Advocacy in Photojournalism: Eugene Richards

Eugene Richards is an award-winning photographer, known for his work that covers a wide breadth of topics.  He has covered rural poverty in Arkansas, drug addiction, breast cancer, aging in America, AIDS, river blindness, the war on drugs, and the war on Iraq.  Aside from his website, his work can be seen here, here and here.

Among his accolades:

• Guggenheim Fellowship
• National Endowment for the Arts grants
• W. Eugene Smith Memorial Award
• Leica Oskar Barnack Award
• Olivier Rebbot Awards from the Overseas Press Club
• Canon Photo Essayist Awards
• Robert F. Kennedy Lifetime Achievement Journalism Award
• Award of Excellence from the American College of Emergency Physicians
• Photojournalist of the Year by the International Center of Photography
• Infinity Award for Best Photographic Book from the International Center of Photography
• Kraszna-Krausz Award for Photographic Innovation in Books

Richards is also a fellow of The Nation Institute, an independently funded organization, committed to a just society and the principles of the First Amendment.

Advocacy in Photojournalism: Jacob Riis

Jacob Riis is best known for his article-turned-book How the Other Half Lives (1890), which focused on the growing impoverished population of New York City.  As a poor Danish immigrant himself, he sought to publicize the conditions in which the poor immigrants of New York City lived.  His work led to social reform for public housing.

One of Riis’ major victories was after his 5-column story “Some Things We Drink”, in the August 21, 1891 edition of the New York Evening Sun, in which he exposed the state of  New York’s water supply.  Riis wrote:

“I took my camera and went up in the watershed photographing my evidence wherever I found it.  Populous towns sewered directly into our drinking water.  I went to the doctors and asked how many days a vigorous cholera bacillus may live and multiply in running water.  About seven,  said they.  My case was made.”

The story led to the purchase of land around the Croton Watershed, potentially saving New Yorkers from a cholera outbreak (Alland, 1993).

In the mid 1890s, New York Governor Theodore Roosevelt caught wind of Riis’ work and wanted to meet him.  In his 1901 article “Reform through Social Work: Some Forces that Tell for Decency in New York City” in McClure’s Magazine, Roosevelt wrote:

“Recently a man, well qualified to pass judgment, alluded to Mr. Jacob A. Riis as “the most useful citizen of New York”. Those fellow citizens of Mr. Riis who best know his work will be most apt to agree with this statement. The countless evils which lurk in the dark corners of our civic institutions, which stalk abroad in the slums, and have their permanent abode in the crowded tenement houses, have met in Mr. Riis the most formidable opponent ever encountered by them in New York City.”

Roosevelt coined the phrase “muckraking” to describe the work that Riis and other journalists were doing to expose scandalous information.

To see examples of Riis’ work, visit the New York Times slideshow, “Jacob A. Riis’ New York”.

References:
Alland, Alexander. Jacob A. Riis: Photographer and Citizen. Millerton, N.Y.: Aperture, 1993.)

Advocacy in Photojournalism: Lewis Hine

Lewis Hine believed in the power of photography.  He believed that if the American people could photos of the children working in poor conditions, that their attitudes towards child labor would change.  In 1908, Hine quit his job as a schoolteacher, and went to work full-time as an investigative photographer for the National Child Labor Committee (NCLC).
Hine traveled all over the country to photograph children working in various industries, tricking his way into factories to take pictures.  He photographed children working in mines, factories, textile mills, meatpacking houses, street trades and agriculture, and was careful to document each photograph with facts.

Businesses liked to hire children because of their small, nimble hands and because they could pay children lower wages than adults.  Children that worked rarely had the chance to go to school and gain an education, and many developed serious health problems as a result of the work they were doing.  Many child laborers were underweight, and some suffered from stunted growth and curvature of the spine.  They developed diseases like tuberculosis and bronchitis as a result from their work environment, like coal mines and cotton mills. The on-the-job accident rate was high due to the long hours of hard work the children endured.

“There is work that profits children, and there is work that brings profit only to employers. The object of employing children is not to train them, but to get high profits from their work.”

— Lewis Hine, 1908

Hine’s photography was instrumental in changing public opinion on child labor, and the fight for stricter child labor laws.  In 1916, Congress passed the Keating-Owens Act, which : a minimum age of 14 for workers in manufacturing and 16 for workers in mining; a maximum workday of 8 hours; prohibition of night work for workers under age 16; and a documentary proof of age (Kent College of Law).