Jacob Riis Controversy

Once I heard this year’s theme for the 2016 National History Day competition was “Exploration, Encounter and Exchange,” I immediately began to envisage explorers, inventors, and visionaries from all over the world. However, I knew I wanted to keep my topic close to the country I originated from—the Philippines. In my topic, I didn’t want to reference the country literally, so I choose poverty as inspiration because it affects many people in the Philippines. Then, I remembered watching a clip, in America: The Story of Us, about Jacob Riis, a man that encountered and took photos of people who lived in the slums of New York during the 19th century. His work interested me, but as I began to research about him, what sparked even more interest is the controversy about if his photos were taken ethically. …show more content…
While online, I found many secondary sources. It wasn’t until I visited the California State University of Dominguez Hills (CSUDH) library and the Angelo M. Iacoboni library, where I found numerous primary sources. Many of the primary sourced books were written by Riis himself: Children of the Tenements, How the Other Half Lives, and The Battle with the Slum. Also, while on the premise of the CSUDH library, I was able to obtain more primary and secondary sources from online article databases. One of the databases that helped me immensely was the, Library of Congress. It helped me take a look at what Riis saw. It also, gave most of the pictures on the