How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York was a pioneering work of photojournalism by Jacob Riis, a Danish immigrant reporter, published in 1890, in which he documented the squalid living conditions in the slums of New York City.

Though published to garner public sympathy (which it did), Riis's tactics in acquiring the revealing photographs have been the subject of much criticism, as he broke into private residences and even accidentally started numerous fires due to the dangers of using then-primitive flash technology in the close quarters of the wooden tenement structures.

Riis' idea inspired Jack London to write a similar exposé on London's East End, most notably Whitechapel. It was called People of the Abyss .

External links

How the Other Half Lives