Jacob Riis: A Revisionist View

The Photos of Jacob Riis: A Revisionist View The late 1800’s put the North and South regions of the newly developed North American country through some drastic and radical changes. Newly established amendments, such as the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, led to new rules that challenged the ways native-white men had thought before. Jacob Rii’s collection of photos introduced the menaces and dangers of the middle class’s horrible living conditions, dirty work places, unhealthy children’s wellbeing, and everlasting discrimination issues. Had these photos been available for the civilians living through these circumstances to view at the time, may have had an indicative effect to have motivated those readers to take action and potentially …show more content…

The middle class workers had to deal with low wages, resulting with poor living environments. The first two photos from Rii’s set showed men sleeping in rooms and buildings that were very crowded and filthy with other workingmen. From these images, it’s evident that a great deal of men slept where they could: on crowded bunk beds, with ragged blankets, and sometimes on the cold floor. In the 7th of Rii’s pictures, the outside view of worker’s homes are shown in just as bad conditions; broken windows, shaky staircases, and trash thrown around the house. It’s unfortunate that workers had to live in the conditions they did at …show more content…

In multiple pictures, children are seen living in the harsh surroundings of what their parent’s provided. It’s very unfortunate, but a common result during this time period for the middle class. In the second picture from Rii’s collection, there are children sitting on the ground of an alley, that’s possibly cold and damp. They look sad and almost depressed by what they are surrounded by. In another similar picture, the 9th one, there are children seen in a happier place, playing around outside! One child is inside a barrel out on the street and the rest of the kids surround him. The image provides a happier scene and tone to it, but in reality, the children are left with no toys or safe tools to play with, only items they find in trash cans or things left out on the streets; yet another harsh living factor. Evidently, however, even if the civilians had seen what environment they left their children living in, not much could have been done to improve either the parent’s nor the children’s living