How New York's Lower East Side inspired new ways of seeing America

New York City's Lower East Side, long viewed as the space of what Jacob Riis notoriously called the "other half," was also a crucible for experimentation in photography, film, literature, and visual technologies. This book takes an unprecedented look at the practices of observation that emerged from this critical site of encounter, showing how they have informed literary and everyday narratives of America, its citizens, and its possible futures.

Taking readers from the mid-nineteenth century to the present, Sara Blair traces the career of the Lower East Side as a place where image-makers, writers, and social reformers tested new techniques for apprehending America-and their subjects looked back, confronting the means used to represent them. This dynamic shaped the birth of American photojournalism, the writings of Stephen Crane and Abraham Cahan, and the forms of early cinema. During the 1930s, the emptying ghetto opened contested views of the modern city, animating the work of such writers and photographers as Henry Roth, Walker Evans, and Ben Shahn. After World War II, the Lower East Side became a key resource for imagining poetic revolution, as in the work of Allen Ginsberg and LeRoi Jones, and exploring dystopian futures, from Cold War atomic strikes to the death of print culture and the threat of climate change.

How the Other Half Looks reveals how the Lower East Side has inspired new ways of looking-and looking back-that have shaped literary and popular expression as well as American modernity.

About the Author
Sara Blair is the Patricia S. Yaeger Collegiate Professor of English and a faculty associate in the Department of American Culture and the Frankel Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan. Her books include Harlem Crossroads: Black Writers and the Photograph in the Twentieth Century (Princeton) and Trauma and Documentary Photography of the FSA.

Reviews
"Honorable Mention for the James Russell Lowell Prize, Modern Language Association"
"Shortlisted for the MSA Book Prize, Modern Studies Association"
"A fascinating visual history."---Bryan Cheyette, Times Literary Supplement
"How the Other Half Looks presents a remarkably broad, yet also detailed, look at the iconic works that have shaped how scholars and city dwellers alike understand and encounter urban spaces in the Lower East Side and beyond."---Aaron Shkuda, Gotham Center for New York City History blog
"It is an excellent choice for academic libraries supporting programs in the humanities and social sciences."---Barbara M. Bibel, Association of Jewish Library Reviews
"[An] excellent, highly original study...[How the Other Half Looks] also may be appreciated for its potential to stimulate scholars to probe how the immigrant and 'Jewish' quarters of cities may be approached as extraordinarily fertile sites for cultural history."---Michael Berkowitz, American Literary History



Book Information
ISBN 9780691172224
Author Sara Blair
Format Hardback
Page Count 304
Imprint Princeton University Press
Publisher Princeton University Press