WASHINGTON (CN) - More than a century after Jacob Riis first trained his early flash-powder camera on the grit and squalor of life in the tenement homes of 19th century New York City, a new exhibit at the Library of Congress showcases the enduring relevance of the muckraker's work.
Riis, a Danish immigrant born in 1849, occupied a space somewhere between a photojournalist, reporter and activist during his four-decade career exploring the living conditions and people who occupied the immigrant neighborhoods on the lower east side of New York City.
"These are the same issues we're talking about, the ones they were, sort of, addressing then," said Cheryl Regan, the director of the new exhibition.
The display, which opened Thursday and runs until Sept. 5, showcases the many different ways Riis communicated his message and features him not just as a reformer who spawned movements to improve the living conditions in New York's immigrant communities, but also as a man ahead of his time.
"We do think he is the pioneer of photojournalism of a certain kind," said exhibit curator Barbara Bair, who gave Courthouse News a tour of the exhibit before it opened to the public.
His skills went beyond even his eye for the right shot and his ability as a writer, Bair said. He also was a "very good publicist" and was renowned for his sense of humor.
"He would be a social media giant," Bair said, of Riis if he were still alive today.
The exhibit first opened at the Museum of the City of New York last year and the museum contributed to the organization and content of the Washington exhibit. The museum lent the Library of Congress Riis' photographs, while the Library of Congress combed through thousands of his manuscripts to chose the ones that fill out the 140 or so pieces in the exhibit.
After its six-month run in Washington, the exhibit will transfer to Riis' native Denmark, Bair said.
The Washington version takes visitors through each stage of Riis' career by dedicating a display case filled with artifacts to each distinct role, going from reporter to photographer to writer to lecturer and finally ending with his life as a reformer. Another display case features some of Riis' allies, like Theodore Roosevelt and Booker T. Washington, while another highlights his legacy.
Along the walls of the narrow, high-ceilinged room on the second floor of the Library of Congress that houses the exhibit are eight tall informational boards that highlight some of Riis' personal causes, including crime, public health, housing and labor.
Along the back wall, towering over the exhibit is a blown-up version of a famous Riis photograph of Mulberry Bend, flanked on each side by motion pictures of like in New York taken around the same time, though not by Riis.
As a photographer, Riis used an early version of the flashbulb camera that required two people to operate, one to pour and light the explosive powder into a tray and the other to snap the shot. The contraption "really did sound like a gunshot," and Riis' practice of following the sanitation department into pitch-black tenements late at night to get his pictures meant many of his subjects were surprised, Regan said.