Transcripts For CSPAN3 American Artifacts Jacob Riis Exhibit

Social reformer and photographer. This program is just under one hour. Cheryl i am an exhibit director and at the library of congress. Barbara i am the curator of this exhibit and an historian in the Manuscript Division of the library of congress. Is al this exhibition copresentation with the museum of sit the city of new york. It is the first time that the collections of the library of congress, the riis papers have been married with the photographs that are a stellar collection at the museum of new york. We picked the word copresentation carefully because the exhibition here actually follows an exhibit that was at the museum of new york and really, that exhibit, which was called, jacob riis revealing new yorks other half, was slightly different. It looks at riis in a slightly different way, concentrating more on his biography, more on his photography. Here we are looking at riis as the journalist, because that is the strength of our collection. The papers here number 3000 in the Manuscript Division and are really featured well in this exhibition and come to the forefront. Barbara we also really wanted to emphasize the combination of the photographs and manuscripts in terms of jacob riis career as a photojournalist. Often people think of him as either a writer or a photographer. We are emphasizing the combination of those two things and his role as a communicator. We have organized the exhibit by the different ways and different mediums riis used as a Police Reporter, a writer, a photographer, as a reformer, and as an ally with other people who were active in social change movements, to get the word out and educate the public about urban poverty, about immigration, and the density of housing in lower manhattan, and to provide solutions to those kinds of issues. He really is a creature of the gilded age. He comes into real celebrity in the 1890s 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 kinds of policies and solutions. So he had a foot in both worlds. That is another one of our major points in the exhibit. 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 later, he was in new york, he had a lot of sympathy for truant young boys. Some of his articles are about truancy and how we can get kids into school. He spoke 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 doortodoor salesman, sometimes was homeless. Was 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. Bonnie my name is bonnie yochelson. I wrote the complete collection catalog of riis photographs that was published on the occasion of this exhibition. My engagement with the collection started in the 1980s when i was curator of the museum of princeton photographs of the museum of the city of new new york owns riis photographs. There is a great paradox to riis photographs. He was a journalist and celebrity. He saved all of the documentation of his career. He wanted to be remembered for posterity. He created scrapbooks, he saved his manuscripts. Every scrap of paper. He abandoned his photographs because he did not think they were of any value apart from his words, arguments, articles, and his publications. The way they were discovered is really a fascinating story. Riis died in 1914. In the 1940s, a photographer named Alexander Alland noticed in riis book that on the title page it says with illustrations after photographs by the author. He said to himself, where are these photographs . After several years of searching, he tracked down rii son and with much coercing, got his son to try to find the pictures which turned out to be in the attic of his familys home in queens, new york, that was about to be torn down. His son discovered a box filled with 400odd negatives, 300odd lantern slides, and almost 200 paper prints and delivered them to Alexander Alland, the photographer. Again, taking a couple of years, he created an exhibition from the negatives, making beautiful modern prints from the negatives and working with the curator at the museum of the city of new york to put on an exhibition called battle of the slums. These beautiful enlarged pictures along with excerpts from his writing and established riis as an important photographer. That is how he entered the history of photography. My problem, as a curator in the 1980s was, we dont have prints to show because those almost 200 vintage prints, about half were not by riis at all, and most were in Poor Condition and not exhibitable at all. Working with museum staff, i a grant from the National Endowment for the ofanities, and we made a set what they call vintage material prints from the negatives. The purpose being to make prints that would look like those that riis would recognize. Not to aestheticize him or turn him into an artist. He himself never worked in the dark room. He took his negatives to several commercial studios and said i need prints. I need lantern slides. He himself used the camera but an expertas not technician. So we wanted very expert technicians the museum hired to make these prints to make not to aestheticizie them, but simply to make contact prints from the negative and that is what is on exhibition here to represent riis photographs. At the beginning of the exhibit, we have chosen three very famous photographs from the lexicon of jacob riis. To the left is perhaps his most famous photograph. It is called bandits roost. It was in the middle of an area called mulberry bend, which is a section of mulberry street near baxter street that became a particular cause celebre for riis in terms of urban reform. He eventually would succeed in working with municipal authorities to demolish mulberry bend and replace it with a park which is another story that we tell deeper into the exhibit with original items. Again, the paradox about riis is that he himself said he was a photographer after a fashion. In other words, he was not a real photographer. He used the camera for very 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. His most famous picture today is bandits roost which shows a couple of italian toughs wearing bowler hats. The picture was copied by martin york gangs of new in the movie gangs of new york. It is kind of an iconic image. When he first had the idea to use photographs to illustrate the slums in 1887, he reached out to a friend that was a photographer and found two photographers who were interested in flash. Flash photography was the reason he had the idea to even use photographs at all. He was a writer, journalist, he was writing in the daily newspaper about the conditions in the slum. He read in the newspaper in 1887 that there was this New Invention of flash powder that could eliminate the darkness and that could illuminate the darkness and he said, a ha he worked with two other photographers who were serious amateurs interested in flash, interested in the technology. Among their photographs is bandits roost which was taken with a stereoscopic camera with two lenses. There are actually two images, but that one is the most famous image. The other irony is that his most famous image was not actually taken by him. The flash photographs, what i think is the most important of the flash photographs is one called five cents a spot. What did is demonstrating, people that paid five or seven cents per night to have temporary lodging in a tenement house, where they were not living but they would come to sleep for the night. Those people on the floor paid five cents. The people on the shelf paid seven. There was a law in new york that you had to provide a bed of some kind for someone and the lowest price you could charge was seven cents. The title indicates to the viewer that this was illegal shelter. And riis took the picture. That was taken by him, not by the other amateurs. He took the picture with a the Sanitary Police who were essentially raiding the place, saying, get out, this is illegal. Entering the room, which only had the slightest bit of light from a coal stove providing heat for the room, riis entered with the police, set up his camera, essentially set off an explosion which sounded like a gun, a boom with smoke and fire, and what is captured in the picture if the is the faces, some people are sleeping and others have been aroused, and look stricken, for good reason, by the circumstance. The picture in his description of the scene in his book, he says there were 13 people in a tiny little room, including an infant. A screaming infant. It is a horrific scene. He used that picture to try to enforce, arouse authorities to enforce the laws about these lodging houses. He describes that in his book. That is a fantastic example of one of riis 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, there was no consent. He scared these people to death, and they look it. And that is a criticism, a modern criticism today of these flash photographs. It was not his intention, but it is from a contemporary point of view a problem. The middle photograph is the signature photograph for our exhibit. This is little katie. It represents another phase in riis approach to his subject matter and photography. Originally, he worked with amateur photographers to take the photographs. Then he started taking them himself. The bandits roost photograph and the five cent lodging in how the other half lives, his first famous book. Katie was in his second book which came out in 1882 called children of the poor. In that book, he was more like a social worker or caseworker. He had discussions with his subject matters. Here, the lodgers were surprised by men bursting into the room and taking a photograph. Katie, he talked to katie and learned her name and her story. Her mother had died. She was living with her siblings in a tenement. He took this picture at the 52nd Street Industrial school. When he said, what do you do, katie said i scrubbed. So her older siblings were working in a hammock factory during the day, but katie stayed home. She is nine years old and she scrubbed and cooked for the family and also went to school when she could. This is a birds eye view of new york in 1879. Birds eye views 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 in perspective. On you see the Lower East Side where riis was primarily working. And it is astounding, just how many people are sort of crammed into, how many structures are crammed into this 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. But that is what he claimed in how the other half lives. I think if you look at this map, it really speaks to that density. The crowdedness, the issues that he was addressing. We have been talking about the importance that jacob riis had 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. In 1870, he was 21 years old. And in our first case in the exhibit, we emphasize his life story or biography. One of the things we decided to do in making the exhibit is to use notes that we have in his manuscript collection at the library of congress from the making of an american, which was his autobiography published in 1901. He also gave this as a lantern slide lecture. And we have in his collection, his notes from a lantern slide lecture, which are based on his book, battle of the slum. We have featured pages from the books in almost all the cases. Here, for biography, we used the very first one where he talks about his naivete when he first came to new york. Back in denmark, he loved to read american literature. He was quite fluent in english when he came to the United States. One of his favorite authors was James Fenimore cooper. He had this vision as many scandinavians did that america was the wild west. He said, we didnt know the difference between east and west. Here he is, gets out in a metropolis of new york and there are no buffalo. The first thing he did was he bought a revolver. He was making fun of himself. Often, he was telling jokes in his lectures. This is a funny story about this green kid getting off the boat and buying a revolver he strapped outside of his coat. He was strutting down broadway, and a policeman stopped him and said, son, maybe you want to get rid of the gun. It is a funny story. It actually was a very hard time for jacob riis when he first came. He had a lot of difficulty making a living, finding work, he was unable to find steady work. He worked a lot of jobs. He got very depressed. One of the things we are showing from the New York Public Library is a wonderful early diary of his that is written partly in danish and then he switches to english. In the diary, it is about his loneliness when he first came here and his pining for his love, elizabeth, which was at that point unrequited. She was back in denmark. And his suicidal feelings. It was very difficult in the beginning. There is a great love story with riis and his wife elizabeth. Eventually, she does succumb to his courtship and they marry in 1876 in denmark and come back and settle first in brooklyn and then in Richmond Hill and have a family. A lot of jacob riis motivation in life is that everyone should have a healthy, safe, and happy family like he does. He writes a lot about families and the welfare of children in particular. He would often tell his audiences there is no difference between these children or yours and mine. That is his wife in the middle, and his five children. 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 these days. This is photographic equipment. Very similar to what riis would have used on his raiding parties that barbara described earlier. What we have here is actually a camera, a detective camera so this was sort of a stealth camera that could be used without a tripod, it could be held by the strap on the side. It gave the photographer some mobility. The other thing that was an innovation and allowed for a lot of mobility at that time was the invention and introduction of dry plate negatives. Previous to this time, you had to coat a plate with collodion. It was a very laborious process. You had to expose your negative right away. This enabled you to buy plates already prepared. This was the size of the plate. 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 pan. Riis learns about the german invention of magnesium flash powder in 1887. He is very interested in it. 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 boom, a big flash of light, and it would of course scare the people being photographed. This flash powder holder was not much better and very dangerous. You would put the magnesium should flash powder in the pan. Probably take a fuse, light the fuse and it would go off in a big boom. And again, you would have a big burst of light and enable the photographs that riis took in these dark spaces, that these spaces would be illuminated so you would get some image. On the dry plate. There is also the question of how he used the photographs. He made these initial photographs between 1887 and 1892, that was the peak time frame of his photography. And he really saw himself not as a photographer. He thought he was using photography as a tool for his journalism. So we have to remember that at the same time he was doing the astures and showing them lantern slides, he was also still a Police Reporter. His intent was that he would use these images as illustrations of his articles. In this case, which is about him as a Police Reporter, we wanted to demonstrate how it would look when you had an actual print of the photograph and how it would show as a line drawing in the periodical press. What would happen is an illustrator would be hired, they would make a line drawing and then and an engraving, and then that would be printed in the newspaper. They would make flat halftones in magazines and journals for which riis wrote as a freelance journalist. It was not really until the 1890s that the quality was good enough that they had good reproduction of photographs. Grasst time, riis stopped and he purchased photographs taken by other people. His original idea was to appeal visually and combine the image and word in order to persuade people. Riis was hired to work on the beat, basically, reporting crimes and anything that happened through the police department. For six years, he was on night work where his newspaper office, he worked for the new york tribune. We have a photograph from the library of congress collections of riis in the Tribune Office which was at 301 mulberry street right across the street from Police Headquarters. He is there with his friend and fellow reporter and riis is in the corner. He would basically follow the police when they would get a call where a murder happened or a crime, and he would write about the story. He got a lot of Manuscript Division<\/a> of the library of congress. Is al this exhibition copresentation with the museum of sit the city of new york. It is the first time that the collections of the library of congress, the riis papers have been married with the photographs that are a stellar collection at the museum of new york. We picked the word copresentation carefully because the exhibition here actually follows an exhibit that was at the museum of new york and really, that exhibit, which was called, jacob riis revealing new yorks other half, was slightly different. It looks at riis in a slightly different way, concentrating more on his biography, more on his photography. Here we are looking at riis as the journalist, because that is the strength of our collection. The papers here number 3000 in the Manuscript Division<\/a> and are really featured well in this exhibition and come to the forefront. Barbara we also really wanted to emphasize the combination of the photographs and manuscripts in terms of jacob riis career as a photojournalist. Often people think of him as either a writer or a photographer. We are emphasizing the combination of those two things and his role as a communicator. We have organized the exhibit by the different ways and different mediums riis used as a Police Reporter<\/a>, a writer, a photographer, as a reformer, and as an ally with other people who were active in social change movements, to get the word out and educate the public about urban poverty, about immigration, and the density of housing in lower manhattan, and to provide solutions to those kinds of issues. He really is a creature of the gilded age. He comes into real celebrity in the 1890s 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 kinds of policies and solutions. So he had a foot in both worlds. That is another one of our major points in the exhibit. 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 later, he was in new york, he had a lot of sympathy for truant young boys. Some of his articles are about truancy and how we can get kids into school. He spoke from personal experience. A lot of what he wrote about he did have personal experience because he was an immigrant to the United States<\/a>. When he was 21 years old, in 1870, he came to the United States<\/a> 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 doortodoor salesman, sometimes was homeless. Was 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<\/a> and had a salaried job in the lower part of manhattan. Bonnie my name is bonnie yochelson. I wrote the complete collection catalog of riis photographs that was published on the occasion of this exhibition. My engagement with the collection started in the 1980s when i was curator of the museum of princeton photographs of the museum of the city of new new york owns riis photographs. There is a great paradox to riis photographs. He was a journalist and celebrity. He saved all of the documentation of his career. He wanted to be remembered for posterity. He created scrapbooks, he saved his manuscripts. Every scrap of paper. He abandoned his photographs because he did not think they were of any value apart from his words, arguments, articles, and his publications. The way they were discovered is really a fascinating story. Riis died in 1914. In the 1940s, a photographer named Alexander Alland<\/a> noticed in riis book that on the title page it says with illustrations after photographs by the author. He said to himself, where are these photographs . After several years of searching, he tracked down rii son and with much coercing, got his son to try to find the pictures which turned out to be in the attic of his familys home in queens, new york, that was about to be torn down. His son discovered a box filled with 400odd negatives, 300odd lantern slides, and almost 200 paper prints and delivered them to Alexander Alland<\/a>, the photographer. Again, taking a couple of years, he created an exhibition from the negatives, making beautiful modern prints from the negatives and working with the curator at the museum of the city of new york to put on an exhibition called battle of the slums. These beautiful enlarged pictures along with excerpts from his writing and established riis as an important photographer. That is how he entered the history of photography. My problem, as a curator in the 1980s was, we dont have prints to show because those almost 200 vintage prints, about half were not by riis at all, and most were in Poor Condition<\/a> and not exhibitable at all. Working with museum staff, i a grant from the National Endowment<\/a> for the ofanities, and we made a set what they call vintage material prints from the negatives. The purpose being to make prints that would look like those that riis would recognize. Not to aestheticize him or turn him into an artist. He himself never worked in the dark room. He took his negatives to several commercial studios and said i need prints. I need lantern slides. He himself used the camera but an expertas not technician. So we wanted very expert technicians the museum hired to make these prints to make not to aestheticizie them, but simply to make contact prints from the negative and that is what is on exhibition here to represent riis photographs. At the beginning of the exhibit, we have chosen three very famous photographs from the lexicon of jacob riis. To the left is perhaps his most famous photograph. It is called bandits roost. It was in the middle of an area called mulberry bend, which is a section of mulberry street near baxter street that became a particular cause celebre for riis in terms of urban reform. He eventually would succeed in working with municipal authorities to demolish mulberry bend and replace it with a park which is another story that we tell deeper into the exhibit with original items. Again, the paradox about riis is that he himself said he was a photographer after a fashion. In other words, he was not a real photographer. He used the camera for very 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. His most famous picture today is bandits roost which shows a couple of italian toughs wearing bowler hats. The picture was copied by martin york gangs of new in the movie gangs of new york. It is kind of an iconic image. When he first had the idea to use photographs to illustrate the slums in 1887, he reached out to a friend that was a photographer and found two photographers who were interested in flash. Flash photography was the reason he had the idea to even use photographs at all. He was a writer, journalist, he was writing in the daily newspaper about the conditions in the slum. He read in the newspaper in 1887 that there was this New Invention<\/a> of flash powder that could eliminate the darkness and that could illuminate the darkness and he said, a ha he worked with two other photographers who were serious amateurs interested in flash, interested in the technology. Among their photographs is bandits roost which was taken with a stereoscopic camera with two lenses. There are actually two images, but that one is the most famous image. The other irony is that his most famous image was not actually taken by him. The flash photographs, what i think is the most important of the flash photographs is one called five cents a spot. What did is demonstrating, people that paid five or seven cents per night to have temporary lodging in a tenement house, where they were not living but they would come to sleep for the night. Those people on the floor paid five cents. The people on the shelf paid seven. There was a law in new york that you had to provide a bed of some kind for someone and the lowest price you could charge was seven cents. The title indicates to the viewer that this was illegal shelter. And riis took the picture. That was taken by him, not by the other amateurs. He took the picture with a the Sanitary Police<\/a> who were essentially raiding the place, saying, get out, this is illegal. Entering the room, which only had the slightest bit of light from a coal stove providing heat for the room, riis entered with the police, set up his camera, essentially set off an explosion which sounded like a gun, a boom with smoke and fire, and what is captured in the picture if the is the faces, some people are sleeping and others have been aroused, and look stricken, for good reason, by the circumstance. The picture in his description of the scene in his book, he says there were 13 people in a tiny little room, including an infant. A screaming infant. It is a horrific scene. He used that picture to try to enforce, arouse authorities to enforce the laws about these lodging houses. He describes that in his book. That is a fantastic example of one of riis 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, there was no consent. He scared these people to death, and they look it. And that is a criticism, a modern criticism today of these flash photographs. It was not his intention, but it is from a contemporary point of view a problem. The middle photograph is the signature photograph for our exhibit. This is little katie. It represents another phase in riis approach to his subject matter and photography. Originally, he worked with amateur photographers to take the photographs. Then he started taking them himself. The bandits roost photograph and the five cent lodging in how the other half lives, his first famous book. Katie was in his second book which came out in 1882 called children of the poor. In that book, he was more like a social worker or caseworker. He had discussions with his subject matters. Here, the lodgers were surprised by men bursting into the room and taking a photograph. Katie, he talked to katie and learned her name and her story. Her mother had died. She was living with her siblings in a tenement. He took this picture at the 52nd Street Industrial<\/a> school. When he said, what do you do, katie said i scrubbed. So her older siblings were working in a hammock factory during the day, but katie stayed home. She is nine years old and she scrubbed and cooked for the family and also went to school when she could. This is a birds eye view of new york in 1879. Birds eye views 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 in perspective. On you see the Lower East Side<\/a> where riis was primarily working. And it is astounding, just how many people are sort of crammed into, how many structures are crammed into this space. The u. S. Census bureau at the time said this was the most densely crowded city in the United States<\/a>. 1. 5 Million People<\/a> 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. But that is what he claimed in how the other half lives. I think if you look at this map, it really speaks to that density. The crowdedness, the issues that he was addressing. We have been talking about the importance that jacob riis had lived many of the issues he wrote about as a Police Reporter<\/a> and how he came to the United States<\/a> as an immigrant from denmark. In 1870, he was 21 years old. And in our first case in the exhibit, we emphasize his life story or biography. One of the things we decided to do in making the exhibit is to use notes that we have in his manuscript collection at the library of congress from the making of an american, which was his autobiography published in 1901. He also gave this as a lantern slide lecture. And we have in his collection, his notes from a lantern slide lecture, which are based on his book, battle of the slum. We have featured pages from the books in almost all the cases. Here, for biography, we used the very first one where he talks about his naivete when he first came to new york. Back in denmark, he loved to read american literature. He was quite fluent in english when he came to the United States<\/a>. One of his favorite authors was James Fenimore<\/a> cooper. He had this vision as many scandinavians did that america was the wild west. He said, we didnt know the difference between east and west. Here he is, gets out in a metropolis of new york and there are no buffalo. The first thing he did was he bought a revolver. He was making fun of himself. Often, he was telling jokes in his lectures. This is a funny story about this green kid getting off the boat and buying a revolver he strapped outside of his coat. He was strutting down broadway, and a policeman stopped him and said, son, maybe you want to get rid of the gun. It is a funny story. It actually was a very hard time for jacob riis when he first came. He had a lot of difficulty making a living, finding work, he was unable to find steady work. He worked a lot of jobs. He got very depressed. One of the things we are showing from the New York Public Library<\/a> is a wonderful early diary of his that is written partly in danish and then he switches to english. In the diary, it is about his loneliness when he first came here and his pining for his love, elizabeth, which was at that point unrequited. She was back in denmark. And his suicidal feelings. It was very difficult in the beginning. There is a great love story with riis and his wife elizabeth. Eventually, she does succumb to his courtship and they marry in 1876 in denmark and come back and settle first in brooklyn and then in Richmond Hill<\/a> and have a family. A lot of jacob riis motivation in life is that everyone should have a healthy, safe, and happy family like he does. He writes a lot about families and the welfare of children in particular. He would often tell his audiences there is no difference between these children or yours and mine. That is his wife in the middle, and his five children. 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 these days. This is photographic equipment. Very similar to what riis would have used on his raiding parties that barbara described earlier. What we have here is actually a camera, a detective camera so this was sort of a stealth camera that could be used without a tripod, it could be held by the strap on the side. It gave the photographer some mobility. The other thing that was an innovation and allowed for a lot of mobility at that time was the invention and introduction of dry plate negatives. Previous to this time, you had to coat a plate with collodion. It was a very laborious process. You had to expose your negative right away. This enabled you to buy plates already prepared. This was the size of the plate. 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 pan. Riis learns about the german invention of magnesium flash powder in 1887. He is very interested in it. 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 boom, a big flash of light, and it would of course scare the people being photographed. This flash powder holder was not much better and very dangerous. You would put the magnesium should flash powder in the pan. Probably take a fuse, light the fuse and it would go off in a big boom. And again, you would have a big burst of light and enable the photographs that riis took in these dark spaces, that these spaces would be illuminated so you would get some image. On the dry plate. There is also the question of how he used the photographs. He made these initial photographs between 1887 and 1892, that was the peak time frame of his photography. And he really saw himself not as a photographer. He thought he was using photography as a tool for his journalism. So we have to remember that at the same time he was doing the astures and showing them lantern slides, he was also still a Police Reporter<\/a>. His intent was that he would use these images as illustrations of his articles. In this case, which is about him as a Police Reporter<\/a>, we wanted to demonstrate how it would look when you had an actual print of the photograph and how it would show as a line drawing in the periodical press. What would happen is an illustrator would be hired, they would make a line drawing and then and an engraving, and then that would be printed in the newspaper. They would make flat halftones in magazines and journals for which riis wrote as a freelance journalist. It was not really until the 1890s that the quality was good enough that they had good reproduction of photographs. Grasst time, riis stopped and he purchased photographs taken by other people. His original idea was to appeal visually and combine the image and word in order to persuade people. Riis was hired to work on the beat, basically, reporting crimes and anything that happened through the police department. For six years, he was on night work where his newspaper office, he worked for the new york tribune. We have a photograph from the library of congress collections of riis in the Tribune Office<\/a> which was at 301 mulberry street right across the street from Police Headquarters<\/a>. He is there with his friend and fellow reporter and riis is in the corner. He would basically follow the police when they would get a call where a murder happened or a crime, and he would write about the story. He got a lot of Human Interest<\/a> stories from this. This is partly how he got access to the inside of tenement buildings. He was a recognized face. Many people in the neighborhood actually thought he was a doctor because he came so often with the department of health or the Sanitation Division<\/a> when they were doing investigations of the tenements, and he would be with them. So he was a trusted and known face on the street. He reported for the newspapers. But he also started doing Human Interest<\/a> stories that focused on the conditions faced by the poor. They are the kinds of issues that we are showing in the exhibit on the sidewalls, including housing and Public Health<\/a> and public space, labor, immigration. He wanted to expose how difficult the circumstances were under which the poor were living. Especially the immigrant poor. And to encourage people to either give money to charities, there were over 138 charities active at the time dealing with the indigent and poor in one way or another, or to encourage philanthropists to give a lot of money to endow things like lodging houses, and to also work with the government to bring about municipal reforms. When riis went on the road, he started off doing his lantern slide lectures in new york city. Eventually, he had tours all over the country. Travel with just the lantern slides in a box. Every venue would have to supply the lantern projector. And the operator to operate the lantern slide. He would be paid about 150 for his services, and he traveled across the country. It was astounding. We have his appointment books which show he would be in a different city every night practically. And so this is a very deluxe model. Again, he could have been using this. It is a biennial stereopticon. It allows for one slide to fade in and one slide to fade out. There are other models that just have one lens. We have this in the exhibit at the courtesy of the American Magic<\/a> lantern theater that loaned it for the exhibit. It was also in the exhibit at the museum of the city of new york. In the exhibit we have a video running based on the one transcript we have of riis lecture. Out of the alleys comes the problem of the children. This one came out of the alley just as she is here on the left. Her hair was matted with blood and her whole body was covered with sores. What will be 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 to cruelty for children, this is the way she looked on the right. In the last 16 years, that society has thrown its arms around between 50000 and 60,000 children. What a record of work. This is the foundling asylum known all over the world as sister irenes asylum. That good sister has gathered many thousands of waifs from the streets of new york. Into her fold. Catholic or protestant, no difference. When one day the pearly gates swing wide to let in that dear woman, i tell you, such a flapping of little wings will be heard come to greet her as has not heard since the moving stars sang together. Now you have seen the boys and girls. And you have seen their homes. Here is the father of some such so drunk that we fired the photographic flash he never woke up. This case is about his lecturing and the postcards show where he wrote from all over the country and europe. He wrote home to usually his daughter katie and also his wife, elizabeth, who he would often call sweet lamb of mine. As cheryl mentioned, the shows the itineraries where he was traveling, and also, riis, the newspaperman, became a subject matter for other newspaperman. We also show reviews he got from other journalists that he kept in his scrapbook. The recreation we have done is based on the actual transcript here and lines are taken from it. The original lecture was two hours and we condensed it down to six minutes and 51 seconds. One of the historians that has written a lot about riis made the point it was almost like vaudeville type entertainment. He showed gruesome images of people being buried at potters field, Young Children<\/a> who have been abused, very serious subject matter. But he lightened it up by telling jokes. Some of those are not funny to us anymore because they are ethnic jokes. But they are also the kind of humor that would have been common at the time in vaudeville. On one of my visits, i came upon this tramp. I told him if he would sit still for a minute so i could take his picture, i would give him . 10. That was probably the first and only . 10 that man earned by honest labor in the course of his entire life. And that was sitting down, at which he was an acknowledged expert. We talk about the ways he uses innovative photographs, and he gave lantern slide lectures, and used the images in his journalism. One day when he was giving a lantern slide lecture, there which he called, how the other half lives and dies, there were two scriveners editors in the audience. And they approached riis and asked him to write an article which came out in december, 1889, in the christmas issue. It included many of the images. And from the article, he was asked to write a book. And we do feature the First Edition<\/a> of that book in our case about him as a writer. The result of that wonderful meeting was that jacob riis received a contract to write how the other half lives. He was still a Police Reporter<\/a> at the time. He wrote in the evening hours at home. We have a wonderful First Edition<\/a> owned by a close friend of scribners editor and also the head of what was known as the builder committee, the tenement house committee. That was a Government Committee<\/a> assigned to investigate the conditions of the poor, particularly the issues of sanitation and crowding. Much to riis surprise, how the other half lives was a huge bestseller. It came out at a time when there was almost a prurient interest in the slums among the middle class. The slum tour was popular. Other people had written books that describe conditions of the poor, but riis had a special storytelling style and almost a sociological approach to describing the different ethnic communities that were in the Lower East Side<\/a>. One of the things he did was use statistics. He used statistics. In fact, i had never read how the other half lives. I listen to it as an audiobook. It was astounding to hear a voice sort of illuminate his words. You realize listening to it how he was evangelizing for reform, describing these dark places that he was bringing light to with his photography. He is most effective when he uses statistics. When he talks about population density, when he talks about death on a particular block of children. That is when the power of his words really comes through. I also think that the power of his scribners article was also attributed to the professional artists that they got to engrave his photographs in the magazine. Artist that ishe translating riis photographs. You see a chinese opium den on the bottom. And again, that five cents photo that we started with enlarged on the front wall, it is on the lefthand page. One of the things he was very concerned about was the very huge infant mortality rates. Committee i mentioned, they refer to the rear tenements as slaughterhouses for infants. One out of five babies born in the tenements, especially the rear tenements, died in early childhood. When we talk about rear tenements, it is not only that the tenement buildings themselves were overcrowded. Many people could not even afford to live in the building. So where else can they live . They lived in dumps, on the street, and woodshack structures. They were built into the back alleyways of brick tenement buildings. High mortality rates and also the issues of Public Health<\/a>, cholera, diphtheria, typhus, contagious disease. Also disease that was foodborne or based on polluted water. One of the points of the statistics is how closely riis worked with individuals in the board of health. There was a governmental connection for him in municipal government to work with the sanitation engineers, the scientists. It worked both ways. He got information from them in terms of the statistics, and he also gave them evidence they used in the statistics. Here in the exhibit, we basically have two major ways to see the material. When you come in the front, you see the originals in the cases. And 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 is at the lantern the audiences at the lantern slide lectures would have seen those images. They would not have been the small things based on the actual size of the Magic Lantern<\/a> or the prints in the newspaper or the kind of crude illustrations that appeared in his articles. They would have been these very large, detailed images that would have been projected on the wall from the Magic Lantern<\/a> projector that people can really study. And they are lifesized. It helps people to really identify with these other human beings that are the same as us. It helped with the empathy. Jacob riis was not alone as a social reformer. And he himself said i was only 11 thousandth of the solution and was just the one that yelled the loudest. We dont want to portray that he was singly, the only person pointing out these kinds of problems, and, in urban decay and the way immigrants were having to live on they arrived in the United States<\/a>. Many people had been addressing these issues from earlier in the 19th century. What was special about him was that he was a very good publicist. And the lantern slide lectures really did help with that, with bringing the message all across the country. With the publication of how the other half lives, so many people read the books that he really 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<\/a>, booker t. Washington, and louise and andrew carnegie. One reason we chose those is we have major collections of all those individuals in the library of congress. We are highlighting here an image that comes from our prints and photographs division. It is a political cartoon. It is portraying what we would call Theodore Roosevelts<\/a> kitchen cabinet. It is not the actual members of the cabinet. It is people who were friends of his and close to him, political allies and people he relied on for advice. You can see that jacob riis is in the picture. He is in that circle. He is the small figure in colonial uniform, second from the left, holding a hanky to his face. You can see that booker t. Washington is also in the doorway. It is sort of a metaphor of the civil rights status at that time and him being welcomed at the white house by Theodore Roosevelt<\/a>. Roosevelt himself is the only person in the picture not crying. How did riis meet Theodore Roosevelt<\/a> . That is the story of his activism in new york city. We have we have here in our case on allies the basic story of the bromance between Theodore Roosevelt<\/a> and jacob riis. They first met in 1894. The new administration was elected in new york city that was a Reform Administration<\/a> under mayor william strong. It is often described as the Good Government<\/a> movement. In that one administration, a lot of the social reforms riis had been recommending along with other people in his network of reform were manifested, including better sanitation. One of the things strong was famous for was appointing sanitation engineers who wore created the white wings, who were senator he workers who wore pristine white uniforms and prorated down for fifth avenue as an army of sanitation. The issue roosevelt and riis worked on primarily was the closing of police lodging houses. The way they met was, mayor strong appointed Theodore Roosevelt<\/a> as Police Commissioner<\/a> during his administration and Police Headquarters<\/a> was across the street from jacob riis journalism office. Theodore roosevelt was already aware of riis. He had read his articles and book. So they met. Jacob riis said i loved him the moment i saw him. They immediately formed a bond. They went about at night on these night raids so that riis could familiarize roosevelt with the neighborhood and what was going on in terms of criminality and police work at night. He showed them some of the things that were happening in tenements, and they checked up on what policemen were doing. One of the cause celebs for riis was the issue of using police lodging houses as homeless shelters. Riis had a personal reason for having a grudge about police lodging houses. As i mentioned earlier, when he was a young immigrant, he sometimes stayed overnight in these homeless shelters. He tells a story in his autobiography of 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 little buddy, his only friend in america. That night, he went to stay at a lodging house. They would not let the dog in. The dog was waiting for him outside. 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 police 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<\/a> 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<\/a> 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 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<\/a> map from the Harrison Brown<\/a> company. Each Panel Features<\/a> 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<\/a> are made of. Yellow indicates wooden structure. Pink is brick. Green indicates there is some sort of Fire Insurance<\/a> hazard, whether it be because of what goes on in the building or Building Materials<\/a>. You can see where the Police Station<\/a> is. It is in the lower right quadrant here. The lower right portion of the map. Also, this illustrates what riis was railing against. There was no light or air circulation in these structures. If you can imagine that there is a window on the street side, but then you see that there are buildings back to back. There is no light getting in. One of the reforms that happened through the Tenement House Commission<\/a> was regulations to require that would this be that windows be cut due to through interior rooms. There were some 40,000 windows that were cut through so there could be like from an exterior window inside rooms that we saw in the five cent spot. That was a 13 by 13 room with no ventilation and no light. These films are taken by the Thomas Edison<\/a> company. And the american biographic company, right around the same time that riis is working in new york. So primarily, they are dating these films in particular are dating from 19031904. This is the fish market on the Lower East Side<\/a>, on the righthand side. And you see a vibrancy that is missing in the static images. It shows the life of the street. I think it adds a nice dimension to the exhibition. These particular films date mainly from the 1903 era, so they are from riis lifetime and how he would have seen new york at the time. One of the things they are showing, like this particular one are men that are sorting things at the dump. And we see the famous article who, and children, who, there was a picture called children of the dump, who lived underneath the street, at the dump, and other places. Part of what they are doing is, they are sorting things out of the garbage that can be recycled for money. They sorted rags that would be recycled to make paper. They also sorted and cleaned bones. The bones would be used for fertilizer or baking soda. He covered this partly as an issue of homelessness but also as an issue of disease and sanitation. We had mentioned earlier that jacob riis came into fame during the gilded age. He dies in 1914 during the progressive era. He had many friends that were progressive reformers. That included lillian walsh. The head of the nurses settlement, known as the henry street settlement in the in the Lower East Side<\/a>. He became a particular patron of another settlement house that was the kings daughters settlement. We have here in the section about his legacy something that he saved, actually his wife, his second wife, mary, saved from the jacob riis papers. He was a patron of the kings daughters group. It was a group of episcopal women who started off helping health inspectors. They eventually had purchased 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 continued to raise funds for this operation. They had a kindergarten. They offered social services. They offered nursing services. They had a playground in the backyard for the kids. It was a churchbased settlement house. As a very pious protestant, he was comfortable with the churchbased charity. Some of the other settlements were more secular. Among the people who lived there was florence kelley. Florence kelly had lived previously at hull house chicago 1869. D by jane addams in 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, the eighthour day for women, and working womens rights. She was the leader of the National Consumers<\/a> league. We have papers from the National Consumers<\/a> league at the library of congress. And we highlight one of the articles Florence Kelly<\/a> wrote and published, very much in riis style, very much an expose about the issue of women and children in the labor force and their poor wages and lack of protection. This article was illustrated by a photograph by lewis hine. We have the papers of the National Child<\/a> labor committee, and lewis hine was hired by them to go undercover and basically do investigative reports. This is another riislike activity. Riis was doing the exposes of the slums. Basically pioneering investigative reporting. Hine went into factories and canneries fields and took photographs that are now considered some of the most important documentary photographs of the 20th century. Particularly of child labor. He used them like riis used the pictures of the children of the slums in an earlier time to show as Magic Lantern<\/a> slides to social reformers and testify before congress. It did lead to major child labor legislation. One importance about this exhibit and especially the kind of issues we emphasize on the sidewalls about Public Housing<\/a> and Public Health<\/a>, the attitudes and status of immigrants. All these issues are still very much with us today. We would like people to understand that they go back far into the 19th century. That people grappled with them at that time, and we continue to grapple with them today. I think riis would be astounded today to learn that he is best known for being a photographer, which is not what he thought of himself as. I think that this exhibit, as does, as did the exhibit in new york and the upcoming exhibits in denmark, they are repositioning riis more as he saw himself, as a communicator. The exhibition can be viewed online at the library of congress website, loc. Gov. This is American History<\/a> tv on cspan3, where each weekend, we feature 48 hours of programs exploring our nations past. [captions Copyright National<\/a> cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] railamerica brings you archival films that provide context for todays Public Affairs<\/a> issues. Each week American History<\/a> tvs real america brings you archival films that provide context for todays Public Affairs<\/a> issues. In French Indochina<\/a> communist guerrillas infiltrated north vietnam. France had to accept an armistice, yielding control of the colony to the, nests. The communists. There was a threat from the communist dominated territories. Threat, thet the secretary of state was instrumental in organizing the Southeast Asia<\/a> treaty organization, uniting australia, new zealand, pakistan, the philippines, thailand, and the United States<\/a> in a defensive alliance against communist aggression. In the middle east, a crisis erupted when the suez canal was nationalized by egyptian premier abdel nasser. Barricades and the canal was close to british, french and israeli chips. Ships. England and france sent a military exposition to seize the canal zone. Russia opposed a sovietamerican force to restore order. There was a u. N. Mission pending mediation. Also in the mideast, a communist faction attempted to overthrow the lebanese government. Its president asked for aid from the United States<\/a>. In the first application of the eisenhower doctrine, the president dispatched u. S. Marines to beirut despite strong russian protests. The presence of the marines quickly restored order. When an acceptable plan was adopted in the United Nations<\/a> guaranteeing the integrity of lebanon, american troops were withdrawn in favor of a u. N. Force. A simmering International Problem<\/a> came to a head in 1958 when the red forces of mao on the chinese mainland off short islands garrisoned by troops of the republic of china. Fleetventh elite prepared for action. The president of the republic of china was persuaded by the secretary to disavow intentions to invade the mainland and the shelling dwindled to a stop, leaving the china conflict unresolved. Cuba, several rebel factions united to fight for the overthrow of dictator fulgencio bautista. Revolt, the American Naval<\/a> base at guantanamo was reinforced, but the u. S. Maintained a handsoff policy. Fidel castro, leader of the rebel factions, entered havana in january 1959, following the castroof bautista. Promised free elections. These never materialized. Brutal executions following his war trials and the marxist backgrounds of his brother and Ernesto Guevara<\/a> made it evident that his resume was under russian influence. Evidence of communist agents in latin america previously happened in venezuela when mobs disrupted the goodwill tour of Vice President<\/a> nixon in 1958. Return to washington, the nixons were hailed by the president for their courage in the face of political gangsterism. You can watch archival films on Public Affairs<\/a> in their entirety on our weekly series, reel america, saturday at 10 00 a. M. And sundry sunday at 4 00 p. M. Eastern on American History<\/a> tv. John discusses his book dobb over tokyo the final air battle of the pacific and the last four men to die in it talks about aviators who took off on august 15, 1940 five and were attacked over japan shortly after receiving word the war had ended. This event was hosted online. At 5 00 p. M. Pacific on the presidency, a history professor on Woodrow Wilsons<\/a> political career and legacy focusing on his presidency. At 9 00 p. M. Eastern, 6 00 p. M. Pacific, and historian and author discusses her book tax and spend the welfare state, tax politics, and the limits of american thank you all for joining us today for what is going to be a great conversation about a really engaging and a book that maybe should have been written before john got to it in the last 75 years since the war, dogfight over tokyo the final air battle of the pacific, and the last four men to die in world war ii. Its a great book. Hes the author of many books, john wukovits. He came to us about 10 years ago and gave a presentation on his pappy boynton book and we have not managed to get him back here","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"archive.org","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","width":"800","height":"600","url":"\/\/ia801700.us.archive.org\/2\/items\/CSPAN3_20201018_220000_American_Artifacts_Jacob_Riis_Exhibit\/CSPAN3_20201018_220000_American_Artifacts_Jacob_Riis_Exhibit.thumbs\/CSPAN3_20201018_220000_American_Artifacts_Jacob_Riis_Exhibit_000001.jpg"}},"autauthor":{"@type":"Organization"},"author":{"sameAs":"archive.org","name":"archive.org"}}],"coverageEndTime":"20240716T12:35:10+00:00"}