Photographic technology transformed the United States

The invention of the flash led to profound social changes

The United States has often presented itself as a land of freedom, which has attracted thousands of immigrants. Yet the reality was not so rosy even in the 19th century. Indeed, most of them lived in slums owned by crooked landlords who had no qualms about offering unsanitary housing. Moreover, the rates were generally twice as high for black or "colored" people. One man, however, would change attitudes with the help of photographic technology.

Jacob Riis was a Danish immigrant who arrived in New York in 1869 with $40 in his pocket. As a result, he soon experienced hardship and homelessness for a time. He had the chance, after many inglorious jobs, to become a journalist. He would want to highlight the plight of, among others, the 500,000 migrants crammed into just 15,000 units on New York's Lower East Side.

Privileged readers love raunchy anecdotes without being moved by stories of street kids and homeless people, even if illustrated by drawing. In 1887, Jacob Riis learned that German inventors had developed a magnesium powder that could be used to take pictures in the dark. The ancestor of the flash had just been born and with it, an idea in the head of the journalist.

He will then wander the evening with apprentice photographers and a gendarme to photograph almost clandestinely makeshift shelters, substandard housing and other realities. Suddenly, the opinion changes and more and more people are appalled by the conditions of these miserable people. Among them, Theodore Roosevelt who would become a few years later president of the United States and pass legislation on the presence of playgrounds for children and for decent apartments.

Time: 10min34