valley. it is lovingly so by dormancy know that this is a very culturally mormon place. and maybe a little bit more critically by folks who come and can't for the life of them find a bar or have a difficult time finding that cup of coffee in the morning. happy valley to them has a little bit different feel to them. it is definitely what makes provo provo. >> all weekend, american history tv is featuring provo, utah. c-span cities towards staff recently visited many sites showcasing the city's history. it is located approximately 40 miles south of salt lake city utah lake, the largest freshwater lake in the state. learn more about provo all weekend here on american history tv. but i you are looking at a time last video at the library of congress.

"jacob riis: revealing how the other half lives." next on american history tv's artifacts, we learn about the life of the danish born journalist, social reformer, and photographer. this program is just under an hour. >> i am a curator of this exhibit. i am a historian. jacob riis was born in 1849 in denmark. he was the son of a schoolteacher and was basically raised in this very beautiful small town in denmark. he was a rebellious youth and even though he was the son of a teacher, he was not a good student although he loved to read. he played hooky a lot and when he was in new york, he had a lot of sympathy for truant young boys. a lot of his articles are about truancy and how we can get kids into school. he wrote from personal

experience. 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 very hard time initially here 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 in homeless shelters and police lodging houses. all of this experience he brought into his articles later when he was more established as a police reporter and had a salaried job in the lower part of manhattan. >> my name is bonnie yochelson.

i wrote the complete collection catalog of riis' photographs published on the occasion of this exhibition. as he slept, a precious golden locket that he had brought with him to america that had a picture of his beloved elizabeth was stolen from him. when he went to report this to the policeman on duty, the policeman did not believe him. he thought why would this tramp boy have a golden locket. he was very rough in throwing riis out of the lodging house. the dog saw him being roughed up and snarled. the policeman beat the dog to death. it is a very tragic story. riis never forgot it. and when he wrote about the closing of the police lodging houses which he successfully did with theodore roosevelt help, he titled the chapter in his autobiography "my dog is avenged." he was concerned about the lodging houses because of the crowdedness and criminality. a lot of younger people were exposed to hardened criminals or

recruited to be pickpockets. it was not a wholesome environment for the young. also, there was the spread of disease because of the crowdedness. this particular article we are highlighting is the story of a man shown lying on the floor. he is very ill. he is at the police station and he did have typhus. riis uses this as an example of the danger of contagious diseases to the people staying there who would spread it when they left in the morning. but also to the policemen themselves. the police were concerned about this issue. they do succeed in closing down the lodging houses.

and the idea that the policing authority should have a major there who would spread it when role in supplying homeless shelters. riis believed private charities should take over that role in partnership with the municipality. with shared funds, both city and charitable funds, to open model lodging houses that would have showers and ways to bathe, and ways to wash clothes, and a real bed for people to sleep in, and so on. >> on the sidewalls, we have paired photographs attributed to riis with a fire insurance maps from the harrison brown company. each panel features one of these maps that locates where the photograph was probably taken. these date from 1880. they are block by block. what you can see is what the building materials are made of. >> the exhibition can be viewed online at the library of congress website, loc.gov. >> our coverage continues in cleaver it -- in cleveland with continuingge

tuesday, july 12, at :00 a.m. eastern. submitting it to delegate. live on c-span, the c-span radio, and he stand.org. >> up next, a panel of historians and scholars hold a panel discussing who is black in america. it is part of a three-day conference calling the future of the african-american pass. it was cohosted by the national smithsonian national museum of african american history and culture and the american historical association. [applause] prof. berlin: thank you very much feared i would like to affirm that i am ira berlin, and this is a discussion over who is black, with the expectation that anybody of african descent has the same opinions, shares the