cents or seven cents a night to have temporary lodging. there was a law in new york that you had to provide a bed of some

kind and the lowest price you could charge was seven cents. the title indicates to the viewer that this was a legal -- illegal shelter. -- the a picture , took a taken by him picture with a member of the sanitary police who were rating -- raiding the place saying this was illegal. entering the room, which only ,ad the slightest bit of light riis entered with the police, set up his camera, set off an explosion which sounded like a with smoke and fire and what is captured in the picture if the faces, some

people are sleeping and others have been aroused and look so stricken by the circumstance. the picture in his description of the scene, 13 people in the room, tiny little room including an infant. a screaming infant. it is a horrific scene. enforce, aroused authorities to enforce laws houses.ese lodging he describes that his book. that is a fantastic example of one of riis's flash photographs creating a powerful portrait of inhumane conditions. a picture like that, pictures like that have been criticized for essentially victimizing his subjects. he came in, no consent, scared these people to death and that

in that as a criticism. a modern criticism today of these flash photographs. not his intention but from a contemnor a point of view, a problem. contemporary point of view, a problem. girl, little katie. 's approach to the subject matter. he originally worked with amateur photograph of his -- photographers and then he started taking them himself. launching -- lodging picture was in his first book and katie was in his second book called children of the poor. in that book was more like a social worker or caseworker. he had discussions with the here,t matters where

lodgers were surprised by men. sneaking into the room. with katie, he learned her story. her mother had died living with her siblings in a tenant. he took this picture and what he said, what do you do? she said, i scrub. her symptoms were working in a hammock factory and katie stayed home. she is not usual. years old. she scrubbed and cooked for the family. this is a birds eye view of new york in 1879. ,hey were popular until slightly after the turn-of-the-century. they put buildings and gave an idea of the density of space and

put buildings and perspective. -- in perspective. you see the lower east side where riis is primarily working and it is astounding to see where how may people are crammed and how may structures crammed into that space. the u.s. census bureau at the time said this was the most densely crowded city in the united states. 1.5 million people lived primarily in lower manhattan. riis claimed it was the largest population, most densely populated city on earth. which may or may not have been the case. that's what he claimed. if you look at this map, it really speaks to that density. he wasues that addressing. we have been talking about the that jacob rees has

lived many of the issues he wrote about as a police reporter and how he came to the united states as an immigrant from denmark. ouras 21 years old and in first case, we emphasize his life story or biography. when making the exhibit, we used notes that we have in his manuscript collection from the library of congress from the making of america. his autobiography. as a lantern slide lecture and we have in his collection his notes from a lantern slide after waste on this making of an american. we have feature pages from that in almost all the cases. here, for biography, we used the

first one where he talks about the naivete when he first came to new york. i can denmark, he loved to read american literature and was quite fluent in english. what his favorite authors was james cooper. he had this vision as many scandinavians did that america was the wild west. we do not know the different east and west. out in as, gets metropolis and there are no buffaloes. the first thing he does is by a revolver. buy revolver. this is a funny story about this kid eyeing a revolver -- buying a revolver. a policeman stops him and says you may want to get rid of the gun.

it is a funny story. it is a hard time for jacob rees when he first came. he had a lot of difficulty making a living, finding work, he was unable to find steady work. he got very depressed. one of the things we are showing is a wonderful early diary of his written partly in danish and that he switches to english. in a diary it is about his loneliness when he first came here and his pining for his love, elizabeth, which was at that time unrequited. and his suicidal feelings. it was very difficult in the beginning. andeat love story with riis his wife elizabeth. she does succumb to his courtship and they marry 1876 in

and settle come back first in brooklyn and then in richmond hill and have a family. 's motivationb riis in life is that everyone should have a healthy state and healthy family like he does. he wrote a lot about emily's and the welfare of children in particular. -- families in the welfare of children in particular. he would say there is no difference between these children and mine. there were some other children that died young. >> next we are going to talk about what looks like a strange assemblage of equipment. things that we are not used to seeing. this is photographic equipment. very similar to what riis you would use on his raiding parties.

is a camera.here this is a stealth camera that could be used without a tripod, it could be held by the strap on the side. it did the photographer some ability. -- mobility. that allow for a lot of mobility of the invention and introduction of dry plate negatives. it is to this time, you had to tote plate with collodion. it was a laborious process. buy platesd you to already prepared. this was a holder here. you could carry a few with you and make a number of exposures.

what we have in the back here is a flash pin. healers about the german invention of using flash powder in 1887. he was very interested. he understands that he could be using this to great effect for his work. as barbara said earlier, the first application of the flash powder was put into pistols and you would go in and set it off and there would be a big room, a big flash of light -- big boom, a big flash of light and it would scare the people being photographed. holder was noter much better and very dangerous. you would put the magnesium flash powder in the pan. take a fuse, light the fuse and it would go off in a big boom.

again, you would have a big burst of light and enable the photograph that riis took in the dark spaces that these spaces would be eliminated so you would get some image. >> there is also the question of how did riis use the photographs? committee's initial photographs -- he made these initial photographs and he really saw himself not as a photographer, he thought he was using photography as a tool for journalism. we have to remember that at the same time he was doing lectures lanterning them as slides, he was also still a police reporter. his intent was that he would use as illustrations of his articles. in this case, which is about him as a police reporter, who wanted

to demonstrate how it would look with an actual print of the photograph and how it would show as a line drawing in the periodical press. what would happen is, in illustrator would be hired, it would make a line drawing and then integrating and that would be -- an engraving and then they'll be printed in the newspaper. make flat halftones journals forand as a freelancee journalist. but it was on to the 1890's that thequality -- not until 1890's that the quality was good enough to have good reproduction of the photograph. then he would purchase photographs by other people. his original idea is to appeal visually and combined the image and the word in order to sway

people. work on theed to beat. reporting crimes and anything that happened to the police department. for six years, he was on night ,ork where his newspaper office he worked for the new york tribune. we have a photograph from the library and the tribune office. right across the street from police headquarters. he is there with his friend and is in reporter and riis the corner. he would basically follow the police when they would get a call or a murderer or a crime and he would write about the story. he had a lot of human interest stories. had is probably how he access to the entire -- inside

of tenement buildings. many people in the neighborhood but he was a doctor because he came so often. when they were doing investigations of the tenements, he would be with them. he was a trusted and don't face on the street. -- known face on the street. he also started doing human interest stories that focused on the conditions faced by the poor. they are the kinds of issues that we are showing in the exhibit including housing and public health and public space, labor, immigration. expose howo difficult the circumstances were under which the poor were living . especially the immigrant poor. encourage people to either get money to charities, there were over 138 charities active at the time dealing with the poor or to encourage

philanthropists to give a lot of money to endow things like , and to also work with the government to bring about municipal reforms. when riis went on the road, he started out doing his lantern slide lectures in new york city and eventually he had wars all over the country. ours all over the country. the operator to operate the lantern slide, he would be paid services andr his he traveled across the country. we have his appointment books which show he would be in a different city every night. practically. is a very deluxe model.

again, he could have been using biennial same teropticon. one slide to slide in and one slide to slide out. and models that have one lens. >> we have this image at the courtesy of the american magic lantern theater. here the exhibit, we have a video running is based on the 'se transcript we have of riis lecture. >> comes the problem of the children. this came out to the alley just as he is here. her hair was matted with blood and her whole body was covered with sores.

the future of this child. can you read it in her face? i can. after she had been in the care of the society for the prevention of cruelty for children, this is the way she looked on the right. the last 16 years, that society has thrown its arms around 50-60,000 children. what a record of work. the assignment known as sister irene. the good sister has gathered many thousands of waifs from the street into her home. catholic or president, -- protestant, no difference. wings flapping of little will be heard on to greater as has not heard since the moving

stars sang together. now you will have seen the boys and girls and you have seen fatheromes, here is the of some such so drunk that we fired the photographic flash he never woke up. >> this is about his lecturing and the postcards show where he wrote from all over the country and europe. wife,ughter katie and his elizabeth who he would call sweet lamb of mine. and the notebook which is the itineraries of where he is traveling. , the newspaperman, became a subject matter for other newspapers. we show reviews he got from other journalists that he kept in his scrapbook. >> the re-creation we have done is based on the actual

transcript here and lines are taken from it. lectureinal fracture -- was two hours and we condensed it down to six minutes and 51 seconds. historians he is written a lot about, riis midpoint it was all a bonneville vaudeville like entertainment. people being buried at potters field, young children being subjectvery serious matter but he likened it up by telling jokes but some of those are not funny anymore, but they are ethnic jokes. thick kind of humor that would have been prominent. >> on one of my visits i came about -- upon this person and i told him if he would sit still admit, i would give him $.10. that was probably the first and

man aren't by honest labor in the course of his entire life. was in down at which he the knowledge expert -- acknowledged expert. >> talking about the ways he uses innovative photographs and he gave lantern slide lectures. one day, when he was giving a lincoln slide lecture on how the other half lives and dies, there were two editors in the audience and they approached riis and asked him to write an article which came out in december, 1889. it included any of the images and from the article, he was asked to write a book and we do feature the first edition of that look -- book.

the result of that wonderful meeting was that jacob riis received a contract to her right -- to write how the other half lives. he was doing police report or work. -- reporter works. . a government committee assigned to investigate the conditions of the poor, particularly the issues of sanitation and crowding. ,uch to the surprise of riis how the other half lives was a huge success. it came out at a time when there was an interest in the slums among the middle class.

other people have written books that describe conditions of the poor, but riis had a special and almost a style sociological approach to describing the different ethnic communities that were in the lower east side. when he submitted was used statistics. >> he is statistics. in fact, i had never read how the other half lives and i listen to the audiobook -- listen to to the audiobook and it was -- listened to the other book and it was astounding -- to the audiobook and it was astounding how he was evangelizing for reform and placesing these dark that he was bringing light to with his photography. he is most effective when he

uses the two sticks. when he talks about -- statistics. when he talks about death on a particular lock of children. block of children. i also think the power of the scribbners article was attributed to the professional artist they got to engrave his photograph in the magazine. artist that is translating riis's photographs. you see a chinese opium den on the bottom. that is on the left-hand page, the five cent lodging. >> he was concerned about the ratesuge infant mortality . the committee i mentioned, they refer to the rear tenements as

slaughterhouses for infants. bornut of five babies died in early childhood. when we talk about the tenements, it is not only that the tenement building themselves many peoplewded, cannot even afford to live in the building so where else can they live? street and would ood-shackw structures. rates and also the issues of public health, , foodbornesteria disease or water. one of the points of the

statistics is how closely riis works with other individuals within the board of health. there was a governmental connection for him. and municipal government to work with the sanitation engineers, the scientists. he got information from them in terms of statistics and give them evidence. >> during the exhibit, we basically have two major ways to see the material. you come in the front, you see the originals in the case appeared when you get to the back and turn around, you have a big surprise because we are showing some of the famous photographs in very large graphic size. one reason we wanted to do that is to show people how people in the audience of the lincoln slide lectures would have seen this images. they would not have been the small things based on the actual size of the lantern or the prince and the newspaper, -- pr

the in the newspaper or crude illustrations and his articles. it would have been the large, detailed images that people would have projected on the wall. .eople could really study they are life-sized. it helps people to really identify with these other human beings that are the same as us. it helps with the empathy. jacob riis was not alone as a social reformer and he himself was only one 1000th of the solution and it yells the lattice. >> loudest. -- lattice. est,want to portray -- loud . and we don't want to portray that he was the only one addressing these issues.

what was special about him was that he was a very good publicist and the lantern slide lectures to help with that, ringing the message all across the country. -- bringing the message all across the country. some of the people read the books and he raised awareness and consciousness on issues of poverty. he also had very important allies in high places. there were many of them, we had only a little bit of space so we chose three. they are theodore roosevelt, booker t. washington and louise and andrews carnegie. we had major collections of all those individuals here. we are highlighting here an image that comes from our photograph division and it is a political cartoon. it is portraying what we would call theodore roosevelt's kitchen cabinet.

not the actual members, just people who were friends of his hand click allies and people he had relied on for advice. is can see that jacob riis in the picture. here's the small figure in clonal cuneiform second from the left. holding a handkerchief to his face. you to booker t. washington is also in the doorway -- can see that booker t. washington is also in the doorway. roosevelt himself is the only person in the picture not crying. meet theodore roosevelt? that is the story of his activism in new york city. , the basic case ce betweenhe broman

theodore roosevelt and jacob riis. they first met in 1894. the new administration was elected in new york city with the reform administration. it is often described as "government. the good government movement. manifested including better sanitation. he was famousngs for was appointed sanitation and an engineer who created the cemetery workers that war workers.white printed as an army of sanitation. ofparaded as an army sanitation. the issue roosevelt and riis worked on was the closing of lodging houses. they met, the mayor appointed

theodore roosevelt as police commissioner and the police headquarters was right across the street from jacob riis's journalism office. the door roosevelt was artie aware of him. said it and jacob rees knew in the moment i saw him, they merely formed a bond. they went about at night on these nightly raids so that riis could familiarize roosevelt with the neighborhood. he showed them some of the things that were happening in tenements and checked up on what policemen were doing. the issue of using police lodging houses as homeless shelters. riis had a personal reason for having a grudge about police dredging houses. -- lodging houses. when he was a young immigrant,

he sometimes stayed overnight in these homeless shelters. he tells a story in his a night when he was in particular despair where he had considered throwing himself into the east river and he was befriended by a stray dog. the dog was his buddy, his only friend. that night, he went to stay at a lodging house, they would not let the dog and the dog was waiting for him outside. a precious golden locket that he had brought with him to america that had a picture of his beloved elizabeth was stolen t from him. the policeman on duty did not believe him. why would this but have a golden docket -- boy have a golden locket? he was roughed in throwing riis

out and the dog saw him being roughed up and snarled in the policeman beat the dog to death. it is a tragic story. riis never forgot it and what he wrote about the closing of the police lodging houses which he successfully did with theodore , he titled the " my dog is avenged/" ." opposed younger people to harden criminals. a wholesome environment for the young. often there was a spread of disease. this particular article we are highlighting on lodging houses, are they hotbeds for peter? -- fever?

shows him lying on the floor. he is at the police station and had typhus. uses this as an example of the danger of contagious diseases so that people stay there who will spread it in the morning and the police were concerned about the issue. in closing down the lodging houses and ideas that the police are a policing authority should have a major role in supplying homeless shelters. riis believed private charities should take over that role in partnership with the municipality. share funds both the city and charitable funds. to open model lodging houses that would have showers and ways bathe andnd ways to -- ways to watch clothes and a real

bed to sleep on. >> on the sidewalls we have paired photographs attributed to map of the harrison brown company. each panel features one of these maps that locates where these photographs were taken. these date from 1880. they are blocked by block -- block by block. what you can see is what the building materials are made of. yellow indicates wooden structure. pink is brick. green is some sort of fire insurance hazard whether it be because of what goes on in the building or building materials. you can see where the police station is. it is in the lower right quadrant here.

was illustrates what riis railing against. no light or air circulation and these structures. if you can imagine that there is a window on the street side, then you see that there are buildings back to back. there is no light hitting in. -- getting an. >in. >> regulations to require that would this be cut through. there were some 40,000 windows that were cut through. inside rooms. 13 byas a 13 next 13 -- 13 room with no ventilation for light. these are taken by the thomas edison company.

is working inriis new york. primarily dating these films in 1903-1904.from this is the fish market on the lower east side. on the right-hand side. that isa vibrancy missing in the static images. it shows the life of the street. think it as a nice dimension to the exhibition. films,e particular merely from the 1903 era, are from riis's lifetime. it is as he would have seen new york at the time. this showing men throwing things in the dump. men andus article about

who liveda picture underneath the street there. part of what they're doing is sorting things out of the garbage that can be recycled for money. they sorted rags that would be recycled for paper and bones that would be used for fertilizer for baking soda. he cover this partly as an issue of homelessness as an issue of disease and sanitation. we had mentioned earlier that came into factor in the gilded age and dies in 1914 during the progressive area. he had many friends that were against the reformers --

progressive reformers. he became a particular patron of another settlement house that was the king's daughter settlement. we have here the section about his legacy something that he saved.his wife from the jacob riis papers. he was a patron at the king's daughter group which was a group of episcopal women who started off selling health inspectors. purchasedually had this property and he helped them do it by giving lantern slide lectures and donating the money that he gave. he was a major fundraiser for the creation of the settlement. he continues to raise funds for the operation and had kindergarten, offered special services, offer nursing

services, had a playground in the backyard for the kids. it was a church-based settlement house. as a very pious protestant, he was comfortable with the church-based turkey. some of the other settlements were not sectarian or secular. among the people who lived there, florence kelley. previously at whole house in chicago. she had become a factory inspector for the state of illinois. she came to new york, she moved into the henry street settlement and she worked on child labor, it our a day for women and working women rights. she was a leader of the national consumer league. we have papers from the national consumer league at the library of congress and we highlight one of the articles she wrote and published.

style.ch in riis an expose on the issue of women and children in the labor force. there poorly just and -- poor wages and lack of protection. the article -- we also have papers of the national child labor committee. hired by them to going to cover and basically do investigative reports. like is another riis- activity. riis was doing the exposes of the slums. hyne went into factories and fields and took photographs considered some of the most important documentary photograph of the 20th century. particularly of child labor. used up like reese had pictures of the children to show

this to social reformers and testify in front of congress. it led to major child labor legislation. >> one important about this exhibit and especially the kind of issues we deal with and emphasize on the sidewalls about public housing and public health, the attitudes towards immigrants. all these issues are still very much with us today. we like people to understand that they go back far into the 19th century and these people grapple with them at this time and we continue to grapple with them today. would be as data today to learn that he is best known for being a photographer, which is not what he thought of himself as. , thenk the first exhibit exhibit in new york and the upcoming exhibit in denmark, they are repositioning riis

moretti saw himself as a communicator. -- more as he saw himself as a communicator. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]