Jacob Riis

Rating:
Summary: Great photographs; thin on text
Review: The photos of Jacob Riis are, along with Matthew Brady, the some of the best and most moving of the 19th century. _Jacob Riis (55)_ includes several dozen of his best pictures, graphically illustrating the hard, brutal and generally unpleasant lives of the working poor and immigrants in New York City at the turn of the last century. With each photo is a short (25 - 50 words) synopsis of the photo. This provides the bulk of the book, and is its real strength.

The book also includes a brief biography and time line of Riis' life, and an all too brief disucssion of his work as a social reformer. While this is a good summary, I feel it could have gone into more detail regarding the time, the emerging role Riis (and others) played in social reform, and the impact he and other "muckrakers" had on America. Nonetheless, a solid collection of pictures showing the barbaric and squalid conditions of the urban poor.