The Mirror With A Memory Summary

In Chapter 9 of After the Fact, The Mirror with a Memory, James West Davidson and Mark Hamilton Lytle, attempt to describe the way photography has shaped American history, especially through the lens of Jacob Riis, who was known for his urban activism during the early 1900’s. The chapter begins with an explanation of Jacob Riis’s work as a journalist who wandered the streets of New York City in search of people and things that he could write about. Then, it mentions Alexander Alland, a professional urban photographer, finding, in a book by Riis, photographs taken by Riis that capture the image of slums in New York City. This was similar to the field of photography that interested Alland. Then, Alland asks Riis’s oldest son to go through Riis’s
From this experience, Riis wrote articles that helped other people relate to the people in the slums through the stories of many including a paralyzed old woman at the storefront, an Italian boy who struggled in night school named Pietro, and the other working children in the area. As conditions got worse, with higher population densities and more people dying, Riis got frustrated, as his stories hadn’t caused any immediate reform in cities. This caused him to leave the New York Tribune to give talks to people around the city. This new job allowed him to incorporate everything he had learned into stories and even a documentary that helped spread word around the city about poverty and the need for reform. Also, from John Thompson and Adolph Smith, he learned that “photographs could be powerful weapons to arouse popular indignation” and it helped him learn that photos helped “show life as it really [is]”
He tried to get these people to adopt more philanthropic habits to help support those facing hardships. Also, with his Christian beliefs, Riis had a focus on family life and the lack of it because of the hardships people in these tenements face. For example, in the “Bohemian cigar makers” photograph, the vision of work equipment in a place where people are supposed to relax would bring a sense of discomfort to other believers. The emphasis on “making a living” in Riis’s photograph of the tenement, shows the lack of comfort that these people felt in their own homes. This is different from the image called “Room in a tenement flat” that seems to show people who were ready for the picture and it seems more like a family portrait-like