By Bonnie Yochelson and Daniel Czitrom

May 13th, 6:30
Recital Hall, CUNY Graduate Center

Bonnie Yochelson, curator and author of Berenice Abbott: Changing New York; and Daniel Czitrom, Professor of History, Mount Holyoke College, will offer a fresh look at the Progressive era social reformer, journalist, and pioneer photographer who publicized the conditions of the desperately poor in turn-of-the-century New York.
     A deeply contradictory figure, Riis was a conservative activist and skillful entertainer, an ingenious publicist driven by moral passion, and a revolutionary photographer whose relationship to the camera was diffident at best. Riis believed that environmental changes could improve the lives of the numerous unincorporated city residents that had recently arrived from other countries. Riis attempted to ease the incorporation these residents by appealing to the Victorian desire for cleanliness and social order.
     In his photographs, Riis showed that the unincorporated could be dangerous; that their dirty abodes were also expensive for them, leading to neighborhood streets that were crime-ridden. By appealing to the consciences and fears of middle-class and upper-class city residents, Riis helped initiate reform efforts.
Riis's photographs had a certain shock value. He looked for images that would have a strong effect on his viewers—dirty children on the streets, men living in dumps and cellars. The 1890 release of How the Other Half Lives: Studies among the Tenements of New York had a significant impact that ushered in a new era of housing and social reforms.
     Signing of Rediscovering Jacob Riis by the authors to follow.