A common misconception that circulates among today’s photography communities, is the idea that Henri Cartier-Bresson is to be credited with the 
prestigious honor of having founded the crafts of photojournalism and street photography. However, long before Henri Cartier-Bresson pranced around the globe with his Leica, there was a man working deep within the bowels of the modern urban experience, a man named Jacob Riis.
Riis happened to spark a wave of social reform with his “lantern show” photographs that captured life in the streets and tenement slums of New York. These photos would ultimately be published in the seminal book, How The Other Half Lives. This 1890 publication – 18 years before Bresson was even born – was one of the first books to use photographs rather than engraved illustrations.
Jacob Riis is an important figure in trying to understand the history and tradition of street photography, i.e., the urban wing of social documentary photography. Once the camera was invented, it was soon discovered that photos could be used as a powerful tool for social reform. In this way, social documentary photography was born in response to many of the negative aspects of Modernity (beginning at around 1850). Riis is a founding figure in the tradition of photographic realism, which smashed the almost mythological “land of opportunity” view of America that was held at the time.
While Modernity offered beneficial qualities that lifted the lot of the common man in many ways, it also brought along its own set of pathologies and new problems to contend with. Industrialization, urbanization, depersonalization, alienation, secularism, and capitalism are all signature characteristics of Modernity, as masses of people fled rural areas in order to survive under the new capitalistic political economy. In this new mode of living, the ever expanding urban centers became crowded dens of oppression.
Shining Light Into The Darkness
Magnesium flash powder was developed in 1887, and Riis soon put it to use illuminating the dark and deadly corners of New York’s tenement housing . Some of Riis’ most famous photos are “5 Cents a Spot” that showed the cramped living conditions on Bayard Street., and “Bandits’ Roost” a capture of 59½ Mulberry Street that depicted a gang of criminals.
Riis himself experienced extreme poverty, and was even suicidal at one point. Riis believed that if people could see what life was like in the dark and dreary slums, it would prick public conscience into taking political action.
Riis’ critics point out his capitalistic self-interest, as well as his use of racial profiling. However, Riis is also often described as a transitional figure, because his use of racial stereotypes fell away in his later works, and his compassion was authentic, despite his desire for profit. Regardless of these criticisms, Riis was a pioneering photojournalist and Progressive social reformer, who first connected external living conditions as a cause of criminal behavior. Riis also displayed an intestinal fortitude in his willingness to enter dangerous areas.
Let us not forget that, while street photography was born shining light into the darkest crevices of the human condition, the ultimate purpose was to transform the world into a better place. To me, the highest art is that which betters the human condition. Pop art can make one feel, fine art can cause one to take a thoughtful pause, but High art goes even further; it moves one to take action, and thus, changes the course of history.
The earliest street photographers put their craft to use in bringing about social and historical change. The documentary photography of the 19th Century generally focused on the dark side of life, with the primary subject matter focusing on everyday activities of ordinary people, with emphasis on the injustices within urban areas, the lower classes, and the oppressed. Industrialization, urbanization, depersonalization, alienation, and secularism are all realities of modernity and post-modernity – these then should be the primary subject matter of the traditional documentary street photographer of today. While doing some research on an early street photography for an upcoming Meetup discussion, I came across the early street photographer, Jacob Riis. While thumbing through one of his books, I noticed a photo that reminded me of a shot I took this past winter. Here are two photos:
The first is from the 1902 publication by Jacob Riis, Battle With the Slum, that shows a New York City lodging house. This book was the sequel to his more well known publication, How the Other Half Lives. Both books revealed living conditions in the Lower East Side of turn-of-the-century New York City. The next photo is of the Ewing Annex Hotel here in Chicago, and was taken in 2013 by myself. This is the last of the cubicle style hotels for men located in what was once known as, “Little Cheyenne.” There is no doubt that some of the people who were living in the New York City slums recorded by Riis, found their way to Chicago, and to this very same Men’s hotel located at 400 Clark St. I consider Riis to be one of the main founders of social documentary street photography – well before Henri Cartier-Bresson and his Leica. This is the tradition of photography that most interests me. Continuing with the history of documentary street photography, with its early emphasis on the darker aspects of urban life, we come to John Thomson, founder of documentary street photography with his publication of Street Life In London from 1876 to 1877… It was made into a book in 1878 — a full 11 years before Riis’ book, How The Other Half Lives which was an early publication of photojournalism that still serves as a good example of traditional documentary street photography of the highest order. Street Life in London, published in 1876-7, consists of a series of articles by the radical journalist Adolphe Smith and the photographer John Thomson.
The pieces are short but full of detail, based on interviews with a range of men and women who eked out a precarious and marginal existence working on the streets of London, including flower-sellers, chimney-sweeps, shoe-blacks, chair-caners, musicians, dustmen and locksmiths. The subject matter of Street Life was not new — the second half of the 19th century saw an increasing interest in urban poverty and social conditions — but the unique selling point of Street Life was a series of photographs ‘taken from life’ by Thomson. The authors felt at the time that the images lent authenticity to the text, and their book is now regarded as a key work in the history of documentary photography.