American Realism

Journalism
Jacob Riis

Jacob Riis, Bandit's Roost, 1888, from How the Other Half Lives. This image is Bandit's Roost at 59½ Mulberry Street, considered the most crime-ridden, dangerous part of New York City.
Jacob August Riis (1849–1914), a Danish-American muckraker journalist, photographer, and social reformer, was born in Ribe, Denmark. He is known for his dedication to using his photographic and journalistic talents to help the less fortunate in New York City, which was the subject of most of his prolific writings and photographic essays. He helped with the implementation of "model tenements" in New York with the help of humanitarian Lawrence Veiller. As one of the first photographers to use flash, he is considered a pioneer in photography.^[20]
Art Young
Art Young (1866–1943) was an American cartoonist and writer. He is most famous for his socialist cartoons, especially those drawn for the radical magazine The Masses, of which Young was co-editor, between 1911 and 1917. Young started out as a generally apolitical Republican, but gradually became interested in left wing ideas, and by 1906 or so considered himself a socialist. He became politically active; by 1910, racial and sexual discrimination and the injustices of the capitalist system became prevalent themes in his work.^[21]
Music
James Allen Bland
James A. Bland (1854–1919) was the first prominent African American songwriter^[22] and is known for his ballad, Carry me Back to Old Virginny. In the Evening by the Moonlight and Golden Slippers are well known songs of his, and he wrote other hits of the period including In the Morning by the Bright Light and De Golden Wedding. Bland wrote most of his songs from 1879 to 1882; in 1881 he left America for England with Haverly's Genuine Colored Minstrels. Bland found England more rewarding than the United States and stayed there until 1890; either he stopped writing songs during this period or he was unable to find an English publisher.^[22]