How the Other Half Lives
Second Edition ©2011
Jacob Riis's famed 1890 photo-text addressed the problems of tenement housing, immigration, and urban life and work at the beginning of the Progressive era. David Leviatin edited this complete edition of How the Other Half Lives to be as faithful to Riis's original text and photography as pos...
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Jacob Riis's famed 1890 photo-text addressed the problems of tenement housing, immigration, and urban life and work at the beginning of the Progressive era. David Leviatin edited this complete edition of How the Other Half Lives to be as faithful to Riis's original text and photography as possible. Uncropped prints of Riis's original photographs replace the faded halftones and drawings from photographs that were included in the 1890 edition. Related documents added to the second edition include a stenographic report of one of Riis's lantern-slide lectures that demonstrates Riis's melodramatic techniques and the reaction of his audience, and five drawings that reveal the subtle but important ways Riis's photographs were edited when they were reinterpreted as illustrations in the 1890 edition. The book's provocative introduction now addresses Riis's ethnic and racial stereotyping and includes a map of New York's Lower East Side in the 1890s. A new list of illustrations and expanded chronology, questions for consideration, and selected bibliography provide additional support.
“The introduction is excellent and has proven valuable in discussion sections. It supplies much needed background and context to the actual Riis book.”
-- Howard Smead, University of Maryland“The introduction is tremendously helpful to my students in setting the stage not merely with respect to Riis's biographical background and how he became a photojournalist but also in providing much-needed historical context with respect to the Progressive era.”
-- Kimber Quinney, California State University San Marcos“Leviatin's introduction is among the most informative and adroit of its kind. It is unmatched in depth, insight, conceptual sophistication, and information and provides a stunning prelude to both the era and to Riis's book.”
-- Dominick Cavallo, Adelphi University
Table of Contents
Foreword
Preface
A Note about the Text and Images
List of Map and Illustrations
PART ONE. INTRODUCTION: Framing the Poor – The Irresistibility of How the Other Half Lives
The Flash: Jacob Riis Discovers Light
The American Scene: The Search for Order
How the Other Half Looks: Interpreting Riis’s View of Poverty
PART TWO.
How the Other Half Lives: Studies among the Tenements of New York
PART THREE. RELATED DOCUMENTS
1. Jacob A. Riis, The Other Half and How They Live: Story in Pictures, November 9, 1891
2. Six Illustrations from the 1890 Edition of How the Other Half Lives
Appendixes
A Jacob A. Riis Chronology (1849–1923)
Questions for Consideration
Selected Bibliography
Index
Authors
Jacob A. Riis
David Leviatin
David Leviatin has taught American studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University, the University of Rhode Island, and Charles University in Prague. In addition to the publication of numerous articles, Leviatin is the author of Prague Sprung: Notes and Voices from the New World (1993) and Followers of the Trail: Jewish Working-Class Radials in America (1989). He is also a freelance photographer whose photos have appeared in several major publications including the New York Times Magazine.
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