NEH on the Road: Jacob A. Riis

FAIN: MR-266268-19

Wood County Historical Center & Museum (Bowling Green, OH 43402-9281)
Holly A. Kirkendall (Project Director: December 2018 to December 2024)

Jacob Riis (1849–1914) was a pioneering newspaper reporter and social reformer in New York at the turn of the twentieth century. His then-novel idea of using photographs of the city’s slums to illustrate the plight of impoverished residents established Riis as forerunner of modern photojournalism. Jacob A. Riis: How the Other Half Lives features photographs by Riis and his contemporaries, as well as his handwritten journals and personal correspondence.