When Jacob Riis published How the Other Half Lives in 1890, New York City’s Lower East Side was the epicenter of American tenement life. At one point, almost three hundred thousand people were packed ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. A young girl holding a baby sits in a doorway in New York City, circa 1890.Jacob A. Riis/Museum of the City of New York/Getty ...

Photos of late 19th century Lower East Side life like this one by Jacob Riis helped convince America that private companies could not build decent homes for the poor. Jacob A. Riis/Museum of the City ...

Jacob Riis may have set his house on fire twice, and himself aflame once, as he perfected the new 19th-century flash photography technique, but when the magnesium powder erupted with a white, blinding ...

The compelling activism of Jacob Riis animates this beautifully illustrated picture book biography. O’Neill pulls Riis’s life as a U.S. immigrant from Denmark into sharp focus, using vignettes to ...

Genesis of the tenement -- The awakening -- The mixed crowd -- The down town back-alleys -- The Italian in New York -- The Bend -- A raid on the stale-beer dives -- The cheap lodging-houses -- ...

One year ago, Congress defunded public media. Now that we're 100% community funded, please become a sustaining member or increase your existing membership today. Through photos and writings ...

Emma Lazarus’s poem “The New Colossus,” enshrined on a bronze plaque inside the Statue of Liberty, includes these famous lines: “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe ...

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Some crises never seem to change, and in New York, it’s our housing crisis. For those of low income, there simply isn’t enough that’s affordable. We declared a housing emergency after World War II — ...