— 123 new endnotes that provide insight to the contemporary reader to understand the historical, political and social context of Riis’s story.
— Edited by Lorenzo Domínguez, bestselling author and award winning New York City street photographer whose book 25Lessions I’ve Learned about Photography, is the #1 bestselling essay on Amazon in 2010 & 2011.
— New author biography and short publication history, not available in other versions.
— All the original illustrations and photos have been restored.
— A bonus gallery of the photos that inspired the illustrations in the original 1890 edition.
— Typos found in other versions have been corrected.
— Statistics found in the original appendix have been recreated and organized for easier understanding.
— Priced for accessibility, this version was created as a public service for the millions of students and photography enthusiasts, who are interested in how photography can make a difference in people’s lives, sway public policy and inform the public about important social issues affecting their lives and those of others.
ACCOLADES FOR HOW THE OTHER HALF LIVES
• The 50 Best Books for Journalism Students, bestcollegesonline.com
• Coming to America: 50 Greatest Works of Immigration Literature, Online Education Database.org
• 10 most important books to read to understand American history, quora.com
• Top Five Most Important Books in U.S. History, allegoryofhistory.blogspot.com
• Most important books of the 20th century, Vanity Fea
• The Shayne List of a Well-Read Person's Top 100 Books, bohemiem
ABOUT JABOB RISS AND HOW THE OTHER HALF LIVES
Poetically detailing the lives of the impoverished of New York City's tenement slums at the end of the 19th century, How the Other Half Lives not only brought Riis wide acclaim but also sparked vast social reform at the turn of the twentieth century. It was also one of the first books to use photographs instead of engraved illustrations, which were the standard for images in all forms of print at the time.
“Jacob Riis is the true Grandfather of Photojournalism,” proclaims bestselling author Lorenzo Domínguez. “Although film publicists have purported that Henri Cartier-Bresson deserves the title, he was not born until 1908, 18 years after Riis published How the Other Half Lives, a best seller that helped establish photojournalism as a true profession.”
In addition to pioneering socio-documentary photography, Riis was also a notable muckraker, a leader of social reform at the advent of the Progressive Era and a personal friend of President Teddy Roosevelt, who wrote in his 1913 autobiography “my whole life was influenced by my long association with Jacob Riis, whom I am tempted to call the best American I ever knew.”
Also an award-winning New York City street photographer, Domínguez recently restored, edited and published a new edition of this American classic, which is also now available for Kindles, iPads and most smartphones.
