Jacob Riis | New York: A Documentary Film

Learn about Jacob Riis’s pioneering efforts to use journalism and media to spur action to address poverty and other social problems in New York. Using videos from New York: A Documentary Film, discussion questions and teaching tips, students learn about Riis’s use of new flash photography technology to show the world the unjust poverty of tenement life in New York and publish his book How the Other Half Lives. Student also have the opportunity to consider the legacy of Riis’s work and the role of media in exposing injustice today.