• Glasgow, Scotland
   
  Glasgow Improvement Trust - Thomas Annan
   
  
• Edinburgh, Scotland
   
  Edinburgh‘s City Improvement Trust - Archibald Burns
   
  
• Paris, France
   
  Recording the architecture prior to the rebuilding of Parisien roads following the plans of Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann - Charles Marville
   
  
• New York, USA
   
  Newspaper journalist - Jacob Riis

George Robinson  Fardon    Title | Lightbox | Checklist

"It is likely that Annan regarded the commission from the Trustees of the Improvements Act as just another he received when his success as a commercial photographer of Glasgow was increasingly recognized. However inadvertently, he did give us the first thorough photographic representation available of the dwelling places and the inhabitants of an urban slum." (Mozley 1977:XII).

"The City Improvement Trustees acquired, by act of parliament, in 1866, the right to alter and reconstruct several of the more densely built areas of the city, and these operations, it was foreseen, would remove many old and interesting landmarks. Before entering upon their work, the Trustees arranged with the late Mr. Thomas Annan to take photographs of a series of views of the closes and streets more immediately affected, and a few copies were presented to members of the Corporation and others." (Young 1900:22)

"The Scottish ‘close‘ and ‘wynd‘ - the terms are almost interchangeable - were familiar landmarks in any city with a densely packed medieval street pattern: narrow passageways leading either from one street to another, or into the middle of a building block. It is the consistently narrow form of the alley that gives formal coherency to most of Annan‘s imagery- he simply stood the camera in the middle of the passageway and shot down it." (2004:49)

"He added clouds, which brighten the skies over Glasgow‘s slums, and he whitened the wash on the line. He did this for pictorial effect, for nice balance. While his taste for the picturesque, for a tradition inherited from painting, and quite in accord with salon practice of the day, may distort to some extent the immediacy of the mise-en-scene, we must appreciate the fact that he did not tidy up the rest of the picture, as his son, James Craig Annan, did when he made the photogravure plates for the 1900 edition. The photogravures are lighter in tone, and consequently in mood, in the sense of the place, than Annan‘s carbon prints. Moving figures, those ghosts who would not stand still for the photographer, are completely excised in the photogravure edition..." (Mozley 1977:XI- XII).

Thomas  Annan    Title | Lightbox | Checklist

Charles  Marville    Title | Lightbox | Checklist

Landscape Urban Montevideo 1880    Title | Lightbox | Checklist

THE SOCIETY OF AMATEUR PHOTOGRAPHERS OF NEW YORK.
Lantern Exhibition.
 
The regular monthly lantern exhibition was given at the rooms of the Society. 123 West 30th Street, on Wednesday evening, January 25th, and was very largely attended.
 
The subject was, "The Other Half How it lives and dies in New York," and was explained in an informal way by Mr. Jacob A. Riis, who for ten years past has been the police reporter of the New York Press. The object of the exhibition was to picture to the audience the exact condition of the lowest phases of life as it at present exists in New York City. Many of the pictures were obtained by the aid of flash magnesium light.
 
The exhibition opened with a view of a well-known alley in Cherry Street, around which, it was said, 1,000 persons lived.
 
Other views included the "Bandit's Alley," near Mott and Hester Streets, where murderers and thieves congregate and enjoy life in what is known as the "stale beer dives."
 
"Bottle Alley," near Baxter Street, contained many children. A capital picture was that of an old tramp and thief in front of his broken-down shanty. About this Mr. Riis said he obtained the consent of the tramp to stand for ten cents, but he put his pipe in his pocket. So the tramp struck for higher pay, and on giving him five cents more he posed with his pipe as Mr. Riis desired. Another excellent picture illustrated how young boys first practice picking pockets.
 
The object of attack was a drunken man lying down in a stupor. The two boys were on each side overhauling the pockets with decided energy. They term the pickings their winnings, never call it stealing. At a place called "Hell's Kitchen," near Eleventh Avenue on Thirty-ninth Street, they experienced considerable difficulty, were attacked by some of the women with brickbats, which broke one of the plate-holders. The Italian rag-pickers' alley in South Fifth Avenue was shown; the women at work were suddenly dispersed by one word from the Italian proprietor before their pictures could be caught. An Italian tea-kettle was shown, somewhat large in size, stuffed with dirty linen. In the morning the kettle was used as boiler for boiling the clothes; at night it was employed for making tea.
 
A typical group of New York toughs called "The Growlers," was exhibited, hidden away under one of the dump docks on the East Side. They were factory hands, and got young boys to go after beer which they would drink in these places. A single picture of a young lad eight years old carrying a large pail of beer was quite effective. Other views of the back of tenement-houses showing the multiplicity of clothes-lines; of Baxter Street, crowded with humanity; of Mott and Pell Streets, showing Chinese life; the interior of a Chinese opium den, with the Chinamen laying off in their bunks under its influence: of the Chinese altar in the Joss-house, some of the latter being taken by aid of flash-light, were extremely interesting. Also pictures of the interior of the cheap lodging-houses, the Tombs, the Five Points House of Industry, the Catholic Protectory, with children playing around and Sister Irene in the foreground, who is said to have saved 13,003 children; also the exterior and interior of an uptown branch of the Boys' Lodging House of the Children's Aid Society, established through the beneficence of the late Mrs. Robert L. Stuart. All of the above were exceedingly interesting as showing the beneficent power which these institutions exert in this city.
 
Portraits of children side by side, of how they looked when taken from their hovels, and cruel and wretched parents, and after they were cleaned and cared for by Mr. E. Gerry's "Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children," illustrated more forcibly than any word picture the necessity and usefulness of that institution.
 
Several interesting portraits of noted thiefs and forgers, both male and female, taken from the Rogues' Gallery, were shown; Ex-Governor Moses, of South Carolina, had the handsomest looking face.
 
A fine picture, showing four or five detectives holding a refractory thief while he was having his photograph taken, was quite comical.
 
A good interior of a police office, showing the sergeant recording the facts, with the policeman standing near the rail, holding a foundling wrapped up in a black shawl, and messenger and others looking on, was quite effective and well lighted.
 
Several views of the Arabs in their hovels in Washington Street were exhibited. The women lay around on the floor without any bedding, and were completely embedded and begrimed with dirt. These were secured by aid of the flash-light. There were also two or three excellent interiors of the School for Blind Children.
 
The exhibition terminated with several excellent views of the New York Morgue, interior of Bellevue Hospital, exterior and interior of the Penitentiary on Blackwell's Island, of the Lunatic Asylum on Ward's Island, and of the burying ground on Hart's Island.
 
Mr. Riis related many interesting episodes and facts. It was hard to realize the enormity of the degradation and poverty constantly present in the great city. He remarked that four thousand children were barred out from the public schools, because there was not room enough to accommodate all who could attend.
 
At 10 o'clock the entertainment terminated.

Documentary 19thc Jacob Riis    Title | Lightbox | Checklist

Documentary 19thc Jacob Riis    Title | Lightbox | Checklist

Alvin Langdon  Coburn London    Title | Lightbox | Checklist

Alvin Langdon  Coburn NY    Title | Lightbox | Checklist

Berenice  Abbott NY    Title | Lightbox | Checklist

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