Gilded Age New York as seen by famous contemporaries

Abstract

The paper deals with the perception of turn-of-the-twentieth-century-New York City by two outstanding New Yorkers of that time—Theodore Roosevelt and Jacob Riis. Both made their mark in the history of the city. For both of them New York was a launch pad for their careers. Roosevelt and Riis completed comprehensive research works on the history of contemporary New York. The paper analyses their major works: Roosevelt’s „New York: a sketch of the city’s social, political, and commercial progress from the first Dutch settlement to recent times” and Riis’ „How the Other Half Lives.”