How the other half lived.

• Position: What's New? - "Jacob Riis: Revealing 'How the Other Half Lives" exhbition

The life of Jacob A. Riis, a late-19th, early-20th century newspaper reporter and writer, whose stories and photographs of the squalid conditions in New York's tenements led to social reform, is explored in "Jacob Riis: Revealing 'How the Other Half Lives.' " It is on view through Sept. 5 in the Thomas Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. The exhibition is a co-presentation of the Library of Congress and the Museum of the City of New York, combining items from the Library's Jacob A. Riis Papers and MCNY's Jacob A. Riis Collection of photographs. "Jacob A. Riis: Revealing New York's Other Half," was on display at MCNY last winter.

Riis was one of the first to use innovations in documentary photography to great effect. He experimented with new techniques of flash photography and created rare images of tenement interiors, as well as outdoor photos of street and city life--using these pictures as a compelling complement to his written words. Although he was well aware of the power of photography, he did not consider himself a photographer.

The Library's exhibition repositions Riis as he saw himself--a highly skilled communicator who devoted his life to writing articles and books, delivering lectures nationwide, and doggedly advocating for social change. He brought attention to the crises in housing, education, crime, and poverty that arose at the height of European immigration to New York in the late 19th century. His crusading journalism led to safer water, better housing, the creation of parks, and other reforms.

On display are correspondence, including three letters from Theodore Roosevelt and one to Booker T. Washington; photographs; fire insurance maps that help show the locations of Riis' photographs; drafts and published works; lecture notes; reviews of his lectures; family correspondence and photographs; appointment books; and journal entries.

The exhibition also features a lantern-slide projector and camera equipment similar to those Riis used--a Blair Hawkeye Detective camera (7 inches by 17 inches by 13 inches), a glass-plate holder, and a flash pan.

Jacob August Riis was born May 3, 1849, in Ribe, Denmark. The son of a schoolmaster, he was educated locally, leaving school for work at age 15. He immigrated to the U.S. in 1870. The New-York Tribune hired him as a police reporter in 1877, and he wrote about crime and disease, documenting life in the...