Authors: Bonnie Yochelson, Daniel Czitrom
Publisher: New Press
Category: Book

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Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars

1 reviews
Sales Rank: 51680

Media: Hardcover
Pages: 336
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 8 x 6.9 x 1.1

ISBN: 1595581995
Dewey Decimal Number: 770.97471
EAN: 9781595581990
ASIN: 1595581995

Publication Date: February 1, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days

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Editorial Reviews:

Product Description
A provocative new illustrated history of the famed early chronicler of New York's immigrant poor, seen here as an opportunistic, camera-toting social reformer whose legacy lives on.

"I don't remember my mother or my aunts and uncles talking of their father as a photographer....In his letters—I have read most of them—he never mentions a camera."—J. Riis Owre (grandson of Jacob Riis)

More than ninety years after his death, Jacob Riis maintains a stubbornly persistent hold on the American imagination. Remembered as a pioneering photographer, he was the first to document the state of New York's slums, publicizing in haunting photographs the plight of the urban poor at the height of European immigration to the city. But Riis confessed to being "no good at all as a photographer" and in recent years has been disparaged for racist views and political opportunism.

In Rediscovering Jacob Riis, Bonnie Yochelson and Daniel Czitrom address the complex legacy of the pioneering social reformer. In a work of highly original scholarship, they reclaim Riis from the art camp, relocating him in the field of social and cultural history. Their provocative new book reveals Riis to be an inspired self-promoter who, although neither an original thinker nor a serious photographer, nevertheless framed the discussion of urban poverty in terms still relevant today.

Extensively illustrated with Riis's images, Rediscovering Jacob Riis is revisionist history at its best, as appealing to photographers, journalists, and social historians as it is to the general reader.

Customer Reviews:

4 out of 5 stars

Really interesting July 14, 2008
John Lloyd
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

While I'm no expert on the subject, I'd guess this will become one of the definitive bios on Jacob Riis, and also contains many of his important photos as a bonus. The reproduction quality is good enough -- probably better than the original print publications -- but not exceptional.