Amazing Vintage Photographs Captured Everyday Life in New York City From the 1890s

Danish-born Jacob Riis (1849-1914) was a social reformer and photojournalist. He is best known for his 1890 book How the Other Half Lives, which brought public attention to New York's squalid housing, sweatshops, bars, and alleys.

The City Museum holds the complete collection of images that Riis used in his writing and lecturing career, including photographs he made, commissioned, or acquired. These depict men, women, and children of many nationalities at home, work, and leisure.
This collection contains vintage prints, glass-plate negatives, and lantern slides, as well as a set of recently produced prints from all of Riis's original negatives.

The Mulberry Bend.

Portrait of three girls who served as inspectors in the first Board of Election at the Beach Street Industrial School.

Amazing Vintage Photographs Captured Everyday Life in New York City From the 1890s

An old woman with the plank she sleeps on at the Eldridge Street Station women's lodging room.

Amazing Vintage Photographs Captured Everyday Life in New York City From the 1890s

"I Scrubs," Little Katie from the W. 52nd Street Industrial School (since moved to W. 53rd Street).

Lodgers in a crowded Bayard Street tenement.

Amazing Vintage Photographs Captured Everyday Life in New York City From the 1890s

Italian mother and her baby in Jersey Street.

Amazing Vintage Photographs Captured Everyday Life in New York City From the 1890s

Men in a crowded in an "Black and Tan" dive bar.

Amazing Vintage Photographs Captured Everyday Life in New York City From the 1890s

In sleeping quarters - Rivington Street Dump.

Amazing Vintage Photographs Captured Everyday Life in New York City From the 1890s

A man atop a make-shift bed that consists of a plank across two barrels.

Amazing Vintage Photographs Captured Everyday Life in New York City From the 1890s

Ludlow Street Hebrew making ready for Sabbath Eve in his coal cellar -- bread on his table.

Amazing Vintage Photographs Captured Everyday Life in New York City From the 1890s

James M'Bride, one of the City's Pensioners, Father of the notorious Blanche Douglass.

Amazing Vintage Photographs Captured Everyday Life in New York City From the 1890s

Three children curled up on a metal grate in a below-grade areaway.

Amazing Vintage Photographs Captured Everyday Life in New York City From the 1890s

Prayer time in the nursery, Five Points House of Industry.

Amazing Vintage Photographs Captured Everyday Life in New York City From the 1890s

In a Sweat Shop.

Amazing Vintage Photographs Captured Everyday Life in New York City From the 1890s

Talmud School in a Hester Street Tenement.

Amazing Vintage Photographs Captured Everyday Life in New York City From the 1890s

A woman holding a child, and men sitting in a rear yard of a Jersey Street tenement.

Amazing Vintage Photographs Captured Everyday Life in New York City From the 1890s

Minding the Baby.

Amazing Vintage Photographs Captured Everyday Life in New York City From the 1890s

Daytime foot traffic on Hester Street.

Amazing Vintage Photographs Captured Everyday Life in New York City From the 1890s

Three Iroquois women working at a table at 511 Broome Street.

Amazing Vintage Photographs Captured Everyday Life in New York City From the 1890s

Police Station Lodging Rooms, Church Street Station.

Amazing Vintage Photographs Captured Everyday Life in New York City From the 1890s

Playground established in Poverty Gap in the "Alley Gang" preserves.

Amazing Vintage Photographs Captured Everyday Life in New York City From the 1890s

A rear-lot house on Bleecker Street as seen from an adjacent excavation site.

Amazing Vintage Photographs Captured Everyday Life in New York City From the 1890s

A woman with an infant seated at a table with a boy using writing tools.

Amazing Vintage Photographs Captured Everyday Life in New York City From the 1890s

Laborers loading coffins into an open trench at the city burial ground on Hart's Island.

Amazing Vintage Photographs Captured Everyday Life in New York City From the 1890s

An ash barrel on the sidewalk.

Amazing Vintage Photographs Captured Everyday Life in New York City From the 1890s

Little Susie at her work.

Amazing Vintage Photographs Captured Everyday Life in New York City From the 1890s

Children and a woman sit on an inclined cellar door.

Amazing Vintage Photographs Captured Everyday Life in New York City From the 1890s

Newsboys cleaning their faces in a lodging house washroom.

Amazing Vintage Photographs Captured Everyday Life in New York City From the 1890s

Young students salute the American flag at Mott Street Industrial School.

Amazing Vintage Photographs Captured Everyday Life in New York City From the 1890s

Night school in the Seventh Avenue Lodging House - run by The Children's Aid Society.

Amazing Vintage Photographs Captured Everyday Life in New York City From the 1890s

Under the dump at West 47th Street.

Amazing Vintage Photographs Captured Everyday Life in New York City From the 1890s

Women sleeping on plank beds and the floor.

Amazing Vintage Photographs Captured Everyday Life in New York City From the 1890s

A hallway at the condemned Essex Market School filled with students playing.

Amazing Vintage Photographs Captured Everyday Life in New York City From the 1890s

Police Station Lodging Room 5. Midnight in the Leonard Street Station.

Amazing Vintage Photographs Captured Everyday Life in New York City From the 1890s

Old Barney in Cat Alley.

Amazing Vintage Photographs Captured Everyday Life in New York City From the 1890s

Cat Alley, when it was being torn down.

Amazing Vintage Photographs Captured Everyday Life in New York City From the 1890s

Baby in slum tenement, dark stairs--it's playground.

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