LBS498 - There have been other studies of the lives of the poor

LBS498

There have been other studies of the lives of the poor before Agee and Evans published Let Us Now Praise Famous Men in 1939. Most notably, Jacob Riis published How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York in 1890, a piece of photojournalism chronicling the poor living in New York City slums. You Have Seen their Faces, published in 1937 by Erskine Caldwell and Margaret Bourke-White, was another notable documentary text combining photography and writing, published closer to Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. Briefly research one of these works and what you have discovered the work was trying to accomplish. What was the work’s critical reception when published?  Include in your response your reaction to the photographs found in the works.