Jacob Riis’s Camera: Bringing Light to Tenement Children

This biography examines journalist and photographer Jacob Riis and the poverty he knew firsthand. In late nineteenth-century New York City, Riis used newly developed flash photography to document the tenement-housing crisis and impoverished residents. His reporting and photographs helped bring attention to conditions that led to social change. Ink and pastel drawings accompany the life story, alongside Riis’s own photographs and extensive source material.