Rediscovering Jacob Riis
Daniel Czitrom
(Author)
Description
With Rediscovering Jacob Riis, art historian Bonnie Yochelson and historian Daniel Czitrom place Jacob Riis's images in historical context even as they expose a clear sightline to the present. In the first half of their book, Czitrom explores Riis's reporting and activism within the gritty specifics of Gilded Age New York: its new immigrants, its political machines, its fiercely competitive journalism, its evangelical reformers, and its labor movement. In delving into Riis's intellectual education and the lasting impact of How the Other Half Lives, Czitrom shows that though Riis argued for charity, not sociopolitical justice, the empathy that drove his work continues to inspire urban reformers today.
In the second half of the book, Yochelson describes for the first time Riis's photographic practice: his initial reliance on amateur photographers to take the photographs he needed, his own use of the camera, and then his collecting of photographs by professionals, who by 1900 were documenting social reform efforts for government agencies and charities. She argues that while Riis is rightly considered a revolutionary in the history of photography, he was not a photographic artist. Instead, Riis was a writer and lecturer who first harnessed the power of photography to affect social change.
As staggering inequality continues to be an urgent political topic, this book, illustrated with nearly seventy of Riis's photographs, will serve as a stunning reminder of what has changed, and what has not.
Product Details
| Publisher | University of Chicago Press |
| Publish Date | August 18, 2014 |
| Pages | 296 |
| Language | English |
| Type |  Paperback / softback |
| EAN/UPC | 9780226182865 |
| Dimensions | 6.4 X 7.8 X 0.8 inches | 0.9 pounds |
About the Author
Reviews
"A rigorous, scholarly reexamination of Riis's life and work. . . . Riis's lightning-flash images of social catastrophe still have the power to shock, even after 120 years."--Matthew Power "New York Times Book Review"
"An evocative and valuable reminder both of one unrelenting individual's ability to make a difference and of the relevance of his revelations to the painfully familiar problems we face today."--Sam Roberts "New York Times"
"Yochelson and Czitrom have done a service in returning Riis's images to public attention. We gaze into the eyes of these 19th-century immigrant Americans and we feel for the hardships of the past and refocus on the struggles of today. Urban poverty remains a national blight. We await another Jacob Riis who, with camera and pen, can make the darkness visible and shock us anew."--Louis P. Masur "Chicago Tribune"
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