Jacob Riis: Revealing “How the Other Half Lives”
Exhibition Items
Biography
- Jacob Riis. “The Making of an American,” handwritten lecture notes. Jacob A. Riis Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (019.00.02)
- Frances Benjamin Johnston (1864–1952), photographer. Jacob August Riis, ca. 1895. Toned gelatin silver photograph. Frances Benjamin Johnston Collection, Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress (046.00.00)
- Jacob Riis. “The Making of an American,” two pages of handwritten lecture notes. Jacob A. Riis Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (019.00.03, 019.00.04)
- Jacob Riis to John Riis. Telegram, May 7, 1905. Jacob A. Riis Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (047.00.00)
- Jacob Riis. “Our family taken in summer of 1898.” Reproduction from glass plate negative. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress (045.00.00)
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Reporter
- Jacob Riis, Richard Hoe Lawrence, and Dr. Henry G. Piffard. “Our office—my partner, Mr. Ensign at the desk, I in the corner,” New York Tribune Police Bureau, 1887–1888. Reproduction from gelatin silver photograph. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress (029.01.00)
- Jacob Riis. “The Making of an American,” handwritten lecture notes. Jacob A. Riis Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (019.00.05)
- Jacob Riis’s account book, 1895. Jacob A. Riis Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (024.00.01)
- Jacob Riis. Men’s Lodging Rooms in West 47th Street, 1892. E Modern gelatin silver printing out paper. Museum of the City of New York. Gift of Roger William Riis (90.13.4.234 and 90.13.4.235) (048.00.00)
- Jacob Riis. Women’s Lodging Rooms in West 47th Street, 1892. E Modern gelatin silver printing out paper. Museum of the City of New York. Gift of Roger William Riis (90.13.4.234 and 90.13.4.235) (049.00.00)
- Jacob Riis. “Vice Which is Unchecked in Police Station Lodging-Houses,” New York Tribune, January 31, 1892, from Riis’s personal scrapbook. Jacob A. Riis Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (025.00.00)
- Jacob Riis. “Police Lodging Houses: Are They Hotbeds for Typhus?” Christian Union, January 14, 1893, from Riis’s personal scrapbook. Jacob A. Riis Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (050.00.00)
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Photographer
- Jacob Riis, Richard Hoe Lawrence (1858–1936), and Henry G. Piffard (1842–1910). Tramp in Mulberry Street Yard, 1887–1888. Modern gelatin printing out paper. Museum of the City of New York, Gift of Roger William Riis (90.13.4.93, 90.13.4.94) (052.00.00)
- Jacob Riis. “The Making of an American,” handwritten lecture notes. Jacob A. Riis Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (019.00.00)
- Lantern slide box owned by Jacob Riis. Canvas on cardboard. Museum of the City of New York (085.00.00)
- Jacob Riis. Negative inventory, ca. 1902. Museum of the City of New York (084.00.00)
- Jacob Riis, Richard Hoe Lawrence, and Henry G. Piffard. The Tramp. Original lantern slide. Museum of the City of New York. Gift of Roger William Riis (90.13.2.50) (053.00.00)
- Jacob Riis. Yard in Jersey Street (now gone) Where Italians Live in the Worst Slums, before 1898. Modern gelatin silver printing out paper. Museum of the City of New York. Gift of Roger William Riis (90.13.4.102) (054.00.00)
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Writer
- Jacob Riis. Five-Cent Spot, 1888–1889. Modern gelatin printing out paper. Museum of the City of New York. Gift of Roger William Riis (90.13.4.158) (061.00.00)
- Jacob Riis, Richard Hoe Lawrence (1858–1936), and Henry G. Piffard (1842–1910). Opium in a Joint, 1887–1888. Vintage gelatin printing out paper on board. Museum of the City of New York, Gift of Roger William Riis (90.13.3.184) (060.00.00)
- Jacob Riis. “How the Other Half Lives: Studies among the Tenements,” Scribner’s Magazine, December 1889. General Collections, Library of Congress (059.00.00)
- Receipt from Charles Scribner’s Sons, May 24, 1889. Jacob A. Riis Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (010.00.00)
- Title page submitted for U.S. Copyright, 1888. Jacob A. Riis Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (022.00.01)
- James Russell Lowell (1819–1891) to Jacob A. Riis, November 21, 1890. Jacob A. Riis Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (011.00.00)
- Jacob Riis. How the Other Half Lives, Studies Among the Tenements of New York. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1890. Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress (063.00.00)
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Reformer
- Jacob Riis. “The Making of an American,” handwritten lecture notes. Jacob A. Riis Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (019.00.06)
- Jacob Riis. “The Making of an American,” handwritten lecture notes. Jacob A. Riis Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (019.00.07)
- Jacob Riis. “I Scrubs”—Little Katie from the West 52nd Street Industrial School, 1891–1892. Modern gelatin printing out paper. Museum of the City of New York, Gift of Roger William Riis (90.13.4.132) (086.00.00)
- Jacob Riis. “The Children of the Poor,” Scribner’s Magazine, May 1892. General Collections, Library of Congress (089.00.00)
- Jacob Riis. Newsboys Sleeping in the Offices of the New York Sun, 1891–1892. Modern gelatin printing out paper. Museum of the City of New York, Gift of Roger William Riis (90.13.4.131) (099.00.00)
- Jacob Riis. Saluting the Flag in the Mott Street Industrial School, 1891–1892. Gelatin silver transparency hand-colored by William T. Gregg. Museum of the City of New York, Gift of Roger William Riis (90.13.2.97) (087.00.00)
- Jacob Riis. The Children of the Poor. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1892. General Collections, Library of Congress (091.00.00)
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Lecturer
- “Press Comments” manuscript page and four clippings from newspaper reviews in the New York Herald, New York Tribune, New York News, and the Long Island [NY] Jamaica Farmer, January–February 1888 from Riis’s scrapbook. Jacob A. Riis Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (022.00.00, 067.00.00)
- Advertisement for lecture to benefit the King’s Daughters’ Tenement House Committee, 1890. Jacob A. Riis Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (023.00.02)
- Theodore Roosevelt to Jacob Riis, January 29, 1905. Typed letter signed, with envelope. Jacob A. Riis Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (082.00.00 and 083.00.00)
- “The Other Half and How They Live; Story in Pictures,” in Christians at Work, Proceedings of the Sixth Convention of Christian Workers in the United States and Canada, Washington, D.C. First Congregational Church, November 5–11, 1891 taken from Riis’s scrapbook. Jacob A. Riis Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (020.00.00)
- Jacob Riis’s appointment books, 1902–1914. Jacob A. Riis Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (069.00.00–070.00.00)
- Picture postcards sent by Riis to family members from the states of Washington, New Jersey, Minnesota, California, and New Hampshire; the District of Columbia; and the countries of Belgium, Algeria, Denmark, Germany, and Austria, between 1902 and 1908. Jacob A. Riis Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (001, 071–081, 117–119.00.00)
- Detroit Publishing Company. Mulberry Street, after 1905. Gelatin silver transparency, hand colored. Museum of the City of New York, Gift of Roger William Riis (90.13.2.215)
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Ally
- Jacob Riis. A Ten Years’ War, An Account of the Battle with the Slum in New York. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin and Company, 1900. Shapiro Rogers Collection, Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress (095.00.00)
- Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) to Jacob Riis, February 17, 1900. Typescript letter. Theodore Roosevelt Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (094.00.00)
- Louise W. Carnegie (1857–1946) to Jacob Riis, April 9, 1906. Manuscript letter. Jacob A. Riis Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (014.00.00)
- Andrew Carnegie (1835–1919) to Jacob Riis, December 26, 1911. Typescript letter with handwritten note. Jacob A. Riis Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (016.00.00)
- Jacob Riis to Booker T. Washington (1856–1915), April 11, 1902. Manuscript letter. Booker T. Washington Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (097.00.00)
- Jacob Riis to Elisabeth Riis (1852–1905), February 20, 1905. Manuscript letter. Jacob A. Riis Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (005.00.01)
- Louis M. Glackens (1866–1933). “Roosevelt’s Farewell to His Officers” from Puck, February 26, 1908. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress (092.00.00)
- Jacob Riis. “The Making of an American,” handwritten lecture notes. Jacob A. Riis Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (019.00.08)
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Legacy
- Nellie Simmons Meier (d. 1939). 1903 print of Jacob Riis’s right hand with signature and typescript character sketch of Riis published in Lions’ Paws, The Story of Famous Hands. New York, 1937. Nellie Simmons Meier Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (098.00.00, 099.00.00)
- Florence Kelley (1859–1932). “A Privileged Industry” reprinted in Twentieth Century Magazine. Boston, July 1913 [illustrated with photographs by Lewis Hine]. Records of the National Consumers League, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (100.00.00)
- Lewis Hine (1874–1940). “Photographic Investigation of Child Labor Conditions in Sardine Canneries of Maine, August 1911” and interior and exterior photographs of the Maine sardine canneries. Typescript report and four gelatin silver photographs.Papers of the National Child Labor Committee, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (101–105.00.00)
- Jacob A. Riis Neighborhood Settlement. Twenty-Eighth Annual Report, 1917–1918. Jacob A. Riis Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (106.00.00)
- Jacob A. Riis Neighborhood Settlement. Attendance figures for Community Work, Club Work, and Summer Work, 1921–1922. Jacob A. Riis Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (107.00.00)
- Robert Moses (1888–1981). “Living Heritage of Jacob Riis, What He Thought and Did Still Affects the City, and Many of Us Continue to Live by His Ideals,” New York Times Magazine, May 1, 1949. Jacob A. Riis Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (108.00.00, 108.00.01)
- Camilo José Vergara (b. 1944). Lower East Side, 1970; 5th & 110th Streets, East Harlem, 1970; 1970 East Harlem; Avenue C, Lower East Side, 1970, from the series “Old New York, 1970–1973.” Modern prints by the photographer from digital files. Camilo J. Vergara Photograph Collection, Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress (110–113.00.00)
- Bob Adelman (1930–2016), with text by Michael Harrington (1928–1989). How the Other Half Still Lives . . . A Petition for the Ill-Housed of New York City to the President of the United States. New York: Phelps-Stokes Fund, 1977. Photographs and Prints Division, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library (109.00.00)
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