In #1890 #Jacob_Riis's impressive #photo_collection of "New York's immigrant poor and the tenements, sweatshops, streets, docks, dumps, and factories that they called home", that he started circa 1880, was published on an book titled "How the Other Half Lives".
Often shot at night with the newly-available #flash function—a #photographic tool that enabled Riis to capture legible #photos of dimly lit living conditions—the #photographs presented a grim peek into life in #poverty to an oblivious public. Jacob Riis: ...

• photo 1: Street children sleep near a grate for warmth on Mulberry Street. Circa 1890-1895
• photo 2: Lodgers rest in a crowded Bayard Street tenement that rents rooms for five cents a night and holds 12 people in a room just 13 feet long. Circa 1889-1890.
• photo 3: unknown description, NYC, 1889-90(?)

#best_photographers #history #documentary #social_reform #nyc